been everywhere?

Well, no, of course not. I've been various places (even been to me this weekend). Just haven't been much around Ruby Street, in any sense, recently.

I suspect I'm still in a slight time lag warp and have been unwell for weeks - travel infestations.

Went to Perth and then Adelaide last week. Not exactly my choice of timing but had a good time all the same. Warm welcome from Perth poets (the Andrews) and Perth writing persons in general (hi, Rob) and bumped into many other folks. And did music (Tan Dun, Ed Kuepper) and the arts visual (Rothko and Rover) as well as writing thangs. Adelaide, as hot as. But great CD shops. True. Check it out!

But still haven't got my head back around Sydney yet. They tell me it's been raining. Sure, it's overcast, but rain - puh-lease. Send 'er down Hughie, is what I say. Anyway, had to water the garden this morning (all strictly within Sydney Water guidelines - we're most partickerlar about that at our place).

Yesterday incapable of little. Swallowing painkillers and stomach settlers and even unable to listen to music (OK, a DVD about Miles in the night-time).

Today, listening to Chucho Valdes, Patrick Bouffard, Everclear, Buffalo Daughter, Francois Moity, Richard Galliano, Sussan Deyhim, A.R. Rahman, Bojan Zulfikarpasic. (mi scusi, no time for accents). And, yes, much of this is travel loot.

Hope to get back to less scatty posts soon.

Been editing and proofing manuscripts large and small. More about that soon, as well.

'east of the sun, west of the moon'

we're far up at windows
in a city flashed
with new year stars
lion dance bristles
tracking the asphalt
white and gold verticals
colonial spires

another year's breath
heats the dry season
and its cocktail vocal
press into dark
nodes and expression
'how insensitive'
air labours to be cold

candles refresh the river
fire cracker thousands
it's a family thing
in a way station of strangers
caught between straits
bow over the card
and the god money

gong xi fa cai



Singapore, 9 February 2005

venus

her
flaky back
her ghosted arms


Venus de Milo (Aphrodite of Melos)
Louvre Museum

paris snap

the pen so cold
snow is edging the city
and wind test the monuments
their verdigris work of the soul

there will always be dancing
at the bar americain
though the tongue freezes
without speech
and all along the boulevard
people press their lives
into the sounds in their heads

there's something tender in stone
the cold frees it
the living stand with flowers
and feel the coming sleet

water is more than rain
there's no sleep beyond the night
and now is always interruption
sweeping away the leaves

I cover my head
where the cold falls


snapped 25 Jan Cimetiere Montparnasse