By jes, on November 6th, 2012
one of those days
when strangers on the street
seem distracted
by some unknown force.
like a storm that might be coming
like something cold
has bubbled up from a deep well.
By jes, on April 23rd, 2012
you said that metaphors are
for the weak-minded
i counted the cracks
in the windscreen
of our hire car
and decided you were right.
the windscreen is itself
a landscape,
riveted by insect carcasses,
powdered
with a film of earth so red
it leaves the taste of rust
in our mouths.
we are children again
melting into the back seat,
the windows rolled down
and i tune the radio
to the frequency of
powerlines and rabbit fences,
the perfect broadcast
for a journey that
starts out with a promise
but quickly becomes
interminable.
it is the fundamental law
of movement
– of course –
to be always not quite there,
and not quite here.
in fact,
the further you follow
the thin white line
the faster
it disappears.
you wanted deliverance
but instead we came
to a ghost town
“home!”
“let me go home!”
some where
the landscape moves so quickly it
interlaces
and you tell me that
this is how you see through time.
i concentrate, staring out the window,
a squish of colours
rendered in rose quartz
and honey ant yellow—
those mineral shades that
are always part-way
through some kind of chemical reaction, alchemy.
i let my gaze become unfixed and
think about “continuity”…
our car is always
a movie camera
and each window
the perfect frame.
on this road
there is no beginning and end
and beginning and end,
only the part in the middle,
the part
happening now.
By jes, on April 19th, 2012
everything that an atmosphere represents
is happening now
an uncontainable emotion
-to hold something as if it had
just begun-
as if it were not fully formed
but perhaps
a handful of firing synapses
whose meaning
was just now
giving way
By jes, on February 6th, 2012
come here
and lie flat
your stomach
on my back
there are pieces of us every
where
and only this simple
ceremony
can gather them back.
By jes, on February 4th, 2011
metaphor is easy
it’s language that’s hard
i could think of
a hundred ways
to explain it in images
but nothing in words
maybe it’s
something like
that single straight hair
detached from a body
that keeps finding its way back
to my bed sheets
or maybe it’s
the weather this week
reminding us
that some things are
undeniable
a dream message
that tingle
at the base of your spine
right now
somewhere
in the world
a revolution
is happening.
By jes, on November 10th, 2010
you are asleep
in the passenger seat
and at the wheel
i am years older
than i appear to be
another day on the road
and the street signs
are beginning to take on
strange significance
like fortune cookies
or one word horoscopes
everything becomes a map
we can’t understand.
By jes, on October 19th, 2010
you said
everything. all at once.
i said
not this. not right now.
and there was something
explicit
in your touch.
By jes, on October 3rd, 2010
16 hours
of devotional song
and the heavens
were only just beginning
to open.
By jes, on October 3rd, 2010
the western line:
a stutter
of train tracks
crisscross
like a
constructivist film
a new landscape
coloured by iron
and redfern,
just a memory.
By jes, on September 27th, 2010
your dreams
pay you the service
of being transparent
and i allow you
the perfection
of doing
the only thing
you know how
the tyranny of language
is the moment
it doesn’t exist
and everything
i’ve told you
you already know.
By jes, on September 21st, 2010
a picture of yourself
at the most perfect moment
of your life
a memoir of a garden,
a useless landscape
left over to words
a text message
on your lover’s phone
always a poem,
always a ghost.
By jes, on August 25th, 2010
for 5 days
i slept in your car
the seats rolled back
as far as they would go
my hot breath
kept the
cold windows
moist
as the inside of a ribcage.
you were on the radio
most days
you played old love songs
a broadcast to no where
i kept the motor running at night
nothing careful, nothing tentative
about that constant hum.
By jes, on August 25th, 2010
your hometown
the gentle claustrophobia of family
suddenly forgetting something
you have always known.
By jes, on August 16th, 2010
a haiku
turning
upside down
something
found
in translation
inventing
new words
for old memories
and a question
i should never have asked.
