The Lament of the Fag Ash Lil’
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2010.
There’s a couple of fag ash lil’s
holdin’ up the bar of a Friday night
suckin’ in a lungful of poison
yellowing teeth, yellowing digits
puckered lips like a clenched bum hole
exhaling nicotine yarns through crêpy lungs
boozy lunch confessions
sozzle’d sweat,fuesty breath
preserving things, long dead.
Not buried
as yet.
When youth is gone
desire muddled
thoughts tangled
rose colored memories
tinted with sentimentality
blurry with wishful-ness
recycled histrionics littered
with corpses draped
with imaginary B grade filters
or enhanced, for a laugh
down the well worn path
of a much told tale…
I could’ve been…
I was gonna…
One day…
Through the haze of smoke, and mirrors
life eludes, addictions ensue
take root, like lantana
a host of choking weeds
contaminate any blueprint divine
stifling miracles of DNA
and large sections of the brain remain
dormant and our souls
sing the blues.
Wistful sighs, plaintive cries
escape their lips like a wheeling bird
a furious gull, who thinks
I should‘ve been a swallow
but all I feel is hollow
the seeds of my potential
fall on the fallow, stony ground
of the human condition.
Briefly the sound of sorrow
a fragment of soul hangs in the air
wafts it’s way into the branches of a nearby tree
comforted by cool leaves, rising still further
to join a host of unspoken wails
hanging homeless over the earth
to revisit you on a windy day.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
Green –eyed.
My lovers eyes are green but
His soul cannot be gleaned
I talk, I open, I reveal.
I would give it all away…
No … not my heart, not my soul
Which is well protected
Not like Ned Kelly’s in 80 kilos of steel
But sealed in a net, like spiders threads
Delicate but strong.
I feel. I feel.
I feel our hearts beating.
I want to peel away the layers
Find the jewel.
I breathe my lover in
I know his smell
But the rest of him?
A perfect stranger.
Alluring, beautiful
Hesitantly offering
Small kindnesses
Small hurts.
A few steps forwards, sideways, backwards
An anxious dance, the dance of lovers
When no one is quite sure of the steps
No one is leading or sure of where they want to go.
He looks into my eyes and I look back
tongue-tied, mutually mute.
He talks to everyone, but me…
I…feel. I feel…
I feel lonely.
He moves amongst the people like a graceful horse
Bestowing charms; Flexing, prancing, stretching
All glorious muscle planted in the ground.
My lover cooks for me
Meals full of richness and flavour
His hands like an artisan
He moulds bread, hacks weeds
Picks fruit straight from the tree.
He says what you see is what you get…
I have to disagree.
He likes kissing but is hesitant with intimacy
He likes hugs but is … lazy … with foreplay.
He knows about my clitoris
(But not the crook of my arm, my wrists, my belly…)
He likes fucking… slowly
He likes cheesecake… his own cooking.
He likes me.
The first thing I see in my lover, long before he was my lover.
His skin; like a child’s, clear, unlined, unblemished, unscarred.
Unlike mine, lined with life stories, scars, silvery stretch marks
Veins, spidery or blue, mottled and swollen from carrying children
Dimples, a baby belly, suckled breasts that tell a female tale…
She’s fat, she’s thin, she’s sad, she’s happy, she frowns.
Smiling lines, laughing lines, weary shadows.
My lover’s eyes are green.
He smoothes the bed cover over his bed
So that the pattern perfectly aligns.
He talks about commitment like he is trying it on for size…
I don’t think it fits, it constricts, like a suit and tie.
It roles off like a drop of water on oily skin.
He thinks it’s what I want to hear but
I am emerging from a connubial nightmare, so
I am curious about him, but …
He’s too scared to let me in.
I sit alone
I watch him over blueberries, a latte
Restless, he gravitates back to me.
His eyes flicker over the crowd
He strokes my hair tenderly, he kisses my face
He places his hand in the small of my back
Like he owns me
Like he’s guiding me back to him, for a moment
He unfolds, unfurls slowly, but not completely.
The seed of the end is clearly seen in the first hours
Covered in a rubble of passion, soft kisses
Fragrant caresses, earthy sighs.
