If May were to call a spade
a spade, would Spade hover
over tenets and terms, flatten
freesias, ferns, friction, fiction,
to strike stretches of Pater-
son's Curse or Salvation Jane
and kangaroo-paw terrains, so
burying the bloom labour and
language could claim and cover?
III
sweet Persephone knocking on the ceiling
love your meads and love your flowers
should they be at the door
with my sheep and dogs round white boulders
chancing upon
ivy and impatiens
while flakes bind the ankles
of your sovereign sleep
dragging me towards the top of this building
II
you hear names they never knew
ivy and impatiens
yet can't remember
snow tiptoes on the valleys
blanket upon blanket
lost and found between satellite dishes
red centaurs take their time
indifferently repeated
while your alkaline soul turns over
a fragmentary signal
in the world of small changes
I
kneel for no cause
smile with no purpose
endless supply of grandmothers waving
petals and ties
the passport i forgot
dial hold step aside
and kiss on a grass-green pillow
the music will start in a minute
a window to a house with a door from the summer room
ivy and impatiens
with burnished clay riesling bells
there is almost always a slope however slight
a window
looking down to
blind whispers of
two fences clothes pegs guests in yellow and blue
above the silky dreams of insectivores
the same drought part of the australian bush as yesterday only waking to a flash flood
water sliding the balding hill and shifting my inner landscape to a kind of environmentally aware comfort zone the top soil gone I am challenged to build something reverent look my family over for similar signs but it's hard to tell the rain gauge is the centre of attention walk on water or drown –
the plan for the tower is almost real enough
to put down on paper
there'll be soft places to dig the footings
a greening before a ripe moon
enough blood
to set the first stone in place
All the good songs come from the men
leaning on staves – watching sheep graze
on a field without fences. So I am told.
In this country they dry hay on this sort
of wooden rack – and in that country
they dry hay on another sort of rack.
The little barefoot girl runs with a switch
through the enclave of pensions for pilgrims
after the eager cluster of early morning goats.
Two cows loll at their ease chewing good cud
viewing the laborious bent humans, grandma
and her daughter's daughter, planting spuds.
Another grandma in black kneeling among
ripe strawberries in the patch that in another
country would be her front lawn. Not a weed.
The cherry orchard slaps the windows of our bus
extravagantly. And how delicious they are, small
and so sweet in a white paper cone, and so cheap.
Yonder in a grove surrounded with flowers
There is an insect nourished by men at their own expense.
O austere mathematics!
O lamp of silver, my eyes discern you in the air
Hear the thoughts of my childhood humans of the red rod:
I looked for a soul that could resemble mine and I could not find it.
The Seine is bearing away a human body.
See the mad woman dancing and vaguely recalling something.
Forever pursued by the image of mankind
It was a day in springtime.
A red lantern, vice's ensign, swung a foul corridor
A gibbet rose from the ground.
I am filthy. Lice gnaw me. Swine, when they see me, vomit.
It is a man or a stone or a tree about to begin
Holding the taut barbed-wire with one hand
And myself with the other,
I gaze at the ground
As hundreds of shining grey dust droplets
Roll away from the rotting fence post,
Down the hill, moving like mercury.
The drumming piss
Makes surf of the dirt,
Churning it into frothing mud.
Apostle birds (perhaps twelve of them)
Launch and fan off above my head,
Upset as I shake off the last bead
And refasten.
Four thirty coal trains bump and grind/ papers on the lawn at five/ bees on blue early/ empty schooner glasses one drink from the pub/ breeze through the window/ scattering bark across/ kept out by glass/spiky coffee that sticks/ old Bob Marley washing up/ to the radio all background bullshit/ fridge door, fridge door/ watching gold dragons flutter on flags/ wind chimes tangle in branches/ grass through graves/ doof doof on the freeway/neighbours fighting/ she says, 'you're never sorry for what you do'/ do we call him Evan to his face or as she calls him, arsehole?/ bees trapped inside a screened window frantic/ jar full of water like a stream/ snip snip secateurs through wisteria/ on the side of the road/ the car a flat tyre/ red sequins on the noses of deer/ swimming out beyond breaking waves/ in dappled blue water/swimming other people/ me backstroke you crawling towards me/ hot car sand in my cozzies/ beers of an old afternoon/ legs laden with pollen/ /sirens chasing cars driving through red lights/ the rise of noise at the pub/ maybe we need a dvd for tonight?/ wheeze of train doors closing on another day/ deers in headlights on TV/ sail away for a year and a day.
i was raised in a traditional background youd recognise it,
two trees some rails a dolphin, sun going down,
the usual drug problem. what are you looking at?
god, suck it up. if only there were more like you
ready to settle. you were raised in korea & never learned
how to ride, or how to leer. im always strungout,
but nothing. even cooma & wagga begin to seem
appealing a dream of sublimation.
in a room talking to a generalised you.
rubbing & feeling semi anaesthetised, fate, in pieces like parrots,
i couldnt sleep so the doc gave me credit-
this isnt an ad i went to acland street to dance.
