Aimée

She is the ink so sweetly painted,

in a portrait or on skin the flash of furry friendliness a giggle from within A ball of lightning texture a warmth exudes akin. She shapes a world around her flavoured and full of light A touch of fresh dew or awake in the night. She burns on and on, like a flicker eternal humble and loyal, clever and kind. Wakes you up with a hug and goodnight with a sing and she purrs like a kitten and moves like the wind.

A Eulogy for Judy

I would like to talk you through a few notable memories I have of Judy and hopefully awaken in you, the memories of what we all loved about our incredible friend and darling Judy.

I remember fondly the times we used to spend at Judy's house drawing in the Judio (her studio), skipping rope in the car port, blowing bubbles by the driveway, climbing her huge and beautiful pine in the backyard, and playing in the old chicken coop, where she invited the local McGuinness Drive kids to use her repurposed chicken coop as a street clubhouse. Their inscribed chicken boxes and nick knacks left behind for us.

She saw the power in nature and gave it like a gift to everyone she knew. She had meticulously created a moss garden with a view from the kitchen, which she always maintained beautifully along with the story that there were fairies in there along with fairy wrens. I remember watching the fairy wren's bathing in the bird-bath she had set up amongst the moss. Sometimes Bianca and I would stand out there beneath the huge Fuchsia bush picking the purple flowers and sucking the nectar out from their insides.

Our entire life visiting her home was a magical time. She rejoiced in all the creative things and not with exception to those things that were slightly odd or ugly.

Though our ‘darling’ Judy always had an air of glamour and sophistication about her, she also had a surprising passion for the wicked and weird. She was the kind of person who would buy the bent in cans at the supermarket because they were different.

For example when I was born she bought me the plush toys of the monsters from Maurice Sendak's 'Where The Wild Things Are', much to the shock of my mother who asked that they not come home with the new baby... So they became our favourite friends and toys to visit whenever we were on Judy holidays.

On multiple occasions, Judy spoke of how she’d always loved the idea of being in a motorcycle gang, and I remember imagining her riding through the Southern Highlands, wind blowing her hair back with a mad grin spread across her face.

 When I had thought I’d kept my first romantic relationship with another girl under wraps from my family, Judy proclaimed to family and friends, her excitement that I might follow in the footsteps of Germaine Greer. I remember thinking about how lucky I was to have the support of such an open-minded woman from another era.

She took us to art galleries, bought us art materials. She had so many wacky ideas and inventions to engage children. When we were kids she made Bianca and I into paper dolls by photographing us in our undies, printing, and cutting out our silhouettes so that we could then fashion paper clothes for ourselves to dress up and play dolls.

 She always joked of what the guys at Kodak must think of her developing photos of her grandchildren standing half naked. "Someone might arrest your mad grandmother" That wicked sense of humour delivered with a wicked smile.

She was sharp witted and critical and Judy always had her favourites. Though she was kind enough to switch back and forth between us so that we all had a turn in the warmth of her admiration.

At times growing up I was the talented artist and creator, and Bianca was the bored child, too energetic and boisterous for Judy’s liking. At other times Bianca had it all together in Judy's eyes, and so I was referred to as "the Waif". Coined for my constant travelling and reluctance to settle down and commit to something. But then just as swiftly I would be in the right again, an intrepid traveler with so many talents and gifts and oh so worldly.

She made the best desserts. One time she served Adam and I, a whole bowl of freshly whipped cream with berries on top. And growing up we lusted after the hot homemade caramel sauce she made for us over ice-cream.

She taught me to draw and continued my love for art making and creating my entire life. She helped me make my first and only etching in primary school, winning me a printmaking prize at the Robertson show.

She fostered great creativity and imagination in all children. She invited us to explore our creative potential through so many mediums which inspired us to always be innovating. From our drawer in the studio filled with an array of papers, creative materials, bits and bobs, to continually taking us out to galleries from such a young age, I am so deeply grateful for having had someone like Judy believe in me and nurture such an understanding of myself and of my love and expression of art.

I always felt she was so proud of my art and encouraged me to keep making always.

She hung two of my school artworks framed in prize positions on her walls, amongst great artworks and great taste. 

 And with each visit I recall her encouragement as she gushed that everyone commented on my paintings much more frequently than those of The Greats filling the rest of her home. Thrilled that I shared some of her gift.

I don't think I would be such a passionate creative if it hadn't been for her support and motivation. I don't think I would have known where to start. And from my relationship with her I have had the luck to take so many opportunities and learnings away.

  It is taking me a long time to find light in a world without our dear Judy, but as I sort through the bits and pieces, the messages and meaning I find in all she left behind, I’ve found that what speaks to me are her choices to live bravely. Like a message shared only 2 months ago on her facebook page says: "Life is short, Take the trip, Buy the shoes, Eat the cake"

There’s one story I need to close with, in honour of clearing the air regarding a little fib I told Judy, and never came clean on.

