The Sex-Starved Lives of Dingoes

I’ve done a little internet research on the sex lives of dingoes, inspired by their recent reappearance in my community. Interestingly, they only mate once or twice per year! Which must make the sex pretty damned hot. Check out this video – these two are smoking: http://www.arkive.org/dingo/canis-lupus-dingo/video-di09a.html
The other interesting thing is that in a pack of dingoes, only the alpha male and alpha female are allowed to mate – the subordinates are actively prevented from doing so. A bit mean, but I guess it’s nature’s way of ensuring only the strongest dogs breed. Here are some disparate narratives inspired by the love lives of dingoes.

Howling for an Alpha

The dingoes are live tonight,
pursuing love like confetti
in the moonlit streets.

*
Calls pepper the canopy
with unresolved disputes.

He was always free to ask but chose
to eat the question marks, washing
them down with bottles of wine
and self-loathing.

*
The dingoes are free.
Say it again: the dingoes are free.
They might be crying,
might be crying out for each other
but at least
they’re not
chained up about it.

*
Now they’re chewing on the bones
of an old debate – the Dingo Fence.

Alpha female hits the fence again. She’s run
up and down that line
the past few months
but there’s no way in.
She’s still being punished
for some other dingo’s sin.

The male on the other side is a sorry beast.
A road train collected his story. Now
he’s mangled from the hips down. He drags
his sex around like a debt. Cannot
howl to the moon – he’s forgotten the words. Stammers
an apology for being born, hurls
himself at the barbed wire
again and again, beats
the love out of her poetry
until it’s dawn.

*
And the males are closing in.
‘Everyone wants a bit,’ the old dog says,
‘Everyone wants a bit
of the alpha’s scent.’

But she’s lost her friend.
They remember the best ways to please her
but she’s lost her crippled friend.

*
Extinction:
you just stand there and watch
as this faithful dingo
becomes a line in a poem,
fodder for a song.
You write her into the grain
of a cheap, pine coffin.
And afterwards,
collect the awards.

*
Alpha male, meanwhile,
has waited. He’s watched her attempts,
rubbed her paws when they ached
from the pointless trips along that fence.

Only alphas mate. So they always
knew it would end like this:
her leading him back
to her lair again;
him taking her by the lead, taking
his place by her side as her equal.

*
He drinks her down.
He drinks like she’s the Last Supper
and he’s a disciple.
He works on her like a bassist
works his strings. He takes her
to the top of that ridge, tunes
the growl at the back of her throat
and then releases her
to the waves that come in.

Afterwards,
they cover each other in smiles
and thankful howls.
She remembers that song now.
She recalls its obvious title:
it was ‘Fun’.

*
The next day, the dingo appears.
There she is,
skipping down the bitumen, rippling
hope between her bones,
grinning like there’s no tomorrow,
no poetry to burn –
only a swell of satisfaction
in her womb.

Gospel

In B Minor
(but another key will sound just as sweet)

The mute boy
talks with his hands.
Pressed by love, he attempts the gestures
that will make her understand.

He carries her load, holds her fear, erects
a roof over her head
when it’s raining danger.

He takes the lion’s share of the weight.
He takes it in silence, prays
that this time he won’t break.

His hands go ahead of her, untying
deadlines, securing peace. He relies
on the truth of his actions,
the diction of his wrists
to say it all.

Despite this, he only finds fault,
detects a stutter.
This tradesman’s tongue
sounds like split timber, a spilt
laksa, a missed moment,
the wrong chord in her favourite song.
It’s never been good enough.
The gestures are wrong.

Like every poet, she talks too much. Her words
flap like geese in his phone.
So, this time, she pins her wings
and uses Semaphore to tell him
that his silent phrases
have signaled her heart.
And to her, they sound like Gospel
or a football chant or a march of workers
meaning what they say.

The mute boy means what he can’t say
except through his eloquent hands.

Hostages

Hostages

A sweet note
beats a slipknot.

*

This is not what you’d expect of lovers,
but everything you’d dread
when two poets lose their heads
and fumble for rope
to hitch up their hearts.

*

A slip of the tongue, let’s call it,
set the scrub fowl gouging
and your trust continues to cave.

*

I wrote you a ransom note. Or three.
I offered to remove your blindfold free-of-charge
but you like the dark.

*

Your notes are passionfruit –
tough skin, poor results from attempts
but when I finally cut you open,
harmonies spill onto my lips.

