october 2017
Helena Road - Conor Maxwell
Got stories, eh.
Tales-for-days.
I’m a hard man.
At 8pm on Helena Road my brain is a tidal wave and what I got is
vodka-on-the-shore.
The rocks
are cavorting with light bulbs
and tin sticks shut up with black Gaffa.
Tie your bed sheets
double-Windsor and
choke me, Doctor.
Wild Moose on the other
side of someone else’s spearmint
tonsils
and nicotine.
Sharing is
dopamine. An orgy
of mouth-holes
and tentacles with taste buds
Denim crushing on poly
Index and ring against my
white-red collar.
Vodka
-on-the-cabbage-tree.
Dirt in her hair.
I ain’t like Lemon Squeezy;
it takes a circus
to undress me.
Takes absinthe and Aftershock tequila the Horsemen Bailey’s in a punch bowl curdled like
sick. Out back.
Dressed to the tens,
grab-ass with a Whiskey flask
and telling them I’m spoken for.
You’ve got me.
Cos you skol like a pro
and chat like a talk-show
and Sartre don’t got what you got when you smile
and no— it’s no puncture zone.
It’s no Devil’s Soup in an egg hat,
no crucifix polygamy,
pukeko and pregnancies,
inebriated backstroke and Roses for Valentine’s Eve. It’s
a quick peck
in the car park
of the Play House
It’s Kit-Kat:
two-in-one-and-blonde-like-vanilla-it’s
you and me
going down like
McDonald’s smoothies.
going home and
staying
there.
dis integrate - Conor Maxwell
we’re at the ‘now what’ stage
the ‘we need to talk’ stage
too late to book an ambo it’s raining pennies
and passion is hot-pink
like sunstroke or
blush
my arms on either side of your shoulders
(comfort-like)
while i somersault astral
reach
with mutant lust
for artists wearing hoodies that aren’t theirs
chimaera’s fires will never go out
but flesh burns hotter than mount and
i melt
on your footpath
while you hold the bucket
we’re current
not slick like water not electric
your touch is static but
i’m rubber
cased in wood
staring oaken at your amber fog
your shield of teeth
rougher than bark
the course of entropy is constant the cause is
you
looking at me
like i’m ambrosia
and you’re not thirsty
it’s chilling
(the linkin park stage)
the feeling of
frostbite on my tongue
of kissing through lip gloss
and mouth guards
rice paper fat suits and ‘did we or didn’t we’ butt grinds
through layers of
soil
press me
wrap me in asbestos and text me
babe
before you call the hospital
you still give me butterflies
but i want someone i can squeeze without killing
can choke without hurting
can fuck without hurting our chances of loving
in the aftermath of orgasm
when the sweat-glow is the only light in the room
you’re juliet
(i dig that)
but let’s skip class and get high on the astroturf
let’s steal a car
screw on the highway
trolley race down queen street play hide and seek in the park after midnight let’s hold hands and squeeze knuckles blue in the fireworks let’s make promises we can’t keep because the sky’s on fire and this city is dragging you through the dirt let’s never fight
let’s never fight
Rose-glass - Conor Maxwell
Shoot up a polaroid.
Scrapbook a collage, a mosaic of places, of moments
that scream of her:
Counting love bites
and footsteps in ever-wet concrete,
citrus smiles from a mannequin
that moves like Tinkerbell;
A capella Radiohead in a dressing room with no heat.
She’s textbox empty
nail polish on a vanity
and she’s looking dead through me
like Rayban periscopes
on an empty street.
She’s got me on my knees
rope burn on my throat
string between my teeth.
Finger painting is catharsis;
communication through zinc,
lead,
arthritis,
but lovers weep in letterheads:
Bookman for scholars
Garamond for head cases.
Cupids etched in margins
of a diary—
the permanence of fountain ink
and typewriters
falling prostrate on beds of scorpion grass.
Box wine and daisy chains.
The all-working arborist
bleeds cursive through spider bites,
snips the heads of succulents,
adds salt to the thorns.
I am rose-glass
in the back pocket of an Instagram model.
A voice cloaked in tartan,
unzipped in darklit boudoirs.
I’m the curtain rail daredevil,
the stardust on her cheekbones
yelling through yellowed gauze;
yes, you are pretty
yes, you are special.
A social refugee
shipped out in a handkerchief
that burns with jasmine,
that claws at my clavicle
the way she used to.
Contributor's Note
Conor Maxwell is an actor, writer, director, and high school teacher. He likes to swear in his writing, because he's not allowed to use that kind of language at work.