Summer Murderer

typed on Royal – around 1976

“… As a Young Murderer”

want to kill

rip apart

with my bare hands

want blood

to taste

to smear

across my face

over my chin

between the fingers

of my bare hands
<>

want to kill

instead

I get on a plane

reading

in the airfoil gamble

I want to rip my book apart

strangle someone

then

slowly pick up the pieces
of my half-finished book

then

wash my hands

after reading

I often wash my hands

my hands

are ordinary

not thin tapers

with long artistic fingers
but squarish

with solid grasping fingers

that create

yes I paint

you’d never tell from my fingers

that I do anything

except linger

you’re never tell from my hands

that my fingers

savour the skin of knuckles

brick wall ground

grazed as they pound a head

your head

the head that would never think

that of these hands

my hands

passive now

as they touch

the corners of your mouth

down the back stairs

playing on the pipes

‘nineteenth’

playing at them with spoons

‘here it comes’

tapping at the airfoil

pumping on the surface

‘nineteenth’

playing on the pipes

echoing up the stairs

‘here it comes’

then I dream

of regrets

sorry sorry sorry

I’m suddenly

all so sorry

I didn’t stop to think

I rarely do

I think of myself

I only prime the repercussion

percussion

playing on the pipes

lead pipes

“pieces of flesh

and some hair

were found …”

my hair

is always clean

I like the feel

of fingers

gripping at my hair

pulling it out

roots & all

looking for a hold

to keep me looking

as they slip away

as my eyes disbelieve

my act of turning a corner

without looking back

to see if I did

or if I glimpsed the doing

reflected by alley darkness

blind alley

that’s how they found me

dancing

‘here it comes’

my knuckles raw

the spoon of blood

in my mouth

singing

‘nineteenth’

suddenly

my perception clears

a book on my lap

spoons tapping on the pipes

something in the air

a taste of spring lamb

I want to kill

but

am too tired to clean

want to kill

instead

I come back to my vision

a dream revelation

of the endless tease

of energy

within my grasp

without my control

This poem equates violence with masculinity in a very direct, in your face way propelled by a barely contained anger. I was compelled to write something that was aggressive, unflinching to get away from the emotional delicacy of the poetry I was force fed in high-school. There was lack of real physical interaction beyond the tenderness of a lover’s kiss. I wanted to write things that weren’t safe because my real life was confined by culturally imposed rules of gender behaviour.

I performed this piece a few times while I was still living in Sydney. ‘ taste of spring lamb’ was the name of a poetry reading I gave & I loved the dark energy of this piece. It was also a lesson to me that people see what you’ve written as you – that this was confessional as opposed to a character I was exploring. More than anything it revealed my desire to shock not to kill.

The language departs from my Dylan Thomas influence – no pretty pictures here but definitely some very clear & visceral descriptions. The narrative voice moves from that rage, to an almost tender self-awareness of both the speaker & he reader – the reach out to ‘touch the corners of your mouth.’ There is the dream logic word association that goes from ‘pipes’ to ‘some hair’ to ‘my hair.’

The title is a reference to both James Joyce’s & Dylan Thomas’ ‘Portrait of the Artist as a .…’ ‘nineteenth’ comes from The Rolling Stones’ 19th Nervous Breakdown. Writing poems like this is probably what spared me from actually killing some (or myself) & from having a nervous breakdown.