It goes like this. One day, we were walking up to see Judy from our house (two doors down) on McGuinness drive (or celebrity drive as Judy liked to call it) and Mummy and I were playing silly buggers, shoving each other playfully on the road. It might surprise you but my mother can get pretty boisterous when prompted and is a LOT stronger than I. During our game she flung me off the road and into the unkept nature strip. Which would have been quite a comfortable landing, had it not been for all the stinging nettle hidden amongst the tall grass. And I was now covered in it and moments away from being expected for tea at Judy’s.

I was crying cause of all the stinging, but my facial expression didn’t compare to Mummy’s, which was one of absolute fear, 40% because she felt really bad for pushing her daughter into a stinging peril, and 60% because she was deathly worried about being labelled a bad mother by Judy. So through my tears I said I’d take the blame. Arriving at Juju's with tears in my eyes, I explained sadly that I’d jumped into a patch of stinging nettle unawares. Judy looked at me and quickly remarked “You STUPID GIRL!” and my eyes wandered to my mother who bashfully winced a smile for me and mouthed “thank you”.

Judy was quick to judge, but you always knew where you stood with her, and she was incredibly proud and loving of all her friends and family. I’m going to miss her so much. All sides of her.

the sundown hot rocks

Sometimes when I want to feel the weight of metal crushing bone
when the ambers up & I'm alone, my skulls observing their ways home
theres a man in a parked car pushing his face into a candy bar
my drilled walls have their imperfections, like each alone has his obsessions
you're just a sweating image on wooden floorboards too far away to see me sigh

Hear water sneaks through, I've got to let it in
& step back to watch you walk that road rubbed underfoot
& the places where they skin you & leave hot rocks inside
& where they taste you & judge you & you feel alive
& where the sun goes down different every sky
I just want to be in those places at one time
close enough to hear you sigh.

man/otter/boy

While you are in the kitchen I am wide eyed sleeping
on another plane I feel you walking in me

there’s a ticking at the window
and cars crash on the outside
but we’re inside my head
You are drinking up the goats milk
filling up that white glass

but I can’t leave the bed

there’s familiarity in all our foreign fixtures

the salt gets into me & seagulls call their sisters

outside dark that knows us both
we get scared under our coats
but waters in our ears

The ride will rub it off us
and jump into a steamy
mist to disappear

You are close to me and features all go fuzzy
sometimes you cant see, this book is oh so muddy

the otter rubs his whiskers

deep into her body

and she is fully dressed
with every bit of happy
he slaps at a mosquito
her blood is all that’s left

“Spill some more red wine, you’ve got to use your poncho”
Look up at the sky and see the washing floating

I just love this game
I go insane
but I was unprepared

lets get out into the big world
and lets put on a show girl
cause we don’t fit in here.

fast poetry

touch the paintings which shift into colours

and theres tiles this place is ugly and bare

we live without water

but we are water

and the stink wafts ugly and black

like a cloud but our heads are outside

we belong in these forests

these forests of life

who protect us

with their limbs

but we go for the future

recklessly wandering the cities

without emotion

numbly floating

to a destination outside our hearts

sexually following a state of emergency

our ears explode

to an ocean which calls us in

to protect

what exists in these heads

is more or less the same

why do they move the way they do

these little cities

powering inside our brains

so much in the dark

with no violins playing

anymore.

no music to build suspense

just some silence

which spins figures in the sky.

ourmarbles

There’s a short circuit

Of this brain extract

Don’t fight colour

Or break those fists

On the hard white walls
I took your nerves out
of your cracked skull

They looked like marbles

Pale and candy insides
I threw them to the roadside

That click that brakes in you
It brakes in me too
So let it rupture coloured creed
Let us climb these trees

and run from time
hand in hand, foot by foot

Goodbye

Write yourself a song about the beats,
the beats that eats the ends of you
that play in your brain a soundtrack insane
but oh so delicious my darling.

Then run a bath that puts the colour in skin
that bath you can’t begin to step in
that you disappear to wet fire within

But oh so delicious my darling

That sacred place, it finds you
and in your sleep rewinds you

That sacred place, it finds you.
and in your peace, combines you

Just that the skies are grey
and the toes are warm

you’re  a beat on the breeze
I’m a moment in freeze
The people jut from the landscapes
they are tiny fungi’s of every colour
the grass lives and heart beats
in earth below me
it fills my cup of energy
and I WANT WANT WANT.

El Tiempo de Verano

Toqué en la universidad por unos Mexicanos hoy en Guadalajara.
Played in the university for a few Mexicans today in Guadalajara.