How time can wear a lover down
Beyond acceptance
To look for greener grass.
My lover had green eyes.
My lovers eyes are green but
His soul cannot be gleaned
I talk, I open, I reveal.
I would give it all away…
No … not my heart, not my soul
Which is well protected
Not like Ned Kelly’s in 80 kilos of steel
But sealed in a net, like spiders threads
Delicate but strong.
I feel. I feel.
I feel our hearts beating.
I want to peel away the layers
Find the jewel.
I breathe my lover in
I know his smell
But the rest of him?
A perfect stranger.
Alluring, beautiful
Hesitantly offering
Small kindnesses
Small hurts.
A few steps forwards, sideways, backwards
An anxious dance, the dance of lovers
When no one is quite sure of the steps
No one is leading or sure of where they want to go.
He looks into my eyes and I look back
tongue-tied, mutually mute.
He talks to everyone, but me…
I…feel. I feel…
I feel lonely.
He moves amongst the people like a graceful horse
Bestowing charms; Flexing, prancing, stretching
All glorious muscle planted in the ground.
My lover cooks for me
Meals full of richness and flavour
His hands like an artisan
He moulds bread, hacks weeds
Picks fruit straight from the tree.
He says what you see is what you get…
I have to disagree.
He likes kissing but is hesitant with intimacy
He likes hugs but is … lazy … with foreplay.
He knows about my clitoris
(But not the crook of my arm, my wrists, my belly…)
He likes fucking… slowly
He likes cheesecake… his own cooking.
He likes me.
The first thing I see in my lover, long before he was my lover.
His skin; like a child’s, clear, unlined, unblemished, unscarred.
Unlike mine, lined with life stories, scars, silvery stretch marks
Veins, spidery or blue, mottled and swollen from carrying children
Dimples, a baby belly, suckled breasts that tell a female tale…
She’s fat, she’s thin, she’s sad, she’s happy, she frowns.
Smiling lines, laughing lines, weary shadows.
My lover’s eyes are green.
He smoothes the bed cover over his bed
So that the pattern perfectly aligns.
He talks about commitment like he is trying it on for size…
I don’t think it fits, it constricts, like a suit and tie.
It roles off like a drop of water on oily skin.
He thinks it’s what I want to hear but
I am emerging from a connubial nightmare, so
I am curious about him, but …
He’s too scared to let me in.
I sit alone
I watch him over blueberries, a latte
Restless, he gravitates back to me.
His eyes flicker over the crowd
He strokes my hair tenderly, he kisses my face
He places his hand in the small of my back
Like he owns me
Like he’s guiding me back to him, for a moment
He unfolds, unfurls slowly, but not completely.
The seed of the end is clearly seen in the first hours
Covered in a rubble of passion, soft kisses
Fragrant caresses, earthy sighs.
How time can wear a lover down
Beyond acceptance
To look for greener grass.
My lover had green eyes.
Monday, June 21, 2010
Behind the Lines
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2010
The Major lit up, watched the afternoon tropical deluge
hit camp like an attacking frontline enemy, a fast and furious wave of sound
unlike the tiny, somber guerillas, silently creeping through the creaking jungle
of glossy leaves and fantastical flowers.
War is waiting, waiting, he demurred, blowing an elegant, wafting
Perfect-for-a-moment, smoke ring into the wet-blurred trees
but no one heard above the roar, the deafening rhythm on khaki and tin
regulation din, lush with fat snakes, jabbering monkeys and malarial hum.
Only their prisoner, stubborn mute before polite British Interrogators
cursing the heat in this, God Forsaken Land, concurs, his smile frugal, inscrutable.
The rain slows to a ponderous drip. Drip. Drip.
Did you ever kill? , she said, and he sighs, tries to teach her to play chess
writes poetry about the blue Aegean seas that he crossed with his wife
the image of her leaning over the side of the ship, her hair blowing in the wind
on their way to adventures protected by the might of Briton.
For his wife, drinking gin at the Dog club again, eyes too bright
still bleeding from a back street abortion, memories of her Indian lover
skin like butter, she smoothes her white gloves, removes the hat
that perfectly matches her Susan Small dress that nips in her tiny waist.
