Poetry by
Gregory McIntyre

those women you know the ones who suck the marrow from your bones who drain the life out of you you know the ones, around here you see them you could throw a stone and hit five of them she said and I laughed

months of coldest stone and trouble insects buzz in heads and struggle retreating into bed defeated fleeing into night time sheets

under mountains no clock ticks but thickness thins and pain abates in under mountain passage pass arrive again to test our task

this morning ride in shining dawn with horses drawn and standards flown our enemies in no line can hold and we are glad and warm and bold

lips touch and you can read it in our glands you can read it in our hands like a sky full of stars or a beach full of sand

my mights and your maybes we are mother fucking rich but we’re fumbling with buttons sorry baby we are damned

we poisoned our bodies and let them out for the night from inside our temples we watched marvelled rutting and writhing who knew they could do that? what force on earth or in heaven could stop them? white knuckled and desperate midnight pleas screamed achingly into the invisible yard

even red rheumy eyes or winter stones piled even crow’s eulogies are ephemeral energies transubstantiated matter on a voyage interstellar

even the branch from the poplar fell on that man in the paper the heft of it, three storms ago broke his sternum, squished his toe mostly empty, did he know? energy compacted starlight refracted destination selected pooled and collected

down down light descended from a random twinkling star upon him bone and brick as his throat grew thick mostly empty, did he know?

Just the vacuum cleaner now Sits silent and alone Kid’s echo in my mind In this apartment that was mine

The balcony looks over slowly Moving cars winking bright The overexposed blue sky The big tree dancing its goodbye

There where we laughed And there where we fucked This place was mine but it’s reverted Vacuumed scrubbed and now deserted

Now it’s just full of air Now it’s out by five o’clock Now it’s calendars and keys Now it’s emails and cleaner’s fees

Heat rises from the carpet Climbs the stairs, invades the pipes Raids the windows from the street I smell appalling in this heat

Sweat pools in my arm pits On my stomach, round my neck My thighs stick together In this stinking summer weather

I lean down at the sink Suck water through salt cracked lips ’Til I cannot drink any more It runs down me to the floor

I walk to the balcony door To say my last goodbye A breeze picks up and passes by Summer smells and big tree pine

A million tiny hands of air Place themselves upon my skin Relief at last at the end of the day Each hand peels a piece of me away

You’ve been fishing for years Waiting for a tug on the line

Long ago you forgot Empire is built on lies Ergo

Recline Recline Recline

Fingers shoot up to cover my shame To grab and strangle sound itself Hopelessly late My hopeless words threw you away My hope and light Into a cloud Hot salt expands In my head and in my hands

The late sunlit summer evening bliss I miss walk fists Deep down in pockets Strain to keep The rain inside The welling tide The waxing pain Refrain from crying Suburban street Move my feet and be discrete My bleeding inside I can let When I get and it’s not far And close the door behind me When at last I’m in my car

But here A startling animal cry I raise my eyes to the sun Haloed there a seagull triumphant Stands atop a tiled roof In its beak it grips its prize A sunlit summer evening chip Proud silhouette My sodden form Lifts to behold his finest hour This champion of summer bliss I missed but now I cast around And yes O’ seagull You are right The world is magic liminal light Split from white And whatever right I had to cast The blurry light from blurry day Now I say Come back to me I’ll live in you Come back to me This time I’ll stay

I hear them around the corner high lilting voices I pause to listen

dog got hit by a car is he okay? dad took him to the hos-ti-pal I mean… the vet he had blood on his leg is he gonna be okay? we have to go back tomorrow what did your dad say? nothing he just looked sad

I round the corner and see them they see me small pale faces look up at me as I pass them their mouths are lines drawn on

sink into hot water dust on the white enameled rim fold the body down look up slosh glup a moth trapped in the skylight soap stains on the mirror a single hair, long and dark faintly visible against the white tile

every afternoon out there digging he has that look so I don’t ask he gets home changes his clothes goes out to the yard and digs the hole is getting pretty big I look out the kitchen window and I can’t see his head anymore just every few seconds dirt flies out makes a pitter patter sound chk pitter patter chk pitter patter how do you talk to a guy like that I bring him some melon hey I say you want some melon? I reach down into the hole he leans on his shovel eats some melon I go back inside close the door behind me nothing I hear nothing my brow furrows then chk pitter patter chk pitter patter

the night is the tiny light winks out the bed creaks the finger strokes cold glass the bedspread rises and falls the night is

