DRINKING WINE UNDER THE MOON KEN TRIMBLE

TEN PAGES PRESS

DRINKING WINE UNDER THE MOON by Ken Trimble © 2011 Ten Pages Press All rights revert to author upon publication.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Some of these poems previously appeared in Horror Sleaze Trash, Clouds on Hanover Street by Little Fox Press & fitzroydreamingblogspot.

Screaming Night Blues I am standing here crying under the full moon Every night seems a little longer than the last And you, you’re off fucking somebody else We dragged it out under a cold bridge in winter Train tracks of misery.......just roll on by You looked so foxy in that fake fur coat And you wrote long mystical letters of love You told me of your visions, and that husband Who beat you bad, stuck a gun in your mouth And you wanted all of me even my friends Every waking moment yours Then I fled to the mountains, a storm brewing, and man on the hill Pissed on altar wine, you screaming at me I screaming at you Wind blowing blues Nights blackest night And not long after...fuck not long after I heard you were screwing Another man. I’m punching these keys, and my angers on the rise Dylan’s on the wail I don’t need no prayers I don’t need no meditation I don’t need no spiritual confirmation All I need is to kiss your sweet sunflower And drink the honey from your well.

Long Way Home Falling house and washing machines, Fridges and stoves stand as friends in jungle garden Beaten up couches, cigarette stains, and beer can smiles I crawl through the junk through the fly blown door To this house condemned. It’s a long way from the flying duck and the tanked up ad-men It’s a long way from Murray Street, hospital stories, rooming houses And dangerous men. I collapse onto my bed this stained mattress of dreams. In the morning I wander to the shopping complex All dazzling light and empty nice faces Looking for a bargain Looking for a deal. My mouth holds the cigarette, smoke drips in the wind With newspaper bounded by my eyes. A phone dial fumbled, a woman’s voice I hear $140 per week mate, rent on time Bye bye falling house Hello Anita, big tits swinging in the breeze Sleepwalker lady enters my room It’s a long way from Murray Street It’s a long way from home.

Carlton Nights And we would sit under the Lebanese night And discuss politics and literature in the darkness Where shrouded figures sat at tables talking, but not seeing. Because of him I read Burmese Days and heard of Trotsky And the perpetual revolution that remained still-born. Later we would amble over to the Albion Hotel, and drink Our beers, and talk with the gangsters, philosophers, pimps, and junkies. In that night when chaos reigned a girl jumped on stage Inviting all the thieves to a party somewhere deep in Carlton. The night was empty of stars save neon popping streetlights That left our minds smouldering in the incendiary haze. We smoked hash as the night blurred like a carousel. Inside the small house we sat around with young men and women. Uniformed police smoked from a hookah, stoned immersed in Cairo Nights and apocalyptic visions still to come. And my heart pounded And my head exploded With the colours of a million covenants Lost somewhere in Carlton.

Hotel I remember entering you Scared frozen body. A man tells the time, see the clock, Ancient Greek in shrouded black Shows me to my room Shattered from a Calcutta Street. I hobbled up the stairs, A door opens-a young man stands by, Don’t worry, I hear his whisper O shining eyes of heroin. A blackened sink, piss ridden bed Crawling mattress shudder! Dungeon of Fitzroy Street, and bone jarring sounds Kafka haunts me! I am finished to the kicked in doors And needle ridden dawn. I am on my knees Cursing You Cursing me, Can’t seem to find the light Can’t seem to find the key. Its 4am And the junkies are high on white light As Coltrane plays in his room.

For You If I was Neruda I would kiss your sweet rose If I was Borges I would paint your imagination If I was Lorca I would celebrate your body But I am none of these A simple poet Who dreams of a girl In a distant land Where eagles fly over the Yucatan And ayahuasca is swallowed in Iquitos Looking for that perfect yage The perfect Blake to enter your doors.

Tony Tony that was his name Big with youth Big with despair Lived in the room next to mine. He lived incognito A dealer A student A misfit of life A soldier of destruction. Then he left with rent unpaid His room full of a defecating world. Shit piles in the corner And piss stains on the walls A million unread newspapers A room full of needles and spoons. Big youth all gone Big anger all gone Nothing is left and all is empty All is Sunyata.

I Notice I noticed the junkie scratching his arm on the train I noticed the drunk sing Singing sweet Jesus I noticed the hookers on Grey Street I noticed the studs in her nipples And I notice the books on the shelves Emma Goldman, Patti Smith, I noticed people drowning Off Christmas Island I noticed the rise of bigotry And heard the sounds of storm-troopers I noticed the last gasp Of a dying woman And I notice A child crying in her crib I noticed war played out Entertainment for the bored I noticed the flood I noticed the fire I noticed the cyclone And I noticed the tangerine sky Over burning flesh As the dogs howled Howling Till morn.

My Country My country, your country coveted by deceit Lives with barren hopes of freedom While refugees live behind the wire Mothers, Fathers and children Guards, politicians, and fear Festered in this loveless land Fuck them! Fuck all of them! Fuck the nation with its shock-jocks! Fuck the nation with its corporate soul! Fuck the nation with its burnt out heart! Elsewhere we are looked as happy go lucky! Easy going and free. Don’t listen Listen to thisWe are the Boers of the Southern Land We are the Nazis in waiting We are the gulags of despair And we are The children Of the Lost.

Jack Reed Forest of white birch in the spring of ‘88 Greeted me as I crossed the border into Russia. Land of poets and blood. I a young communist Filled with hope Emptied by despair I held Jack Reeds ‘Ten days that shook the World’ With fragile hands. I wandered down Arabat Street Sensing history Feeling betrayal Locked in the past A pilgrim in an old army coat A dishevelled Dostoevsky with an Australian accent Midnight, Red Square, a cold night flowers into bloom Soldiers goose stepping under a red star Onion domed Saint Basil Rasputin lurks in his cloistered shell I watch in the shadows of false dreams. I am alone Here.

The Hermit Silent waters Yellow moon Mountain mist And deer on the run. Prayer mat and beer Which will I have first? Drifting silence and wet afternoons I think I’ll read Kerouac Perhaps, St. Augustine The black. Lonely sun Tired days Friends come around.

BIOGRAPHY Ken Trimble is an Australian poet, 58 this year. He had a book published, Clouds on Hanover Street, by Little Fox Press in 2009. Catfish McDaris wrote review in catfishgringoriver.com. He was nominated for Pushcart Prize 2010 for poem “River.” His second book is called Shores of American Memory and will be published by Little Fox Press in 2011 mid-year. He has lived in rooming houses, traveled to Russia and India and is at present involved with Benedictine Community from the Catholic tradition called the Camaldolese a hermit order. He lives in the country surrounded by mountains and the Yarra River runs nearby.