The Queen of Hearts will find you every time
I wrote this to read at Passionate Tongues on Monday 7th September as part of their Travel feature night for the 8th Overload Poetry Festival.
I have this idea
Victoria Harbour
Hong Kong 1999
I am at a low point
A charming Sikh
Red turban wobble
“Madam, why do you cry?”
There are too many reasons
He gives me a playing card
The Queen of Hearts
To magic my sorrow away
I have this idea
That if I toss that red queen
I can leave the me I don’t want
Right there in that bay
And get on the plane
And fly up and away
She is strong though, that lady
You wouldn’t believe
She battles and strokes
Through the South China Sea
While I am at home
Licking my wounds
Waiting for my new life
My new me to begin
She is fending off pirates
In Sulu and Celebes
Riding whale spouts
Past East Timor
Conquering the Arafura Sea
While I am at counseling
Affirming and visioning
Reinventing and constructing
She’s hit dry land
And is dragging her way
She legs it from Darwin
And hitches from Katherine
She is fierce
She is bloody
She just will not die
And while I am
White lighting
And healing my chakras
She is underneath trucks
Like a horror film star
She is clawing and crawling
From Alice to Coober Pedy
She will not stop fighting
She will not give in
And on a late Sunday morning
Between coffee and markets
She appears at my doorway
Ravaged
Triumphant
Ferocious with glee
“Nice try,”
She says
- and laughs quite maniacally
“But I’ll always find you,
No matter how far you run
Or how deep you hide
I’m stronger, I’m faster, I’m angrier, I’m greedier
And I know what you can’t
You’re not you without me
We’re together for all time.”
Confessions of a festival convert
Festivals can inspire or enervate. How much comedy, jazz, food, wine, fringe, community and mardi gras is too much?
My guilty admission as a writer is that I have always been wary of Writers Festivals.
I know writers who immerse themselves, loving nothing more than devouring the words and company of other writers, being surrounded for a brief time by their own kind, reveling in being out, being social, being away from the chair and the screen and the keyboard.
Whereas I tend to feel a creeping suspicion that I will be overwhelmed with ideas and my cynical streak – usually more or less under control – will spurt out, showing anyone in its path with nasty vitriol and anti-social over-reaction.
But this year, in the spirit of ‘doing things differently’ (to avoid the self help curse that befalls those who always do what they’ve always done) I steeled myself for two sessions of the Melbourne Writers Festival.
I have a few simple words to report in response.
Yes, rooms full of writers and readers can be overwhelming. There is so much information. There are so few opportunities. There are so many things one should have read and so many people one should know. There are so many pitfalls and so many writers of greater talent, success and renown.
But rooms full of writers and readers can also be humbling. And inspiring. And grounding.
A shift in the kaleidoscope turns a new light on what could appear to be a room full of desperate people, waiting for pearls of knowledge to drop and change their lives forever … to see what is actually there: a room full of passionate, caring, interested, ordinary, funny, flawed people – all of whom are willing to give their time (and money in some cases) to care in a public way about ideas and words and life and literature.
And truly great writers can remind truly aspiring writers of some of the really helpful tips to keep you going when you’re down.
Have faith in what you are doing (not necessarily faith in how well you do it).
Write in good faith (don't write what you don't believe in).
Work harder.
Try and do it better.
Revise.
Work harder.
Revise again.
And don’t forget – when in doubt – to work hard.