eventually shooting up with ajax my bookie.
sometimes i spend all day in the sandpit.
i left home, teddy bear in hand, wolves crying
toowhit toowhoo, dont come in. i only got into the water
to avoid getting into you. this isnt the way it ends;
cold turkey tepid crocodile farm, theres a man coming with speed
with half a bag of love-for half everybody,
& well wake up again, & change sides like pingpong.
out here
past the kangaroo tent
past the magpie toilet
through the ant infested
rubble
that calls itself
a home
nah
it's all bullshit
I don't want it
but I need it
we all
need it
But
it doesn't mean
I have to
love it
out here
inside the dead cow
museum
northeast of Beveridge
northeast of
somewhere
I sit
I drink
I look
Look at the blue sky
that tells me nothing
but home
and despite myself
I smile
but not love
never love
Here in Great-grandpa's hut
an invocation of eucalyptus.
Mist appears most mornings on this ridge
caught in rough branches' cobwebs.
I rebuild what is worth preserving
employing hand tools from the past
my favourite, his antique adze.
Hammering ricochets down the valley
silencing the birds' barracking.
After bathing in the dam's bracing water
I love to dry off in the bliss of the sun.
Every few weekends I visit town
for live music at one of many pubs
built when this area thrived on gold.
My fingers tap to fiddle & harmonica.
I observe the usual courtesies
but if asked too many questions
rise and leave, my drink unfinished.
At the hut I play Lou Reed & Tom Waits
read Ondaatje's poems, or Carver's
skip rope, punch a bag, snack on cereal.
The Internet meets many needs.
On some days I drive to a distant town
a relief teacher of curious kids.
As night falls wallabies eat my scraps.
All I lack is someone like you
to share the music, to shake out her hair.
The field is in its element: confetti
knee-, neck-deep. As rain is the applause
of the sky, so this is delirious
burning in cold light: a hyper-tide
of breathing. Skies vanish
in warm breath-banks, opacity
of words and, quarried from cloud,
whole speeches of snow furring
the soft map of earth. Into the storm-
lines, shot with frozen stars
a blurred outline
moves ahead, out of earshot,
lugging his bag of instruments
to the car. The snow-gods follow
his footprints, filling them in,
effacing words. Silence.
His visits always end this way,
speaking completely leached
into dazzling whiteness:
an open contract unfolding.
So complete, in fact, the silence,
that after darkness falls
the white gloom goes on smouldering
with what there is left to say.
like fire but cold
the orange uplit clouds
stream across
the depths the
fierce stars
driving up I felt kangaroos
watching from the bush
my foot over the brake
each to our own
godless apocalypse
the city below is
obsessive perforation
pinholes in the black
strain the welling up
of some flickering
exultation
Walk a while in any direction and you'll find
a field
or an empty bottle
or a pop can filled with purple gas
It's not big enough to be a real city
but, heck, there's a mall
you could walk across it with three long-legged strides,
but no one does
They got them new VLTs at the motel bar
and it's always the mayor's wife
plugging quarters, with one eye closed
and her daughter's hips
swaying up the stairs beside the beer vendor
entering red-curtained rooms
peering out the window to pavement and weeds
chain-link fence around the back lot
Talk about
the weather
the crops
the price of milk
ask the girl at the greasy counter
not a girl really
she's been there twenty years
but ask her anyway
about the straight line of road
about her bubblegum lips
about the shallow lake,
its cavernous floor that swallows your foot
ask her where the water
comes from
where it goes
and why on earth
My husband hands me the animal.
A soft neck roll and a dead eye,
a lustreless fur that I must touch
to strip and salt and peg to dry.
He is away all the day in the dust.
a eucalypt oil smell taints his neck
he comes to me
bones meeting mine
a hard fit
a green lawn at the edge of a desert
my heart, inexact
There is a sharp knife in the house.
I gather the wattle bark and boil it in a drum,
leave the skin to reek and call flies to it.
weeks pass, his eyes squint with distance,
monosyllables doled out, hard shillings
minted rare from his mouth, whiskers on his chin
scratch my skin. I pretend. Sleep.
Pulling one parsnip each, one leek.
The hard-fought cream, the butter's luxury.
The wallaby seasons its last useful night,
salt and pepper crusts its meat, the oil rolling
like mist off a morning.
Brown and sere of fat, it rests.
The marjoram rubs its scent on me.
The leek becomes soft, the parsnip tender
under butter. The meat drowns in gravy.
He chews 'til all the flesh is gone.
I pull the reddish hide from the reeking drum,
tip water to thirsty ground,
watch it drain.
At the edge of the close-cropped lawn
laps the drought, thirsty tongue all out.
Every change of name pocks its mark.
A scratch of smallpox on a survivor.
The squatters clear a small place.
A tongue licks dry lips.
A hand swats a fly, its buzz an airplane overhead.
All lawns a transplant, every ant a scavenger.
Under sod, a small tear, a drop of blood.
A bead of sweat collected in a dry swell
of pale earth. What birds wheel on Mulberry Hill?
On the face, carved eyes look down.
