threads

john reads a-z of football as we all sit & watch threads together on channel 9 / mum fidgets, leaves halfway / krits-krits of sunflower seeds / panicked young man on screen shelters from flash-blast under his cortina / i rub my arm imagining worst sunburn ever, layers of blackened pastry, tiny plastic cowboys melted w/ cigarette lighter dripping gloopy-limbed onto backyard concrete tin lunchbox buckled in the blast. then, charred clog. then, close-up of melted candle-wax zoomed-out to / white-shirt schoolboy at desk holding inkbrush w/ one side of his face horribly scarred by some thing unimaginable [this was earlier, on another channel] // english accent talks over what we’re seeing, / word & image make whatever sense they make, none / of us speak, our // home pencil-shavings pfff – blown from my open palm
acrid no-sound wind wipes words off cracked-earth lips / casts them into waves smacking ’gainst brick veneer of empty home – boof . . .
not sure why we’re here – / somebody’s lounge room [?] / blackboard propped up on two brown vinyl kitchen chairs / a classroom [?] // it’s a meeting or something – / i’m eyeing open packet of top-taste jam rolls on orange laminex table / older kids running things – one girl draws outline of mushroom cloud w/ pink chalk & her friend crosses it out w/ yellow, writes young pioneers in capitals above – who? / nobody talks or explains to me why we’re here, just smiles [eyes too] / something important, bigger than no, about bombs & death / boom box next to wood bowl of potato chips plays music i’ve never heard before
that hiss at the base of creaking skull / bulb-flash // creased red neckerchief trimmed w/ pale-yellow cross-stitch
bright floating above couch white plaster bust of lenin / head turned slightly right big chip on left shoulder / behind glass in bursting buffet next to / dowry clutter drawers of needlepoint & shelves of airport gift shops / bangkok goldflame lakhun nai dancers perestroika moscow matryoshka dolls once-a-year gold-lip red blue green glassware purple boot-shaped liquor heartburn toast / for keeping safe
there must be better ways to [. . .] fill this space
a black hole is born from the implosion of a star – / a light collapses into itself & whole worlds extinguish [. . .] uncreation / inhaling deeply a nothing

*

star peace [palm sunday 1985]

john & i each pick a flag to wave – / mine, lenin’s profile in black on tattered square of red, his same but portrait of marx / i pull at loose red thread near broom-handle flagpole, cut finger, wipe on flag, no one sees, we go / back downstairs thru new era bookshop to wait outside on footpath as everyone gathers / other groups joining / green yellow blue din of growing crowd in dappled sun under elizabeth street trees / older girl, daphne [?] from meeting w/ crossed-out bomb, friendly, tells us / we don’t wave those today, they’re for 1st of may – here, carry these / takes flags & hands two placards she’s just made – / disc of black cardboard w/ yellow paper five-point star pasted on it sticking out past circumference, w/ flying white dove in middle / all taped to long pinwheel sticks //
we march south down elizabeth behind young pioneers banner – block capital letters made w/ lengths of yellow electrical tape surrounded by white cut-out & stuck plastic outlines of our hands on square red tablecloth / small compared w/ others – giant paintings of mushroom clouds & peace-signs, byzantine jesus riding a dove waving olive-branches stretched / taut over large wooden frames hoisted on shoulders of people who all look like schoolteachers / priests carry palm fronds, fluro-faced clown plays tuba out of tune, waves of words red black blue green w/ wind-holes cut out of some letters, os ps rs – disarmament rhymes w/ government spelling test tomorrow, pine gap pineapple yum / i wave hi w/ my star peace lollipop at people lining curb, watching us, like a moomba parade
chris is talking to maria / [they look after our troupe, go to university & play in the young socialist league band, he on keyboard, she guitar] / he’s always trying to make her laugh w/ goofy stuff like / hey look, one of our footsteps is like three of theirs & then walks w/ tiny strides . . .  . . .  . . . / i think chris loves maria, but she loves philipa [he plays drums] // pyjama-stripe pant-legs of uncle sam on stilts flap as he wide-strides past into patch of sun / cottonwool mushroom cloud exploding out top of his starry stovepipe hat blinding white
tin-wail rise-&-falling of siren from chipped white paint mouth of speaker grey-face zombies stumble thru crowd in torn rags help me help me / scorched & baked-bloodstain shreds, hanging rolls of skin molten globs of gladwrap / others all skeleton limbs w/ death-masks carrying dismembered baby-dolls chased by vampire-fingered uncle sam all-fall-downing & scream cowering on ground when caught as / reaper-shrouds weave between us spray-painting in black or white stencil silhouettes of bodies fallen mangled strewn all over road & footpath down swanston / vaporised shadows blasted seared into concrete & tar, some / w/ no arm or leg or head, no time in current’s rush & roar
now hear midnight steel-fog blow over thru us—x-ray bonefinger fallout-particulate—as we near princess bridge corner / trouble-smell closer, now voice-knots, where i don’t know what but not good / scared & feel i need to shit out angry bats, faces / around interrupted, rumble-voice louder colder, heavy-booted – there they are / up against railing wild w/ i’ll kill you masks barking machine gun fuck off & commie bastards, one / [i turn head left & see them] drapes banner over grey bars that says treason! w/ hand-drawn noose for exclamation / i turn away lost to what it means, look up, catch / glint of coke bottle hanging mid-air diamond-studded red on blue sky spinning / it vanishes smashing pop! somewhere ahead [. . .] black spit-cloud now melting into alexandra gardens as we flow past // yellow & white balloons tied to rainbow ichthys bob in sweet breeze delicious / leftovers in fridge from last night lemon potatoes can’t wait
three 8ft puppets of children [two girls & a boy] on flatbed garden diorama / singing one & two & three & four, we don’t want to die in a nuclear war waving / too-long broomstick arms, huge / papier-maché heads of reagan & thatcher [hard pinched face of miss morrison] w/ grotesque red lips carried by four snarling devils & / moving around them leotarded mimes in rubber masks of other i guess politicians, means something / not sure what, hare krishnas jangle cymbals dance thru single file, tambours bang ba-bum bum bum / ba-bum bum bum, bearded men & women in long wild-colour skirts carrying / big sky-blue bedsheet tassled w/ bells & beads / raise then drop their arms tossing giant flowers & stuffed animals up-&-down / up-&-down from patchwork peace-sign in the middle, their voices together / in rhythm whoooaaaaaooooo, whoooooaaaooooo siren from another world where / I want to live

