City too big to be called a city. City too large to fit on any map. City too huge to have a name. In the city of Mega, it never rains. The colossal pap of remediation hits me. Hey, maybe you only live three times. Sidewinding down to the intermission between tracks one and two.…

A film-strength city situated, obviously, deep in the marshes. Canals full of treacle and drains that drip. Body-parts moving infinitely towards their obsolescence, pulsing nevertheless with the isotope of hopeless life. Hopeless life, staggering towards reproductive symmetry. Symmetry, between our bodies and the city’s design. Blank signs, stretched across a broken boulevarde. Dream spurts, like…

City of garrets and all-night nature rants. City of the invisible line between smoking and non-smoking areas, waves of smoke billowing freely across this demilitarized zone while observers from both sides wo-man their monitors. City of freak scenes and bad acne, too much foundation and red blood dripping from the lip. City of faux-soundtracks to…

City of radiation and pliers. To find meaning in the ad breaks between sutras. City of radio free emoticons. Television is a sheet of glass between eternity and magnetism. Decomposition comes naturally. We are of the worm. This electronic charge re-situates my poles. I crave great density. Listen to the crystals dictating terms for an…

City of vapour trails and suns that set like eggs in a sky of brandy. City of drivers on auto-pilot and air pregnant with the rumour of the first snow. Snow so fine it falls in shards and can only be seen in the light of the eerie streetlamps. Wan glow so eerie it makes…

City of emphasis mines and gravity bombs, assassination attempts and mourning news. City of lightning and turtle boat people. City of city slickers in emergency ponchos goose-stepping through puddles of rainbow-infected grease. Monumental city, shouldered with statues of great and far-flung revolutionary bandits. City of the comet Kohoutek and the Sun King. Wave your pink…

City of sandy streets in a lonely tear gas nation. City of secret cities and minimal identification requirements. City of corkscrews. Dawn breaks across the children’s playground, the eerie neon of the all-night soju bar casting a sick light over the kerb’s exchanges. As I work my way through this alien’s alphabet, I take solace…

City of dictator beige and magic honey. City of forbidden city kisses. City of pedals, of monument-scrapers. Torn away, postcards of atomic revenge from the wreckage of timecodes for the lonely or the plain-old bugged. I yearn for a simple light. Swollen on a gland, mimicking bubble machines in the air. The pressure makes my…

Turning upon the incendiary maple, coming down on an avenue of triumph. Hitting the kerbs with my new street sweepers, modelling my hips on the alpha nerd. Lips close tight on immediate gum. I’ve got a fistful of angry bleeps. Hiding noxious jugs under op-shop jackets, entrance to the club is a necessary bore. Fake…

City of hunger and dirty palms. City of manicured lawns and torn shirtsleeves. Evening yawns, the comforting sound of soccer commentary like little grains of rice on a tin roof. City of red meat patties and yellow potato pancakes. City of invisible beggars. City of cigarette survivors and pitiful shrouds. Well-to-do media students shoot movies…

City of riotous dance halls and movies that never end. I’m driving down an expressway lined with newly-planted palm trees in a hire car, the rental on which never seems to end. The harbour twinkles in the sunset and I never end. On the radio, they’ve jacked into 1979 and it’s terminal and it never…

City of incompatible systems, apocalyptic notations and superannuated evangelists. City of identical bookstores and foreigners prowling carpark stoops for keys, wallets, hearts. City of rude one-word email responses and grumpy old men found while randomly searching catalogues for grumpy old men. Shafts full of planetary sump oil tempt the one-legged. I hope at least one…

Sister city of the radiant golden hair. Pleasant chit-chat at a water fountain, long pregnant silences between sips from cans. The massive bandages of sympathy and sound. Concourses where the grass has been cordoned off. Traces of shampoo in the air, mottled with perfume-laden leaves. Sharp shoes and tiny foot stockings. Chapbooks devoured like supper,…

City of warm breaths and gentle men. City of pencilled notes begging forgiveness, expressing praise and cementing friendship. City of shared liquor. I met a man who told me his name and with that simple act declared his genuine sincerity. We walked by the river and talked aimlessly, covering neutral ground just as easily as…

City of miniature cities, laid out on lawns like picnic lunches, skyscrapers made from sweetstuffs, syringes for telecommunications towers, lights blinking away the loneliness of miniature people gazing up at the stars. City of landing strips and vertical automobile repositories filled with carcasses of crashes long extinct, shards of steel bone and empty rearview mirrors.…