The wives of the Yang di Pertuan arrive, fluttering in brightly coloured silks
Amah takes the children and they retire to the cool of the bungalow
as the rain arrives like a regular guest always dropping by
who expects nothing, just your being, a silent salutation in their direction.
She serves nasi goring and Pimms N.O. 4, but it’s not long before
she wonders how she got here, so far from all she’s known.
Who is she now? What has she become?
She feels she has dissolved in another’s rituals, someone else’s routine
gravity has made her one with strangers, loneliness has lead her into a dream
where no one recognizes her or remembers who she was.
The rain slows to a delicate trickle, a passing lighthearted laughter
A belly rumble of thunder drifts away
and the women go out for a game of tennis.
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2010
The Major lit up, watched the afternoon tropical deluge
hit camp like an attacking frontline enemy, a fast and furious wave of sound
unlike the tiny, somber guerillas, silently creeping through the creaking jungle
of glossy leaves and fantastical flowers.
War is waiting, waiting, he demurred, blowing an elegant, wafting
Perfect-for-a-moment, smoke ring into the wet-blurred trees
but no one heard above the roar, the deafening rhythm on khaki and tin
regulation din, lush with fat snakes, jabbering monkeys and malarial hum.
Only their prisoner, stubborn mute before polite British Interrogators
cursing the heat in this, God Forsaken Land, concurs, his smile frugal, inscrutable.
The rain slows to a ponderous drip. Drip. Drip.
Did you ever kill? , she said, and he sighs, tries to teach her to play chess
writes poetry about the blue Aegean seas that he crossed with his wife
the image of her leaning over the side of the ship, her hair blowing in the wind
on their way to adventures protected by the might of Briton.
For his wife, drinking gin at the Dog club again, eyes too bright
still bleeding from a back street abortion, memories of her Indian lover
skin like butter, she smoothes her white gloves, removes the hat
that perfectly matches her Susan Small dress that nips in her tiny waist.
The wives of the Yang di Pertuan arrive, fluttering in brightly coloured silks
Amah takes the children and they retire to the cool of the bungalow
as the rain arrives like a regular guest always dropping by
who expects nothing, just your being, a silent salutation in their direction.
She serves nasi goring and Pimms N.O. 4, but it’s not long before
she wonders how she got here, so far from all she’s known.
Who is she now? What has she become?
She feels she has dissolved in another’s rituals, someone else’s routine
gravity has made her one with strangers, loneliness has lead her into a dream
where no one recognizes her or remembers who she was.
The rain slows to a delicate trickle, a passing lighthearted laughter
A belly rumble of thunder drifts away
and the women go out for a game of tennis.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
The Veranda of Endless Sundays
These veranda days, they’re ok, you say.
Cloud drifting, mountains winking in the distance days.
Sometime in the future we will remember these moments
you announce. As seas rise, a world groans, underbelly shifts
overwhelm all our doings, all our longings and dreaming.
What are you thinking? You ask, with the wind chimes.
Sun glinting off the cliff face high in the spongy purple folds
of the mountains, close now as clouds dissolve, momentarily.
Light fills the sky, a white flower, opening.
Nothing, I say, nothing.
As though I had perfected Meditation practice
a breeze flowing through my empty mind.
The truth is I am chasing words, the right words
to say how I love you, come what may
in veranda days and when you go away, but
It’s all been said before, a million songs, all just … wrong
Except for slightly melancholy melodies with ironic, wistful phrasing.
In between times, a chord strikes.
Still I am tired of all the noise, endless cleverclever talk, talk, talking
as though everyone was getting ready to proclaim
the latest, rehashed profundity for TV crews or radio mikes
prompted by a hyped up Personality, fast and loud
visual, aural, hyperbole looking for a new story.
In between, endless patter and political spin.
Listen! listen to the wind! A rain storm riding in
obliterating the mountains, devouring roads and farms
flattening my shabby garden, seedy vegetables and tired herbs.
Drenched by glorious, unfeeling Nature and gone again.
A thousand industrious spiders observe these lazy veranda days
unperturbed by the raging rain cracking on corrugated roof.
We congregate, we lounge, we sigh
on the veranda of endless sundays
A shy carpet snake and two stripy cats
hunched down, watching, but ready to strike
or curled up, sleepy in subtropical humidity
We could all just be hoping for the afternoon change
or for a revelation.