By jes, on June 22nd, 2010
you begin to stir. woken by the sounds of traffic from the street below. motorbike horns and the humid surge of afternoon. a constant humming from the fluro light in the bathroom. you crawl out of bed and the room seems green around you. infinite shades of green and in the heat, the promise of rain. we don’t have much time left in this city. i am a world away from home. you are a tourist in your own country. “do you know about the sunset clause?”, i say. but you don’t hear me. there is not much to do but sit and wait the afternoon out. sit and wait for the storm.
By jes, on June 2nd, 2010
something
that starts
fast
and finishes
slowly
you begin
by working
backwards
but become
stuck
at the end
like a travelator
in an airport
or an elevator rising & falling
in slow motion
we write words
that turn time
around
it took me
a full minute
to realise i was
shaking.
By jes, on September 14th, 2009
you were the real
voice of a generation
i photocopied your poems
& handed them out
like pamphlets at
a peace protest.
~
i thought i’d found
a whole world
in your words,
but the pavements kept pressing up
between the pages
until everything was unfinished.
~
one day i noticed
the street signs
of new york
all spelled out
the letters of your name
and as if that was not enough
of an omen i kept walking, walking.
~
your voice
whispering
from the tops of skyscrapers
the perfect city
your tongue clicking
like needles
a pure hit of metaphor
and the comedown
like waking
from a dream.
~
nothing was dangerous
except for words
you wept yours
down a thousand
empty sidewalks
& i was left with amnesia
and a new language
all those perfect memories
slamming against each other
like a pile up
of cars on the interstate.
~
and you’re passing
through me
even now.
By jes, on September 13th, 2009
in my house
the far-off sound
of people kissing
we drove through
a city of lights
and all around us
silence
somewhere
in another room
someone is being sick
By jes, on July 21st, 2009
the western motorway &
simon & garfunkel
we had herbal concoctions
to last us a lifetime
a desk job
an endless time-sheet
and sick days to spare
we worked out the odds
and went the way
of the lighthorse
***
By jes, on June 23rd, 2009
we put everything
we owned
into one place
a time capsule
of fragrances
and the knowledge
that everything must end
the possibility
of an archive
the promise
that something
will be remembered
a future city
full of children.
By jes, on May 22nd, 2009
a daylight moon
my foot to the floor
you were tall
and eternal
and i was
falling asleep
at the wheel
By jes, on May 12th, 2009
A high powered radio transmitter and all the information in the world. I still couldn’t reach you. I wanted a monument that was invisible to everyone but us. Like a still body of water and the sound of the city at dusk. Or a reflection.
Later I was in a gift shop in chinatown trying to think of something significant to buy. There were charms for health and prosperity, but nothing to slow down time. And definitely nothing to stop it.
By jes, on April 30th, 2009
We set about building a vanishing city. We took apart pieces of politics and body parts. We painted walls with the imaginary shade of twilight. We powered the population with involuntary mechanisms. Like heartbeats. And revolutions. I stayed still in the shadows of our cities’ tallest buildings and though about c words. Like ‘civilisation’ and ‘collapse’ and ‘cunt’. To us community was something unraveling all the time. We did not want to put people together, but to pull them apart. We made governments and religion that were nothing more than the sound of wind through leaves. Or an afterthought. There was no such thing as manifesto. Only shopping lists and the places where posters had been torn down from walls. We were always afraid of loosing language. So we spoke in riddles and some times in song. Nothing was written down. Nothing was kept. We thought archives were vanity and libraries science fiction. Every morning after we slept, we burned our beds to the ground. Our photographs were invisible records, like a distant voice on a telephone line. Everything absent, everything incomplete. Everything open. Nothing at night and nothing in the morning.
By jes, on April 14th, 2009
we passed 5
roadside shrines
in an hour
i felt the highway
tear a way like a page
every word written
was whispered
and there was nothing
paul kelly could tell us
that we didn’t already know.
i was watching all those things
which are quick,
become things which are
slow.
By jes, on February 3rd, 2009
a photograph of the sun
a patent leather dungeon
five pixels of gaussian blur.
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poems, road poem, travelogue 
five, page, paul kelly, quick, road, roadside, shrine, slow, tear