Summer soil stinking juice runs down our cheeks insects winking tracing lines above us give us honey nectar love us love us

Sunlight hugs us warm rest loves us warmth abounds outside sounds like children playing cops and robbers in dying light they’ll be alright

Winter soil stark and empty drains our feet our hands our bellies don’t lie down in death knell winter hurry past pull fast won’t last

Robbers at the windows close them lock them shun them block them cower cover hide in night time towers hold them tight we’ll be alright

Take roses and satin Take rings and vows Take Pachelbel’s Canon Fire the fucking thing into the sea

It’s not me, love I’m frigid and thistles I’m unbearable Summers and too long winters

Take ribbons and flowers Take maidens in towers Take kittens and loofahs away from me

But if you see Lipstick on his collar If your stomach drops ten feet Pick up the phone I’m always at home Pick up the phone and call me

You have to come! Sit next to me! You’ll be alright! Just wait and see! Once you sit down it’ll be okay! Everyone here likes you! Stay stay stay!

She says “I don’t know why people take risks” I think “Lady, why’d you come here?” She says “I don’t know why people get fat” I think “Problems, clearly that you never had” She says “People make mistakes, they just don’t know” I think “I made one today and it’s starting to show”

How long will you grieve? she says What do you mean? I say

There’s part of me misses you Kidneys and stomach

I can feel it Skin and hair

I can feel it Bones and blood

Inside me somewhere In there

The waiting room stinks Of despondency A dim globe Silent nod I go in While outside you Will nurse your pain Until again A nurse emerges To nod at you wordless

Get up Walk in Disinfectants Large gauge Syringes Sharps bin For sutures, sit Flesh pinched Wire’s in And out Of my skin I wince and look At a dreary vista While he works Faded landscape On the wall Roo-paw Looks like a sepia dog poo

Mull to myself what this will do To my tattoo Of her name All the same Never mind She left me for half the street She’s got Momentum Like a wombat in heat

So, close my eyes Savour past flights Lunch, harissa No, losing it Overpowered by dust From carpet with walked in Channels Cloudy stains Faded By an absent sun In the cabinet Iodine and rum

No window No scintillating word To lift the poor sods’ spirits Poor drab ducklings Perched outside in a row Like crows Outside this church For the atheist With its Pad of salvation scripts

He’s done I’m stitched I’m cooked Slide me off the stove Let me out Past naked legs and arms My armour At the door Get away Let me out wake me up From this bleak Cabaret

I peel myself free From my car seat Legs creak I stand up My head peeks Above a long reach Of car roofs A dim sea Stained with salt Windshields Form a beach Neon lit By these shops

We stop off

Stale human smells Meet a complex air Sand salt pollen clay We’ll stay ’Til the night Threatens us with a chill A few minutes at most In the last light of day

This bitumen patch Like the one I sulked in As a child I’d wait For the adults to shop I’m dropped In a moment like many Absorbed As a child At a stop Car park Book shop Sand salt pollen clay Faded holiday motels With names Like Pacific Wave

My country is highway A stretch of beach A pit stop My dreams stink Like the back of a fruit shop

Consider it a creative constraint Not to light the fire When the mind goes blank and the ink runs dry Let the shivering inspire

Consider it a creative constraint To dance while penning words Of your admissions of childhood shame Of turmoil, and butchered birds

Consider it a creative constraint Unlike a common amateur To incite revolt against the PM In strictest iambic pentameter

Consider it a creative constraint To finish this poem before the chance The too-much-tea you drank at lunch Makes another appear-ance

Consider it a creative constraint To include footnotes in the structure of rhyme An avant-garde suggestion you’ll find Is an idea well before its time

Consider it a creative constraint From the burning mulberry don’t flee Address the root and branch on hot singed paper If I may recommend, quite rapidly

Consider it a creative constraint To write a poem with pretty shitty meter, at least one dodgy rhyme and no real conclusion