Ron Pretty



Widower

in the sink his hands his weathered palms he barely breathes at flowers springing into bloom bursting into fruit a love he can’t deny scratching in the dirt bloodied feathers he barely notices and the dread that’s risen in him …

Posted in 89: DOMESTIC | Tagged

Review Short: Ron Pretty’s What the afternoon knows

For Ron Pretty, the everyday is marvelously complicated. He’s in a hotel bar in Wales, the Welsh Dining Club is ‘eating out in a language rich and strange’, a birthday party is ‘agog with singing’, two young men are flirting with a blonde waitress ‘who shocks me with her flush / of free flowing hair’. Then, suddenly, he’s back in Junta-ruled Greece 40–odd years ago, involved with a young woman who, ‘behind closed windows’ is ‘singing for love, singing for freedom’ in a town with ‘rifles guarding the bakery’. Then back to Wales, and the two young men exit the bar holding hands with each other, not the waitress, who ‘takes my empty / memories and smiles as I too climb the stairs’.

Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged ,

stalking utopia

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 …

Posted in 33: PASTORAL | Tagged