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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

Copyright © Lady Labyrinth

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