Michael Farrell is Slope’s Australia editor. His poems appear in Heat, Jacket, Calyx: 30 Contemporary Australian Poets, Verse, Tooth and La Petite Zine. living at the z was published by Vagabond Press in 2000. the whores the whores wet from waterfight are on the track illumining a grey way their long necks tilt to lush loss on crisp corners in soggy saunas we chat we exchange industry hints how we fill our pages with lashed visages on the phone to friendsinlaw the apocalypse will be canary yellow i doubt that mewed a milder cat a wilder water wet pyromanic barbie & her shrimp valise oily hair from here to there are the wages of cheap peanut butter thiefs straying in the grass a chestnut made a bid for clover ices at midnight a chance to balance our internal excolonels hunt intestinal fauna they sleep with their machines on escape to unfashionable beaches clamour rules inconsiderate swimming styles rife sniff fat chips walk thighs raw the next apocalypse will be wren blue your duetting mother called your idealistic fathers whipped himself into a froth canberran echoes the pasts full of holes we fill when we meet a person hear a phrase or only a name people wear colours that match remembered settings its pleasing & unexciting times reduced to an adjective timely we warm ourselves with these red phrases revive with animosities & revile without thought for those not there in the past in canberra with us she talks of piercing & we mock our own weariness describe woden its environs its offspring who even now push us into scenes they say are parodies wheres angst located anyway it left & we reformed so sit down to tea from funny boxes politics again a verb if we concentrate on first impressions angels may appear between sighs listening to your timely sewing up bird in position as a pancake & destroyer extravagance comes to me unstopped by spindles like these i slept the sleep of the unjust cracking crystal while i slept sniffing cocaine from school the polaroid made a surprisingly good poster you couldnt tell a thing ive heard of travel medicine the bronze draperies the miniskirts own me for what its worth i smoke lotus brings me a light my knees arent much but in mes the spirit of the young travolta chirp moving too slowly to renew single life the rain doesnt come you drink anyway there are things you cant find out if you havent kids to find them out for you & there are things like day old calls from friends you wont see again & punches in the jaw while apprentice police look on identifyingly a book holds your head up renunciations the theme educations the second theme of this day a sandcoloured block holds almost a year of your past what coffeecoloured milky middleclass affected afternoons sweet jarred labelled dawns make up a future a life a bird would call it sick fly up to a wire with worn insulation stupid intelligent bird feathers sticking out of your neck fuck off lay eggs come back to my window ill give you ash to peck & youll like it over the border flies interstate trauma you regret the smoky inaction of pregreyhound moments each ticket each insult each plea are just straws to make baskets to use up the straw