Titles of works that don't yet exist
I want to hurt you but I know it would be wrong
- Diary of a babysitter
She cleaned with the ferocity of a child of separated parents
- A study in OCD
A woman walks into the space
- A play
I don't want you to lie to me, I just want the truth to be different
- An existential self-help guide for the deluded
The Answer
- Insert your question here
Then and Now
Then:
A letter from my boyfriend, penned at 3.00 am
telling me he loves me
to assuage my insecurities
Laying his heart open
Promising to be with me
Now:
A post it note
on the kitchen bench
penned by me
telling my partner's daughter
that there is risotto in the fridge
for her lunch
Saturday Morning
A bewildered yelp
followed by silence
everyone rushes out of shops
a man walks solemnly, dog in arms
people point the way to the vet
and murmur confirmation to each other
(yes, a dog
yes, a young man
yes, the vet)
we were shoppers
now, suddenly,
we are a community
Moon Wonder (in honour of 40 years)
Fly me to the moon
said the song
and they did
Watching the documentary
I understand conspiracy theory
it is too much to be believed
How did they know where to aim?
And how did they know how far they had to go?
And who steered?
And that picture of the earth, a perfect, jewel like sphere?
That can’t be real
that can’t be where we live
They said they were driven by worry but not fear
that a tiny thing might go wrong
these were not men haunted by demons of existential terror
although one said he was scared, more scared than an astronaut should be
Astronaut – how did that even become a real job, or anything more than fantasy?
They walked where there is no ground and they breathed where there is no air and when asked were you lonely he said I knew I was alone (the most alone a human being has ever been as far as we know, the one orbiting around with the others down below) but I was not lonely, no.
They reached ‘magnificent desolation’
and more than one came back with divine belief
Sometimes the happiest times are when you are alone with purpose, out of the orbit of the every day, traveling light, the bare necessities and only room for essentials inside and out, a task, a singularity, people and habit and demands and routine a remote reality.
I did not know that they left so much there.
a strange colonisation of debris and machines and
cameras and LEMs and Rover and flags
Did they ask anyone?
Who cleans up the moon?
How do we even know it’s called the moon?
Was there a sign?
Re-entry cause more trauma than the effort of the trip. There is only so much you can leave desolate. The rest comes back with you, every time.
Yourself.
Inside and outside.
Back to the rising muck, the littered, rubbished, heaving, groaning, decaying, screaming, bombarding, growing, not at all peaceful, loud and lewd, real life.
Back on earth.
Wishing,
Wondering,
What precious part you may have left behind.
And if it might have been the bit
that makes
all the difference.
The new accessory
At the bakery
young women with ironed hair, long boots and semi-tone orange faces wear babies casually
These new accessories are slung with careful carelessness on hips and shoulders
It has started raining outside so they are all trying to fit their 3-wheeler, plastic covered accessory holders into the bakery
It is hip to be mum
And so the human race carries on.
Is the horse lonely?
There is a horse in a paddock at the end of the street.
There is a bath tub with water in it for the horse to drink from.
When I visit the horse, it doesn't approach me,
but it does trot along beside me as I walk.
I guess it hopes that I have a carrot or a cube of sugar.
Those are the things that girls give horses in books I have read.
I was never a horsey girl.
This horse I like because it is always there and it is living in the middle of West Footscray, in a paddock surrounded by houses and factories and warehouses and it trots along beside me when I visit.
I have been away from home for nearly two weeks.
I did not tell the horse I was going away.
What do animals think when people they become accustomed to just stop showing up?
Do they feel hurt or get angry?
I imagine they are philosophical.
But I figure the horse must be philosophical in the first place to be at peace with living alone in a paddock surrounded by factories and houses, in the middle of an industrial suburb.
So I hope the gap left by my absence is not too severe.
What's in a name?
A friend gave me a CD
by an artist he admired
The artist's name on the CD cover
is JOAN.
When I saw that, I thought to myself,
"What an interesting way to spell Joanne. J-O-A-N.
JO-AN instead of Jo-anne!
Maybe she is Spanish.
Or Canadian."
...
...
The next day I looked again at the CD cover and saw straight away that the artist's name
is Joan.
And Joan is the perfectly natural and regular way to spell ... Joan.
A moment of intriguing linguistic transposing?
Or will I one day look back and see this moment as the
beginning
(early onset, what's that word, starts with A, it's what old people get)
of the end
?