Wtf?

Since then, she’s come back then gone again. She is poison, I’ve decided.

Well, I wish that lasted…..ba-bow. Gutted.

I am disappointed in myself for my glutton-gaze.
She is a beautiful child who deals with life as children do:
all needs and wants.
I don’t know where her honesty sits…
behind all the toys and triumphs.
I see her strip tease and her stunning ego and it’s true,
I am agape,
like an ape,
drooling too.

But I should know better.
I know better.

She dangles the carrot and gets some kind of fix,
then darts back to the drama that -
balloons up her ego (it’s never flat).

And I am letting her dance around me.

She is a beautiful child.
She has passed me around;
her pass-the-parcel girl.
Unwrap me and,
layer by layer,
judge.
You’ve not got a clue who I am.
You’ve not got a clue
what my glue is.
The stuff that holds me together.
Your whispy buzz and twenty-two year old hue
keep you
occupied.

And they will.
Until they dissolve and you’re left with
dust and shadows.
And a reputation.

They will flock to you
but they’ll have nothing of interest.
All those empty air girls will be yours.

So, if this is goodbye,
then goodbye.

You have danced in,

like a fanciful storm

unconcerned with your reception

so long as you’re received.

I was waiting there

with an open mouth

and, days later,

I’m still sucking at the crumbs.

You get away with everything

because you’re beautiful.

I wonder

how long it will be

before you stop

getting away with it,

with me.

I’m doing an Australian Poetry unit with Year 11s this term. Even I shirk a little at the thought of it, conjuring up stale images of bush ballads and Banjo Patterson. No. I really want to get into Dorothy Porter without having to scream, “I AM A LESBIAN” at the little darlings.  Reading ‘The Monkey’s Mask’ will be too time intensive so I might just give them a little taste to wet their poetry-is-not-necessarily-lame whistle. Anyway, I have no idea how to teach poetry, really.

Poetry For Dummies
How can I teach them
Dorothy Porter?
How can I say,
‘This is how you mix art and spunk’?
But I could never use the word spunk.

I don’t have the smarts for poetry
I have to use a manual.
I can barely sound out scale;
I can barely spell assonance
And the manual usually ends up in the trees.

Like Porter said,
‘I get magic
but I don’t get numbers’.
All they need to do is
Learn how to spell smell, right?

Helmut Newton Shirt. You can’t make deals in dirty heels.

Inspired by the post to come.