there they are
three tarantulas
perhaps five
maybe more
living with us
skulking along
unmolested indoors
down on Claude street
two dusty tattered rugs
one atop its musty other
on that crusty lounge room floor
covering up some ancient history
even lovely carnal mystery
Choy and Django
are hovering there with us
lovers you and I
no matter where we go
we sit next to each other
staring at your outdoor garden
moving just outside
your Armidale door
there they are
those tall eucalypts
you planted them all
grand neighbours
alongside your Canadian maple
under that attentive
storied Australian sky
you sit smoking
drawing your slim legs up
like a yogini
or are you manifesting
a sage bushwoman
or a bodhisattva
you readily drinking
your heady black tea
nirvana sips
between samsara puffs
of awakening smoke
I sit there
what thinking takes
about red kangaroos
and brown snakes
dreaming about
how we were
about how we are
making love last night
as I drink that
gawd awful
powdered brown
that tinned cheap
Australian instant coffee
we watch all
those magnificent birds
as they brilliantly flutter about
from tribal eucalypt
to medicinal eucalypt
we are strangled
by our medicine dreams
all that imposing love
so impossibly tangled in that
resplendent web we weave
I'm dancing in a streaming world
walking my dreaming songlines
beneath that fond Southern Cross
while we're naked and dancing
romancing at our Woodstock
thinking I should
drink black tea
like I once did
in far-off Yukon
all those years
way back in 1974
it was still bitter
coffee in distant 1973
when Christmas Evans
with friendly Jimmy Teszay
mystified twenty-year old John Gleshka
and twenty-year old sidled me
ancient consensual stories
about goldrush residential Atlin
where some old prospector fellows
paid a local dance hall girl
one of those mellow
ladies of the night
adorned and unfurled in all
her frightful goldrush glory
paid to sprint naked
down main street
way way back
in those dirty 1930's
so we two young men
listening to those two old Yukon boys
drank strong tea
laughing together
sitting by that smoking
hot wood burning stove
settled in that green
pine wood shack
wood that was green and damp
out at that frosty
Skookum Jim camp
while we read
lost between lines
amongst those costly paragraphs
columns in Yukon News
a small volume in that Whitehorse Star
those 1974 newspaper views
inked headlines about
some new-age streaker
running unfazed and naked
down Whitehorse front street
a 1970's stage of Yukon fun
in that cold bold spring
old Tis and I
smoked rollies
drinking strong black tea
made with snow water
Yukon bushman's best tea
Tis always said
John and I agreed
Jimmy sat quiet
mostly quite silent
his native Teslin nature
tribal for sure
but you and I together
dreaming an awkward future
up on Claude street
we couldn't stay
silence wasn't where we'd meet
we had so much
love to share and words to say
carving continental landscapes
into each other's heart and soul
marvelous stories and rhymes
between those poetic times
when we so often
made passionate love
our lasting moans
so many orgasmic groans
leaving us dripping
wet and out of breath
love talking with us
primal walking along
our breathless songlines
while three or five
or even more alive
being quite serious
that is no lie
tarantulas keeping us
delirious in spider company
beneath your loving
brilliant Australian sky

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