I
The first
was a cross-hatch
of bodily lightning –
a nerve-net
of increase-sites
danger-sites
food-in-its-season.The first silence
shook out its leg
and sang low in the drone.There were no gaps
between it and story.The first silence
could not conceive
of an absence or end.
II
But
when the firesticks arrived,
that’s the first thing they found:
who could not
see their faces in the water;
who could not hear their language in the scrub.The stage set was there.
But the actors were somebody else.
Clumsily, shrewdly,
they misheard and improvised:
track names and creek names and food names;
tribe-bunting/race boundaries/prospects and vanishing points;
the Gregorian time-grid; the Governor’s space-grid;
the long names for misdeeds,
the Flash names – and all the look-dumb names;
the Secretary’s full-sentence edicts. . .
the jokes and elisions that rounded them, late, round the fire.An emergency lashing, a raft of inventions and doubts –
but the new silence held.And everything in it was God’s work.
And everything not in it yet.
III
Banging and whistling,
they worked to install it all over.
The Governor strode round and proclaimed it.
JP’s reinforced it with strokes.
Communions re-drank it –
and even the abject confirmed it by being left out:
a shape-shifting, feral, part-rational silence
of hard labour/Providence/Upper Case Principles/
costume/affection for Ma//
the self-songs of distance and dyings//
the God-song of weather/the sing-song of daily amens.A flexible, muscular lattice with scope for emergencies.
Except there were those
who kept gnawing away
at an ur-silence, out beyond bounds.Who would peer
into all those small lights.
IV
I hold the Gorgon’s head, my own, my own;
it stares this lockjaw land to light and stone.Hal Porter, Dry Final Scene
And this one was too big.
It stared at us blankly.
It howled from the ovens
and laughed at the lovers’ wet oaths.
It shimmied and bristled and clawed in a teeming biota.It sent Frank Webb crazy: for whom
each next tick would be Morgan’s last breath.
It was Nolan’s one subject: a sluggish but permanent creek
into which all events e.g. murdered policemen, would soon disappear.
It black-holes from Tucker’s burnt faces:
the ironbark-and-blue of a stonewalling rage dried to distance.
Humphries hurled gladdies and home truths to make it take notice.
White tried the glare of close witness.
Silence asked, Who? Them or you?And it won.
As it must. You can’t out-express silence.
This one was all absence.
Time to invite silence in.
V
Stand him up.
Brush out the sand from his hair.
Let him take as much time as he needs.
Who thinks
he has no other choice
but fight silence and lose:that his role’s to raise it with triumphs –
with projects and lovers
that don’t quite add up to a win.As if it succumbed to arrival.
As if it weren’t what we are made of, as well.
What can we do
except open the sides of our stories?Dance with it?
Come on Ulysses.
One half-step. One. And now two …
- 115: SPACE
with A Sometimes
114: NO THEME 13
with J Toledo & C Tse
113: INVISIBLE WALLS
with A Walker & D Disney
112: TREAT
with T Dearborn
111: BABY
with S Deo & L Ferney
110: POP!
with Z Frost & B Jessen
109: NO THEME 12
with C Maling & N Rhook
108: DEDICATION
with L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik
107: LIMINAL
with B Li
106: OPEN
with C Lowe & J Langdon
105: NO THEME 11
with E Grills & E Stewart
104: KIN
with E Shiosaki
103: AMBLE
with E Gomez and S Gory
102: GAME
with R Green and J Maxwell
101: NO THEME 10
with J Kinsella and J Leanne
100: BROWNFACE
with W S Dunn
99: SINGAPORE
with J Ip and A Pang
97 & 98: PROPAGANDA
with M Breeze and S Groth
96: NO THEME IX
with M Gill and J Thayil
95: EARTH
with M Takolander
94: BAYT
with Z Hashem Beck
93: PEACH
with L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong
92: NO THEME VIII
with C Gaskin
91: MONSTER
with N Curnow
90: AFRICAN DIASPORA
with S Umar
89: DOMESTIC
with N Harkin
88: TRANSQUEER
with S Barnes and Q Eades
87: DIFFICULT
with O Schwartz & H Isemonger
86: NO THEME VII
with L Gorton
85: PHILIPPINES
with Mookie L and S Lua
84: SUBURBIA
with L Brown and N O'Reilly
83: MATHEMATICS
with F Hile
82: LAND
with J Stuart and J Gibian
81: NEW CARIBBEAN
with V Lucien
80: NO THEME VI
with J Beveridge
57.1: EKPHRASTIC
with C Atherton and P Hetherington
57: CONFESSION
with K Glastonbury
56: EXPLODE
with D Disney
55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUS
with M Chakraborty and K MacCarter
55: FUTURE MACHINES
with Bella Li
54: NO THEME V
with F Wright and O Sakr
53.0: THE END
with P Brown
52.0: TOIL
with C Jenkins
51.1: UMAMI
with L Davies and Lifted Brow
51.0: TRANSTASMAN
with B Cassidy
50.0: NO THEME IV
with J Tranter
49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH
with M Hall and S Seita
49.0: OBSOLETE
with T Ryan
48.1: CANADA
with K MacCarter and S Rhodes
48.0: CONSTRAINT
with C Wakeling
47.0: COLLABORATION
with L Armand and H Lambert
46.1: MELBOURNE
with M Farrell
46.0: NO THEME III
with F Plunkett
45.0: SILENCE
with J Owen
44.0: GONDWANALAND
with D Motion
43.1: PUMPKIN
with K MacCarter
43.0: MASQUE
with A Vickery
42.0: NO THEME II
with G Ryan
41.1: RATBAGGERY
with D Hose
41.0: TRANSPACIFIC
with J Rowe and M Nardone
40.1: INDONESIA
with K MacCarter
40.0: INTERLOCUTOR
with L Hart
39.1: GIBBERBIRD
with S Gory
39.0: JACKPOT!
with S Wagan Watson
38.0: SYDNEY
with A Lorange
37.1: NEBRASKA
with S Whalen
37.0: NO THEME!
with A Wearne
36.0: ELECTRONICA
with J Jones