TOPOGRAPHY
(31-10-20)
Westgarth 11-25 a.m.

“change here…” (for yesteryear —broad brush

cliche but aspects-of OK —argue forever

the truth of ‘here & now’ —a grounding

apparently without air —

[REVERSE Separation St —> Westgarth

as tho ‘elsewhere’ & ‘before’ banished —

anticipate rejoinder: is how & why ‘self’

vanishes in the Eastern way —(slowly

last dip down to the ‘Garth —

the Good Earth is maybe only the familiar —

(an age since i’d thought of Chris Torrance

but did simultaneously as Robert Hogg presents

Facebook photo of Chris’s 1968 Ferry Press

GREEN ORANGE PURPLE RED’s cover —

right here & now again! —whom Tim at Grosseteste

thought i could contact —might share best part

of a world view in England ’69 —brews his own

Tim said (in a future biopic seen drunk among

fallen apples in the shade of drooping

branches shot by sunshine interspersing

afternoon rainclouds in a scene

from unmade Peter Greenaway film —

heroically bucolic (A Vision (nothing

as complex as 1970’s first trip featuring

Dave Rogers’ “fifty-thousand Rembrandts

in the sky” on Southampton Common nor my

ecstatic understanding that his walking around

& around a particular oak politically

his ‘territory’ and psychologically

his ‘terror-tree’ (astoundingly find the book’s signed

from Chris “to Kris with best wishes 11/11/69” —

black biro on quality off-white paper —

such accessibility elicits tears —

tears strips off grandiloquence

[REVERSE

Westgarth alighting (where

have i been? —fifty years & counting —

steps —drifts —of such disjunction can’t imagine

anything so coherent as “life” supposes

(& where has Chris been or Bob Hogg come to that?

if not here —

here! —

always here

oOo
TOPOGRAPHY
22/11/21 Northcote — All Nations Park back

of Coles shopping plaza —Degani’s take-

away coffee or la famiglia dine-in bespoke

pizza cold-drinks cappuccino cream-pastries —

sit on bench beyond cafe where Pi O joked

“old Greeks” decamped —out of dark

interior looking back from sun bathed park

an ululating moozik —name it rebetika

as if old Greek except for momentary oblique

must be Italian —neither Turk nor Iraq/

Baghdadi descanting Ahmed Hashim’s bark

at same moon & stars same night —

wine-all-gone ache as any might

wake with —too broke too tired too late

to buy more —would sooner croak

than beg —here in this world its flocks

of beggars -slipping stratae agreed- hacks

with pens & notebooks the poets of Bachus’

house temple his devotees —mine too

(Mike Dugan in ’68 urging on us Hal Porter’s

“Watcher on the Cast Iron Balcony”

in midst of Liverpool Scene & Beats at least

to know past & present Melbourne he said —

read again now to know our late friend?

(jump genre & generation —jump pages

(disbelieved the 6th while signing Covid register

at Degani’s retraced to the 3rd —but it’s December

14th! (tell whom now? the adjacent

that is the necessary ear —who can i tell?

(thank you loves —comrades —the interminable

hollow hour (Heather: “this broken night” —

Chrissie: “our embattled family” —

shock horror

-im memoriam-

John Nolan died Dec 13th

Mattie: “big brother to us Godboys, forever

grateful” [topography rewritten

9/12 —corrections

& additions —

(wiser after the event —

(always tell everything

Dec 15, ’21

fin

oOo
TOPOGRAPHY
2-iii-22
i.m. Jordie Albiston (because your name’s now Forlorn

because this place is where Neglect now decamps

because for all i try cannot distinguish your star in

afternoon’s thunder-beclouded Melbourne sky

(because Doug Oliver wrote me back-when

about our babe’s heart perforation —

told us to hang in Rett & i —bade us love &

courage —learned from his own experience —

i pick his pocket here for the enflamed word

‘HARM’ (because whatever he used to be he’s red

toy engine’s driver now on same edge of All Nations Park

as daily arrive for coffee —stare at what fast becomes

emptiness —blurred parkland as tho’ naturally edged with

alternating European & native trees (because

toot-tooting in a language equidistant Thomas

Traherne & John Bunyan —i’m here to learn —

sink or swim —replace ‘or’ with ‘and’ (a Bourne-

mouth where angels pour forth like Melbourne

rain in this year’s coincidence with Lententime —

enter the Agony as Catherine found

to say —timely yet urgently

out of time (because first born’s

twice born —foresworn? (can’t find vital quotation

but if ‘KIND’ is its necessary contradiction

catch a line for Jordie Albiston —swain

despite never-the-twain —

“pretend to know how fully

she was alive; / from departure

at least learn how to arrive.” —

‘Uncollected Poems’ section

p169 published Allardyce

Barnett 1987 (March 4th

painstakingly enter the sea

turned-on by my Doc Ricketts

inlet —descended gingerly —imbibed

the smell of the sea all times’

memories —perched on edge

of rock realised the scent

on the air is seaweed —is seaweed’s —

sends me to the beach (“Stranger

on the Shore” (absent War —

Love & Lovers too (“Down around Biloxi

pretty girls are swimmin’ in the sea /

They all look like sisters in the ocean” —Jimmy

Buffett 1977 (motion only

subsuming all or any

oblivion —because any-

thing else right now

unknown