Blue Shotgun Lantana
"As other spirits sail on music, mine, oh my love, swim on your perfume." Charles Baudelaire
"Sometimes you find an old bottle from which the soul returns."
Charles Baudelaire
"Smell is a Word. Perfume is Literature."
"There are no women who do not like perfume, there are women who have not found their scent."
Marilyn Monroe
"Blue Shotgun Lantana"
She wasn’t sunshine
and roses
nor milk and honey
her halo tortured
sustainable trash
avid and quite forward
no siree, she was
the deepest claret
blood red poppy
black ink injected
ripe bush plum, burnt apricot
and fresh buttered
cinnamon buns on
Sunday mornings scarfing
religiously strong lux vitae
black tea, no sugar, the milk spoons
standing up to attention, "VC"
pausing swords fountain tipped
dipped in Private Reserve
velvet black ink sliding
in embossed buff a logos
for good measure
staccato clickety clack
gif repeating clickety clack
the bell dings a return like
schools in, "I had written him a letter,
which I had for want of better
knowledge, sent to where I met him",
Banjo by heart like touch typing
electric IBM vogue stylish "with it",
then, handwriting like exotic
Victorian calligraphy
debates around the table
jam spread rosellas reaching
for Rose's lime marmalade
raspberries petulant then
gone all cheeky chirping
adding copious lashings
like cream on toast,
then much later
down the track
like a runaway horse racing
headlong towards unstoppable train,
the sophisticated harbour
mother of pearl
oyster clams salty and
pink flesh opening
foxgloves racing
rising purple digitalis
pounding echoes of
silver cut grass
the lawnmower voice
declaring stand to attention
incoming collection
fresh for the dump
Drayton and home to
plagues and bitzer pups
ghosts of Ascot
whispering childhood
memories and
future matters
to be heard
a letter opened
the message is
"mark my words
finding good in that one
is like finding a grain of sand
in a sea of mud, leave while
you can, you must"
the recalcitrant child inside
knows best, so parks the
letter in a jewel box and
at that point, forgets
the message in word said;
there is tennis to be played
in short short skirts
Later Alcatraz calls
haunted by kangaroos
and flying monkeys
that ride the back
as if in wild surf
all seeking dark games
on a suitable civilised
fast played squash court
the backhand is vicious
like 6 ft under drowning
in quick sand
rain, rain go away
echoes of canons
pounding against
an eggshell blue sky
gone plunderously dark
and lightning shorn
breeze of eucalyptus
singular solitary phantom
leaves small story tornados
chapters scattered like puzzle pieces
and coils of taught rough hemp rope
swinging in the windy noose of war
insolent like a strung hammock
languid and pregnant
leaking mother's milk
like white sap from
an umbrella tree
atomic hormones
a life gravelled by short gavel
rat-a-tat-tat
like bullets expelled 100 per cent
assassinated in slow movements
an opera requiring sunlight soap
how to avoid contact, two sentences
guilty, not guilty
your honour, her honour
the sound of closing gates
min min are numbers
gaols for ghoulish light
blue shot gun lantana
smothers the forget-me-nots
electric pulsating
storm warning
heat waving
glowing sensual secretions
like sugared syrup
dripping luscious and
eloquently decadent
tasting notes rising like music
tilling substance
in the soil of lost poetry
naked skin scent of
bush lychee, exotic
oranges, green ants,
and sweet stinging
myrtle lemon drenched
strawberries and
Armand de Brignac Rosé
broken crystal, a hint of
tiger balm, citronella and
remnants of mosquito net
gunpowder popcorn
aphids, emerald gems
bleeding pomegranates
dipped in honey
the kiss from bees
pressed by hornets
manna on lips
brushing eyelids
of nightingales listening
singing their sweet
lullabies and serenades
while warm skinned
pungent bovine being
milked electric
watch on
chewing their cud
standing barefoot in steaming waste
between the toes, and they enjoy it;
a pop of pink lemonade
behind the ears for good measure
a breast loosely exposing
Rosæ Crucis crown
an emblem worn
once like a pistol
on a warm hip
the brain of a sheep
gone black and riddled
over the edge sharp
like Hunter S.
and serrated
fed from cans of worms
ingested ravenously
sustainable trash
avid and quite forward
her halo tortured
she was Lilith
ravishing and ravaged
in an antique Lalique
vintage soap box
Pandora kept gems
dog-eared copies
of old books
papery rum diaries
buried for compost
la fleurs du dechat
found in
le rien
barbed wired
bound by
blue shotgun
lantana
buried under
petals, the
roots of spreading
tangerine bougainvillea and
honour guards of colour
twilight amethyst jacaranda
nowhere near normal
subset, planted in the fixated
boring and mundane
avid and quite forward
hope kept
heaven scent
below gloaming
halo tortured
she was
lost territory
unclaimed
lost property
she was
moonlight and orchids
The label on the bottle
half buried,
covered in spider web, read:
"Blue Shotgun Lantana",
Fragrance of Dark Night
Not Dead
(LadyLabyrinth / 2022)
Les Fleurs du Déchet
https://youtu.be/NCvt4BAHE3c
"The Main Thing" / Bryan Ferry
https://youtu.be/0hXGpkvrMeE
"The Chauffeur"/ Duran Duran
https://youtu.be/MCF2nMrQde8
The Edge
"There is no honest way to explain it,
because the only people who really know where it is,
are the ones who have gone over."
(Hunter S. Thompson)
le rien ;
le néant
Rosæ Crucis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Mystical_Order_Rosae_Crucis
digitalis
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digitalis
lantana
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lantana_(film)
Banjo
https://allpoetry.com/Clancy-of-the-Overflow
rosella.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosella
https://www.theseedcollection.com.au/blog/Rosella-Jam
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