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Tuesday 17 June 2014

Grant Tarbard

Other Fish in the Sea

1.

With sand arms she woke
covering herself with a 
fidget of seaweed. 

The first night was a 
granite tomb over her, the 
second night banged like

a firecracker, all
the stars clustered about her
unwashed cut glass hair.

Cave dweller listens
to the drifting static of
a sewing box world,

stitch together the
thunderous purple sky and 
the soft as milk ground.

Night demon watches 
Proteus fill the ocean and
Gaia lay flowers,

she hears the first man 
attempt a whistle for his 
new missing rib love.

2.

Bewitcher lays on
her back listening to the
seas being poured from

a pitcher watching
her breasts rise up and down as 
she breathes pallid air,

listening for dregs
watching for remnants, she would
rather breath sulphur.


---


The Unrecognisable


God is in the cash
for gold city for no good 
reason, he shuffles

unrecognised, grey.
He doesn't talk to strangers, the 
viciousness of eyes

on copulating 
sewn fools juggling acid jars
and Indian ink.

God has purple eyes 
for no good reason, instinct
tells you he sucks in

colour and spits out
masking fluid gone solid,
he feared touching the

wall for else he would 
throw up a map of the stars
and coffee filters.

God has guts made of
blancmange and red liquorice, 
he laid one thorn hand

on an old rock star.
God's shiny flying harness
that lets him view you

from above the gulls
circling for lumps of mother
for no good reason

has the power to
warm tea in a microwave,
biscuits on request.

God has a spray can 
and he sits with all the lost
brass girls of Pop art,

all the lost girls that 
stuck their heads in their ovens,
and all the lost girls,

and all the lost girls...
And all those girls wandering
off in the ether.

God is in no fit
state, drinking tea with the tramps
on Archibald Street,

shooting craps with the
dogs for coins fifty years out
of circulation 

and pained by losing.
God plays the banjolele and
gives us a chipped, off

key 'Count Your Blessings'
and, weary, smiles. God was an 
old man with pale eyes.
 
 

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