Cloud drifting, mountains winking in the distance days.
Sometime in the future we will remember these moments
you announce. As seas rise, a world groans, underbelly shifts
overwhelm all our doings, all our longings and dreaming.
What are you thinking? You ask, with the wind chimes.
Sun glinting off the cliff face high in the spongy purple folds
of the mountains, close now as clouds dissolve, momentarily.
Light fills the sky, a white flower, opening.
Nothing, I say, nothing.
As though I had perfected Meditation practice
a breeze flowing through my empty mind.
The truth is I am chasing words, the right words
to say how I love you, come what may
in veranda days and when you go away, but
It’s all been said before, a million songs, all just … wrong
Except for slightly melancholy melodies with ironic, wistful phrasing.
In between times, a chord strikes.
Still I am tired of all the noise, endless cleverclever talk, talk, talking
as though everyone was getting ready to proclaim
the latest, rehashed profundity for TV crews or radio mikes
prompted by a hyped up Personality, fast and loud
visual, aural, hyperbole looking for a new story.
In between, endless patter and political spin.
Listen! listen to the wind! A rain storm riding in
obliterating the mountains, devouring roads and farms
flattening my shabby garden, seedy vegetables and tired herbs.
Drenched by glorious, unfeeling Nature and gone again.
A thousand industrious spiders observe these lazy veranda days
unperturbed by the raging rain cracking on corrugated roof.
We congregate, we lounge, we sigh
on the veranda of endless sundays
A shy carpet snake and two stripy cats
hunched down, watching, but ready to strike
or curled up, sleepy in subtropical humidity
We could all just be hoping for the afternoon change
or for a revelation.
Leunig Girl
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2009
Leunig girl chasing clouds and curlicues
Steeped in silence, feelings well in her eyes
But no matter how hard she tries
They stay deep inside.
She falls in love with dead poets and mystics
She won’t throw her flowers at rock n’ roll pretenders
She won’t congregate at girly nights or cat fights
She’s falling in her own imagination.
Her whimsical gait and faraway gaze
Seduce the dreamers and the schemers
Looking for gods and goddesses
in a suburban, sentimental reality
a confectionary of the next big thing.
Others get her wrong, but I can hear the words
she doesn’t say, I’ll protect her from the maddening crowd
Shield her from the trauma of shopping malls
Epileptic lights and pancake make believe.
Take her to a quiet place to resurrect her mission
Where I will read her zodiac first, give her the bigger half
and save the last bite, for her, because I think she is nice
and kind of lovely, in a fragile, quirky way.
Also because I understand the ache of songs unwritten
songs unsung and songs forgotten
One day I will sing her out of her condition
I will sing her free of inhibition and sing her into love.
Hold her when she can no longer stand, alone.
Because she is a leunig girl, chasing clouds and curlicues.
Swinging her legs and whistling in her head.
2010.
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2009
Leunig girl chasing clouds and curlicues
Steeped in silence, feelings well in her eyes
But no matter how hard she tries
They stay deep inside.
She falls in love with dead poets and mystics
She won’t throw her flowers at rock n’ roll pretenders
She won’t congregate at girly nights or cat fights
She’s falling in her own imagination.
Her whimsical gait and faraway gaze
Seduce the dreamers and the schemers
Looking for gods and goddesses
in a suburban, sentimental reality
a confectionary of the next big thing.
Others get her wrong, but I can hear the words
she doesn’t say, I’ll protect her from the maddening crowd
Shield her from the trauma of shopping malls
Epileptic lights and pancake make believe.
Take her to a quiet place to resurrect her mission
Where I will read her zodiac first, give her the bigger half
and save the last bite, for her, because I think she is nice
and kind of lovely, in a fragile, quirky way.
Also because I understand the ache of songs unwritten
songs unsung and songs forgotten
One day I will sing her out of her condition
I will sing her free of inhibition and sing her into love.
Hold her when she can no longer stand, alone.
Because she is a leunig girl, chasing clouds and curlicues.
Swinging her legs and whistling in her head.
2010.
