Jackson

It’s the staleshit smell hanging under the perfume in the white-tiled shopping-mall toiletIt’s the bony old cat in the house of the chubby-faced studentsIt’s the streak of smog above the blue and white beachfrontIt’s the distant sirenIt’s the one string that won’t stay in tuneIt’s whoever grew old, then young, then diedIt’s the black edge Read more

There’s a live radio version, with guitar, from 2008 (before I had vocal lessons!) in this interview. It’s midnight in Dream city again, with its dark derelict house-rows, dubious kitchens, tables for two, corner bars. Where are the friends I seek? Not in that bar—that’s all folk music. I drop off my mother there. You’ll Read more

There’s a live radio version from 2008 in this interview. I am the sacrifice. When the priests built the temple, I was buried under the foundations. I lay at the gates of the building site, asking for death. I said, If I have to die to be here forever, let me go slowly. Cut my Read more

The sound of MY FAVOURITE BAND        is an apricot’s juice on my tongue,        my chin, my wrist, my t-shirt The sound of MY FAVOURITE BAND        is rain and the warm wet of summer Sydney rain        and the smell of rain on a hot road The sound of MY FAVOURITE BAND        Read more

There’s a live radio version from 2008 in this interview.  St Audoen’s Church, Dublin, 2005 Temple of history, templeof short lives longgone, temple of hundredsof souls … trodon me hard as I trodon its layersof graves. Quietspirits whispered hundredsof hushesfrom the eleventh-century walls. If I ever go to church in Dublin this is where.Not in Read more

I will find a place to wait. A niche in the shore-held sea-crags. I will watch the lighthouse and the coming and going ships, the world-cruisers, oil-bringers, war-makers, the private and public yachts, the racers, fishers, fighters, pirates and smugglers, the ships of dull metal and boats with bright paint, with sail-quilts, mast-needles, nets, radar, Read more