A Miscellany for my Paid Subscribers

Thirteen Short Compositions I Trust you'll Take me in Good Faith on

I. Untitled

A vein, a sliver of crimson

clouds and dissipates

in the inkwell of the cascades

overlooking Megalong,

and the seedlings

of the Wollemi Pine, its source, long horns crumbling to sediment

ready made potting mix.

Enraptured, enraptured

entombed in stone like their Lord; three siren sentinels stand watch:

Nazarene, Magadalene, Clopas - where lies Salome? Where does she stand?

Blackberries and poison ivy

fire trails and fire hawks

beside, overhead, and underneath.

Shine for me, and you will find, you’ll see, a newfound vibrancy (internal rhyme, for free) cling to my walls just as I cling to yours and you’ll find in due course insurmountable force :-

Tumbling down windswept grass in Oberon, I still wonder

how I didn’t break my neck that day; I landed on it with that same kind of tragic gravity, grazing the thin membrane behind my neck on loose obsidian and quartz (fool’s gold, and I always was a fool for you; won’t you stay gold for me, Princess?) and I’ll be the breath on yours as you tumble down the windswept grass on the precipice of sugarplum dreams and the kind of promise not even jet fuel could melt.

You might soften, but you’ll never crumble, never melt, without a vessel - contained like the penumbra the colour of god’s painting pooling in the pool of the cascades and I’ll drink you like the last mirage in the Levant, whether sand or Dead Sea water you will quench me all the same, and then together we will float off the precipice, you contained, I satiated, to dream together in a nest of Wollemi pine needles, where the Three Marys will see our edifice freed from sandstone

II. Dan the Deconstructionist

An extract from the forthcoming Chimp GTP.

“Not just writers,” Pynchon said. He pointed to an unassuming man in his thirties with coke bottle glasses. “Dan the deconstructionist is a bona fide literary critic?”

“Pfft. Fucking gay,” the seccie snorted.

“Interesting phrase,” Dan replied. “Beginning with the word ‘fucking,’ based on context we can infer that it is most likely used as an adjectival modifier - to say, as in very, immensely, or so on - to communicate a degree of magnitude, but with a decidedly derisive connotation overall; most often to express frustration with the second word the compound nounal phrase is comprised of. On the other hand, we can interpret the fragment almost as grammatically with “fucking” as the present-tense participle verb (or even gerund) with ‘gay’ as the adjective - so, to be a subject only, in this case, the present-tense participle of having sex either happily or in a manner pertaining to homosexuality or sodomy. Of course technically the most correct construction would be “gaily” as the adverbial rendering, or even a compound variation like ‘gay-style’ or an adverbial phrase like ‘in a gay manner’ but in a colloquial context, the he present construction could suffice. ‘Gay,’ itself is overflowing with meaning also: of course, contextually, it does not literally denote homosexuality but rather functions entirely on connotation - that it may be bad or bereft of quality either on its own merit or by way of being effete, frivolous or both - which becomes even more fascinating when one considers that both the most literal meaning of ‘gay’ is happy, or joyous, as derived from ‘gaiety.’ This raises further questions about whether joy or frivolity is prescriptively permitted within the constraints of heteronormative masculinity; ergo, is it in fact gay to be gay? Does mirth smell of lavender? Does expressing happiness make one a raging faggot? If the term “gay” in the context of homosexuality arose as a euphemism, is it then the antonym of somber, surly, and stony, which then in turn carries the opposite set of carnal connotations? Tell me, sir; do you feel more manly or secure in yourself, safe in the knowledge that you’re both a joyless curmudgeon and a philistine?!”

The seccie squinted, before looking at the linguist.

“Does being boring, ill-tempered, and stupid make you feel like a big man?”

“No. The electrified cattle prod does.”

He pulled the trigger, and as it hummed with electricity, the chimps cringed, shrinking away in terror as if they were the Red Sea.

“Sometimes,” Dan said, “a cigar is just a cigar - but a cattle prod is not always a cattle prod. See, Sigmund Freud …”