Bali 2009
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2009
A fingernail moon winks amongst a fringe of leaves
ripples in the watery combs stitched with young rice
tender green bristles nodding in the new neon flares.
The night rain falls like confetti; like petals
on suede blue pools reflecting a sultry sky
where swifts and swallows and starlings fly
over offerings enfolded in banana leaf origami
marigold and white rice sanctified by the incantations
of a soul purified swami, drifting in the narrow canals
this Balinese Venice veined with a sacred geometry
of waterways pulled by a subtle gravity
from the pristine waters of lake Batur
protected by the sacred mountains
Gunung, Agung, Abang
chak-a-chak-a-chak-a-chak-a-chak
and the rhythm of the gamelan.
Overflowing sculpted terraces to the sea
lifting to the gods perfumes of frangipani
cempaka oil and burning coconut husk
a devil dog howls, frogs croak
the ducks and insects sing along
to the sacred night song.
Wayan first son, of Ketuk, the fourth
lights sandalwood and lays hibiscus flowers
on fresh linen, a fresh flask of sweet coffee
a pandan-green-hued cake.
Ancient ceremonies and rituals flow
ceaselessly on the streets of Ubud
the dancers slip into a trance, the music weaves a spell
as Dewi Saraswati , the consort of Brahma
lifts four graceful hands with gifts for her gentle devotees
wisdom, devotion and creativity, a rosary of prayers
for her prolific artisans.
And the listless tourists like ghosts
bring the decaying dreams of the west.
The cult of materialism. Our futures entwined.
Come, look, see! I need to feed my family.
“Maybe tomorrow”. Maybe.
Their youth, like ours, enmeshed and branded
styled by the image makers, skinny jeans, technology
a myriad illusions; slavery and poverty cannot prise them free.
The odor of fertilizer and petroleum deform
their ocean creatures, victims of our greed
insatiable productivity.
The vague scent of an open lotus
proclaims their innocence, their purity.
The big hearted woman who carries fifty kilos on her head
knows she was born to work, help feed her family
like her daily prayers, her breath, her smiles
she thanks the gods for life’s simple ceremony.
© Copyright Elizabeth Routledge 2009
A fingernail moon winks amongst a fringe of leaves
ripples in the watery combs stitched with young rice
tender green bristles nodding in the new neon flares.
The night rain falls like confetti; like petals
on suede blue pools reflecting a sultry sky
where swifts and swallows and starlings fly
over offerings enfolded in banana leaf origami
marigold and white rice sanctified by the incantations
of a soul purified swami, drifting in the narrow canals
this Balinese Venice veined with a sacred geometry
of waterways pulled by a subtle gravity
from the pristine waters of lake Batur
protected by the sacred mountains
Gunung, Agung, Abang
chak-a-chak-a-chak-a-chak-a-chak
and the rhythm of the gamelan.
Overflowing sculpted terraces to the sea
lifting to the gods perfumes of frangipani
cempaka oil and burning coconut husk
a devil dog howls, frogs croak
the ducks and insects sing along
to the sacred night song.
Wayan first son, of Ketuk, the fourth
lights sandalwood and lays hibiscus flowers
on fresh linen, a fresh flask of sweet coffee
a pandan-green-hued cake.
Ancient ceremonies and rituals flow
ceaselessly on the streets of Ubud
the dancers slip into a trance, the music weaves a spell
as Dewi Saraswati , the consort of Brahma
lifts four graceful hands with gifts for her gentle devotees
wisdom, devotion and creativity, a rosary of prayers
for her prolific artisans.
And the listless tourists like ghosts
bring the decaying dreams of the west.
The cult of materialism. Our futures entwined.
Come, look, see! I need to feed my family.
“Maybe tomorrow”. Maybe.
Their youth, like ours, enmeshed and branded
styled by the image makers, skinny jeans, technology
a myriad illusions; slavery and poverty cannot prise them free.
The odor of fertilizer and petroleum deform
their ocean creatures, victims of our greed
insatiable productivity.
The vague scent of an open lotus
proclaims their innocence, their purity.
The big hearted woman who carries fifty kilos on her head
knows she was born to work, help feed her family
like her daily prayers, her breath, her smiles
she thanks the gods for life’s simple ceremony.
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