Make space. This land is too wide.
Plant feet on it to make it mine.
The house leans against the icy southwesterlies,
Dreaming itself as one of those pioneer ships threading
Between gnarled cliffs near Glenample & barbed islands,
Running in uncharted waters before five green fathoms
Under a Moon too shy to show even her petticoats:
Something's loose, a panel on the west gable, a roof tile,
Something the second mate should have seen to.
With a pensioner's wheeze and sigh the gas heater fires,
The pillow adjusts itself to my head – the water's cool
As I begin to recite the line, but it slips away:
Night sloshes up and down an empty corridor,
A wonton knot forms in my left leg at midnight,
Something nameless digs deeper into the earth
Shadowed by the crossed arches of joists and bearers,
It sounds like an unwanted guest in the bathroom.
Light leaks under the bedroom door, a cat insists itself
So we shift and make room for this surrogate child
Turning & burrowing under blankets, as if to eat our warmth.
Across the road, a car door slams, someone yells.
Asphalt clicks underfoot as she heads into the fog,
And our river, always the river, slithers out to sea.
Then it's your turn to wake and relate the latest visitation,
How your guardian angel has reappeared, or more likely,
Elvis embraced you by the shoulders and crooned.
We read a dream-dictionary, you cast the runes,
But the walls remain silent, there's no ghost let loose.
Then the line returns, so our hero can step out
Into a grey-eyed dawn, listen to magpies caroling,
Watch the first skein of pelicans move along the valley –
As the house heaves to, loosely rattling anchor-chains.
In a large semi-detached timber dwelling doubling as a restaurant, a patron has
ordered something no longer on the menu. Verb. To hit someone with a horse.
To run into someone with an old race horse with a royal title in its name e.g.
prince queen. An old track horse put out to pasture and watched sentimentally
by a stooped man with a yellow beard. Hit meaning pushed up against without
serious intent, but not a brush … less an accident or bang! The slash of white on
the horse's head meeting with the middle of the chest. A good daub. The way
people without hands learn to paint with their feet. Painting a horse with a slash
of white chalk on its head. Riding a horse into a canvas to let the simple stable-
man know which horses are 'out' and which are 'in' as far as the pasture goes.
Old grass. You spat from your mouth and decided you couldn't live in the
country or wondered whether an old race horse had pissed on this part of the
paddock (the taste left in the mouth after you've eaten with a brand new spoon
but forgotten to wash the cutlery). A sink full of cutlery. Dangerous as a frothy
sink full of new knives. Cleaning dirty windows with an old sock.
braking by the wide verandah a pall
of dust behind the ute dogs slouching
towards the driver waiting to be borne
aloft loaded on the tray no-one walks
to the shadow of the pub stalking utopia
a string quartet isaac stern on first
staring into the dado jackie on cello
brushing at flies with her beau (call him dan)
waiting in the parlour utopia this is
despite the dusty space that swallows sound
(a plucked string sends the pullets clucking
and scratching in the dirt laying eggs
for the king browns to swallow and the
taipans) inside the ladies lounges
the pianist (call him dan) displays his charm
muscular crescendo spent diminuendo
as the schubert swells in utopia and fades
if only the rain flooding down
the diamentina or the train
up from the big smoke perfection here
is all too dry (if musical) and lonely
despite the van its loaded dogs
disappearing up the road towards
the diggers' weekly shaft the golden
sunset as the quartet saws the evening
into dusk into dust settling
on strings and sounding board tomorrow
we paint the stump black pure black
back of utopia the camel lies down
with the dingo the potbellied children
(their thinness stalks) agog with the music
wanting nothing
each day I am bird glad.
hassling the sky
as it flies
straight
and believing my
enemies colour
blind.
I am whistling and hooting
the air into
moulded proper shapes
(even now.)
one startled day
I will inhabit
that kind place
as secure and comfort
able as a frenzied can
opy of
soft
falling
songs
in delicate passage.
each invisible day,
(then,)
I will be sure
of my flight,
endless ly
twitter about some may be
destinations.
each
new
bird
day,
my community of
hollow bones
will finally, gladly,
suffice.
I come from the dead zone with clap trap jaw and clankin gait
and bulletswhistle is my song
halloooo coooweeeeee goes burnin down thegreengullylacedwithferns
curlin coyly hideaway and low-dippin' currawong calls
my locomotive breath announces me, my breath in the darlin morn
and my heart jumpin with the joy of jump-up to that
carnivorous constabulary dead-set keen to eat us all alive
damn if I'll not slip from the steam of their winter broth and when they aim
– and only then – then in my wrath I'll rain damnation down
upon their tick-pocked heads
callin all you lustrous coots and laddies hidden in the bloody bracken come
or lead-riddled, swimmin out the ether, bound for heaven or hell which entertainment
we can wait indefinitely for to see
for all scabby-knee kids never given a brumby's chance
astride my last I'm a moveable fort
a hero with breath forged in a fearful fire
June's bite an ice of iron
stop your coughin don't dream I will leave you
wrote I needed no lead or powder
wrote words would be louder
I lied
