(1994. for Lavinia: a hardcore Vegetarian/Vegan and Lab. Tech. student, Yallorn Vic. Aust.)

1. 

She crushes insect beneath her heal,

to squeamish to catch them

to remove them from her room.

 

She sees them scurry and knows they're alive

but cannot face them in the Lab,

behind the glass of a Killing Jar^*

 

She objects to their encapsulation, in plastic,

as she'd have to watch them die:

She'd rather tear a branch from a tree!

I know that plants will move to the music of mozart,

and that they weep when they are cut, 

but you can't hear their sonic screams

when you rend them, bloom from branch–––

you cannot see them breath:

these plants are alive

and they've noticed you,

they don't have eyes, that you can see...

and I know they're watching you. 

2.

she fills her house with flowers in vases,

perfuming her rooms

with the decay of fragile blooms,

 

'and her kitchen, is a charnel house!

the dismembered parts of

helpless victims fill Vegan shelves...

I know that plants will move to the music of mozart,

and that they weep when they are cut, 

but you can't hear their sonic screams

when you rend them, bloom from branch–––

you cannot see them breath:

these plants are alive

and they've noticed you,

they don't have eyes, that you can see...

yet I know they're watching you!

Coda:

They don't have eyes,

but they're alive;

You cannot hear their cries,

and they're watching everything you do... 

(1989, a Hitchhiker story about the Midland Hwy, Morwell, Firmin's La & Commercial Rd)

           I

Ah, what a night.

You were standing idly by,

waiting for some change in time...

perhaps two bits more than

the normal offerings of chance.

A parade of eligible gents

passed by ––– like penguins,

they stood out from the crowd

like black and white suits on ice,

uniform, and unimaginatively

all the same;

I missed that parade...

late, as usual and

as clumsy as ever: I

stumbled into your arms...

You, were suprised!

pushing through those swinging doors,

bored with the shifting,

revolving, fashion-parade draped

floor scene.

I asked you to dance.

We danced...

making up for my initial,

indecisive awkwardness...

And we danced!

Never a time,

a night so blessed,

constantly in your ams,

loving your caress...

         II

You left your purse in my car.

I took it to your home

and found you dead.

Your father,

standing, accused me of joking!

(you weren't even two weeks

 cold in that eternal grave)

My disbelief choked in my

throat, even as my voice

shattered, lake hand fulls of

sand in the wind

leaving me forlorn

at your father's door...

struggling with time, and reason,

interogating sanity.

         III     (Epilogue)

Three months now, have passed

since we met that night,

Torment still plagues my thoughts

and still... I just don't feel 'right. 

(1992, Morwell, The Rush Disco corner. Pure fantasy, my mind running wild.)

I heard the car pull up,

window down... leather gloves –

glasses glowing orange –

and pistol silencer

pointing out the door:

its fartish report, barely

audible over the

night club music flooring

these dark streets, with bass

riffs and hot lead licks;

He... smiled beneath that

iridium tint and drove away...

I... stood, and gaped as

she fell to the ground...

a small trickle of ooze

running from the skin-print

left in the middle of

her pale face.

Concrete filled that, hole...

that now, gaping mess...

where just before,

I caressed... her hair...

Now, bits of her... lay plastered

over the wall... like some

nightmarish... Picassean

fantasy... 

(1993, a baby lamb left impaled on a highway white post for 3 hours.)

'And as the Lamb crossed

the Midland highway,

Silence filled the air;

'And the Host of Heaven

looked on in dark sorrow, 

as the traffic smote him...

'And as their tears fell down

His dead flesh was lifted –––

and crucified again!

I saw Him... a white post

ornament... the traffic

pussed us mindlessly by.

'And I broke his leg

in lifting him down,

The crack, chilled my soul...

'And in the stillness

chuckled Death!

at the silence of the lamb. 

(1992, whilst washing cars at 10 am, the mind wanders over issues of the day) 

          I

She lay crumpled in the

gutter. Clothes torn, and limbs

tied...

trussed like a rolled roast.

Her life blood, lying

coagulated between

her thighs,

over the asphalt and footpath,

Clotted in clumps of matted grass,

across which she'd been

tumbled by the mob.

I stood beside her and wept!

Not knowing how long I

stood, nor why I'd hid

throughout that moment of terror.

          II

She'd been walking home.

They'd stood by a lamp post

jeering, sneering

as she went by...

(they'd jumped her in the half dark)

If ever a frenzied

feed between sharks were as

vicious... (I wouldn't know)

I stood –––

stunned by

horror!

So rigid! The Twelve

Apostles of Ocean Road had

greater movement, and freedom...

I screamed into the void

that was my mind as she

choked! Her last breath,

through clotted sperm:

caking her mouth,

her nose,

her face... 

coating her eyes like glaucoma...

          III

I couldn't say how long

I stood, mute – in

shattered disbelief, while

          they

turned and tongued

the gore from each other,

lapping her blood

from their phalic pride;

Anointing! Each other

with their obscene,

monosexual joys.

I turned,

to run...

threw up –––

and watched them leave.