*

weekend

naked bulblight shadow stretching long across goldlit white slightly warped ceiling shape of wooden spoon / flash cartoon-blue spoon of coco-pops monkey mouth in / Sat. late-afternoon at dark-brown pattern-bordered white laminex kitchen table against clearsky window curly matchstick oregano / little grey tape-deck on shelf above bench Ξυλούρης φίλεντεµ φίλεντέµ οχ αµάν-αµάν / bourbon-light gleam of floorboards honey right before dad gets home from work at herald print-press in chocolate overcoat & toast under grill young talent time in black-&-white spoon-sipping sweet black tea copper-red / mum telling me how the english used to cut the cheeks of african slaves they dressed as clowns—some kids like me—from edge of lip to hinge of jaw so that their gruesome bloodgrins would be wider—happier, funnier—for those monsters . . .
wet lawn Sun. morning frozen sunlight thru beads of dew thru my sock / mary & rachel over from next door [their dad armfuls of tats apache seagull maltese cross & / mum always in her robe night-shifts at smith’s bags & bags of free chips] always / barefoot, even when it hailed so bad & all the storm-drains overflowed, eating icy-poles for breakfast showing me their bright blood-red tongues faces like KISS showbag masks [bathroom mirror face-paint of licked-smartie & talc, my cousin leon who / for some reason m & r call make-up man wished ace frehley was his dad & we / mimed to 2000 man in the good lounge-room, paul stanley looked like / θεία who wore all her jewellery to elwood beach that time her weird son / σάκο who i never saw again did nothing but eat all day & it / poured slow fat rain all the way home] & i’m showing them my / new bike ten bucks from the trash-&-treasure at old thomo drive-in gone before we arrived tyres almost bald to threads & pedals / no foot-grips nothing just 3-inch steel tube smell of / passata bubbling one leaf basil in each brown-glass C.U.B. longneck in barrels blood-hot / delicious, m & r are sort of cheerleaders as i’m speeding up from down the court to / pull a skid on front grass zoom use curved edge of driveway to launch slam / brakes & go flying in stack of the century bike lands / bang on left ankle hard get up totally fine & we go into front yard. garage open / dad at bench fixing kettle gluing shoes something, into backyard & mum taps window yells if we want a / drink [m & r the only kids i know who can drink cordial straight & not get sick] & we jump / on old mattress probably γιαγιά’s by sweet yellow peppers against their fence right side sunlit green brown blue out of / nowhere m starts screaming screaming & pointing at my leg, what [. . .] my / dark-green sock soaked thru in blood & turned brown now sit & peel down you can see outline of ankle-bone—straight to PANCH in datsun GL copper-brown blur—Sun. morning packed / pine-o-clean & chicken cuppa-soup smell of waiting room who will win . . . can’t see clock ~ ~ ~ silent / red dots blink open on grey-brown lino in afternoon gold / unvarnished crutches hurt my armpits so john typical says / he’ll wheel me to school in payless shopping trolley for a white-knight a day / done deal

*Relevant link: https://giramondopublishing.com/heat/archive/george-mouratidis-three-poems/?mc_cid=af1aa6fdae&mc_eid=0f2ff74bc3