*

That’s not me slipping a knot
into your noose, lover –
I’m behind the guards, singing your innocence,
wanting you free.

*

I am beaten, you have slipped,
and as with every hangman’s noose,
it’s too tight to loosen.
But I’m on my way with a knife
and passionfruit on my tongue,
and this is everything you’d expect
of a poet
who is useless with rope
but expert at cable-tying
words around your heart.

Nick Cave’s war

Back in gender wars again … These are disparate thoughts I’ve gathered over a period of time. It all started at a dinner party where someone asked what the female equivalent of a ‘womaniser’ is. Then, the next day, a Countryman was telling me about the ‘man-eater’ in the mangroves. I was wondering what female spirit he was referring to. He was talking about crocodiles. Of course ….

 

A Game of Cards in the Trenches

I’m sorry for this three-year war, / for the setting up of camps / and wire and trenches (Nick Cave)

1

Man-eater:
a croc
or a woman;
one who takes head
but never gives it

 

2

Womanizer:
a tool that pounds a seasoned affair
to mush

 

3

On nights that sweat vodka
flying ants mate. So many
females losing their wings; so many
males losing the will to live,
fucking themselves into squalor, upside-
down in the greasy sink while frogs
gorge themselves and spew.

Wingless
but every inch a woman,
she crawls from the carnage
with a trump card.

 

4

There’s no war – just a little distance –
between my soldier and me,
a period of leave.
He leaves me to a dry monsoon.
I’m a comfort girl
in need of a singlet.

 

5

A tall man
has a long way to fall.
Her eyes are a blue waste,
and he won’t sail towards that hunger
without an anchor on the shore.

 

6

She’s ridiculously in love, brushing
past the open jaws
in the jams & spreads aisle, ignoring
their orders, thinking
of his wind-torn smile.

He’s back at the bottle-o,
pickling his libido,
leaving girls on the avenue
without a ride.

 

7

He apologizes for being late,
he apologizes for his dirty plates.
The soldier pays the whore to say he’s sorry.

 

8

Watch me blow to a Category 4, red
and relentless.
Watch me kick away from your cliffs
and carve a solitary track
as I slow towards a sorry system.

 

9

And then, in the trenches,
the rain fell
and neither of us moved
for that would’ve broken the spell.

I suggested Snap.
We won and we won,
and, finally, the cards lay on the table,
done.

 

Things Could be Worse

Things could be worse: you could be at a funeral

For as long as you can
assume it’s good news.

Take your heart out at night.
You’ll sleep better.

Remember that crabs are really just spiders
who toughened up
but even crabs need a place out of the rain.

Things could be worse:
you could be at your funeral.

For as long as I can,
I’m going with the sand and the tide,
and ignoring the baby sharks
and the beached fish.

Please take your heart out and show me tonight.
I could do with the sleep.

 

 

’14th February’ as documented, reliably

I was digging around the internet for information on St Valentine. Wikipedia had some slightly dodgy, conflicting stories but one thing appeared to be true: February 14 is the day upon which Valentine died – a very brutal, violent death. V-Day could be celebrated on the day he was canonised or the day he was born. It seemed strange to offer gestures of love on such a bloody day. And then I looked at the classic gestures: flowers with thorns on them; the colour red; the bottle of wine (/blood). A very Catholic understanding. A very Nick Cave blend of lust and violence …

‘14^th February’ as documented, reliably

Valentine dies.
And we mark this day tipping wine
down the throats of those we adore,
we offer petals with thorns,
watch the chocolate melt in the back
while up front, we’re too hot for that
stuff and wish we’d bought a pool …

The frogs, meanwhile,
have nothing to give a fuck about
but they do, anyhow.
And the next day brings rain
and memories of a one-night stand
that wriggle into life.

Boys vs Girls vs Care Factor

The References

Close Facebook.
Silence its tired wars on gender equality. Outdoors,
the waves and frogs and frogs and waves
fight for the last word with more grace
and less hysteria,
and their references are sound.

Gather their counsel. Catch
the rain in your wine. You’re losing
your grip on time and hoping
that love will come full circle before it’s the end.

Leave your son to find his own feet. God knows
as long as you’re around he doesn’t need them.

Step gently amongst the fallen,
the white frangipani. Flip
the Christmas beetles right way up
again. It’s the small acts of care
that can kill you.
There’s a man climbing the stairs
with a glass of wine because you’re working late.
These are the things we take.
The tiniest baby gecko swallows lives.
And this is a test on yours.
And just three chords of love make it all worthwhile.