Summertime

"...y conocer y aprender Espanol, No se, como que, no tenia... no tengo eposo, no tengo hijos, no tengo un curso de universidad, asi que, ahora estoy independente y quiero usar este tiempo que puede ser que no lo voy a hacer en otro parte de mi vida"

"... and to know & learn Spanish. I don't know, like, I didn't have.. I don't have a husband, I don't have children, I don't have a university course. And so, now I am independent and I want to use this time that perhaps I am not going to do it in another part of my life"

Chichiriviche

They take in beer like breathing air

the waters wake at ocean edge

ladrones jump from bridge to bridge

to catch them unawares

questions in the calle, lips

offering some ridings round

a twinkle of a finger flicked

a secret worried frown

we wait our bodies bleached in brown

like fat worms along the ground

for them to rob fat wallets and

fat screams begin to sound

The innocent riches rob our roads

the seas of costly crustaceans

they rape the rubbish off our backs

and cheat the cream from crayfish

The sun conceals a sticky sombra

the sand obscures a glass

the birds fly joining catted claws
domestics in the dark

Mountain Pokey

In the depths of the colombian mountains,

fertile greens & country limbs

a bus drops down a danger ridge

a cedar coffee brims

the words wag out of racist things

& crusty brakes of buses ring

Into the town we creatures rumble

sophisticated sexualities mingle

We watch the coloured cookies crumble

inside the local pokeys

these people caged in an exhibit

the lions for the show

“Watch them prowl & run around,

they don’t even know”

But they’re kept tight on the schedule

of the local casino

They like to see the pictures buzzing past

its a kind of therapy

that golden handle dropping down

that shiny chime of glee

their eyes wide open, fast asleep

their fatty wallets full

it all goes in without a doubt

“We’ve really got them fooled”

They think that they are gonna win

it makes them think they do

they spend their week away in there

They spend their pockets too

And outside the world is living things

and bird & bug & air

but now we’ve trained their minds to think

they really just don’t care.

We watch the people of our countries

line up in this parade

we sell their stories to the past

for a fine stockade

They were our friends & family

They were our neighbours too

but now we’ve moved away from there

with money from the zoo

They aren’t too much like humans now

they don’t eat much or sleep

They leave their kids alone at home

they wander just like sheep

so my conscience doesn’t bother me

nor the money in my purse

for Im an addict just like them
but I got to it first.

The Humanos Solos

I’m an explosion of histories

which shape a mind

I’m a series of colours

of which these lights remove blind

I’m the sensation of a series

rushing like a highway

to the summit of a person

an orchestra who’s been trapped to play

he’s a master of his fingers

who fashions a world of wood

to bring these creatures out from deep in dark

to be madly understood

he’s a symphony of which every noise

is placed at careful cree

each instrument that struck a note

he knew was meant to be

and there are different clouds from which we change

the earth crumbling beneath

when we jump from eye to eye

we taste moulded beliefs

& these roads escape each other

or quickly intertwine

for we are really solos
whose waters sometimes combine

Routa Ecuadoriana

Crossed Casas

The sunny shores

beckon my brain

though I am at the beach

the waving winds

awake the aussie gums in me

though gums grow great & grey

the skies are a window

to those perfect painted afternoons

but here the sun sets over the ocean

and the dogs who roam fleabitten

are a totem to a curly haired beast

who here the canines need more love

And my Argentine family

how they swell up memories of home

beer in hand.

Hitchin’

Yellow feet left a mark in the middle

A history re-written mechanically

& us with heavy plumage

are fat in the back

the oxygen overwhelmes

and we are painted crazies by the wind

An outstretched thumb

brings our backsides to the seat

The seat - he changes skins

& tongues.

A cobbled plastic plate

at times a feather futon

or the jumpin’ metal of a beaten brown box

And here inside the film we flash
present in the pictures.

With eyes for the night

we take flight

and over the cementary of our dreams

we explode into our purble cartons

they cant see us when were ghosts

I can imagine us

socks off

crawling through the mud of danger

dressed in aggressive grinnings

with the battle birds singing overhead

and then I can see him.

He’s bringing menace to the bed

a drunken swim to thick air

and the breath of a beast

of smoke & far off coffee fields

where the sand scrubs beneath our bodies

a distaste from the cats mouth

his back arches in anxiety

we prepare...

step back...

lift up...

and blast the this ancient glass in all directions to escape into cloud folds

we sink in deep
greeting sleep.

Brain Cricketings

There are crickets snapping in my brain

& you cant hear them

I describe them to you but sometimes

you can only see their legs.

You dont notice that I am not here.

and you dont love the mystery of where I belong to - the earth

I belong to a skin & this mud on my feet is me too

And that cricket clicks his tongue with beautiful menace.

You put your ear to my head and hear

nothing,

but the beetles inside your own head

and I can see their faces

but they never look at mine.

Love is a word said too often

from the lips of others
but with you its real.