Where we live
This poem was short-listed in the Williamstown Literary Festival Seagull Poetry Prize:
A woman
hidden under bulging flesh and sallow skin
sprawls in the Westpac ATM alcove
barks out her mantra: 'Got any money?'
When I lived in India I had a policy
of giving money to three people each day
This is Footscray
Her horizontal pragmatism does not invite conversation
and I don't think she is interested
in attending any community storytelling workshops
In the shared back paddock behind our house
there is a tree planting invitation
everyone welcome
I wonder
The morning of the tree planting
jackhammers blast me from sleep at 6am
busting up bluestone to widen the streets
Not sure why this makes me sad
it's not as if I laid it
It just seems like a violent
kind of beautification
At the 20 year school reunion
How have you been?
Good.
I think I still have a Whitney Houston tape of yours.
That's okay. You can keep it.
Consequences
The double seat stroller
stands outside a milk bar
one seat is intact
the other has been completely
ripped away
what did one sibling
do to another
to deserve such an obliterating fate?
Easter weekend
family gathers at my house
one niece and three nephews I take a photograph
of them on the couch
transfixed by Shrek 2
in their faces and gestures are the teenagers and adults
they will become
they will not remember this day
the way we played with the soccer ball in the back yard
the soft autumn air
and how our shadows stretched gentle on the ground
A time for napping
On Monday I start a 10 week running regime that my friend Jo sends me. By the end of week 10 I will be able to run for 30 minutes without stopping.
On Wednesday I am feeling great. My second walk/run and I am already building up longer running times. I will be fit and lean. I will bounce with energy.
On Thursday I have an argument with my boyfriend. Then I accidentally slam a door onto my left foot. Toes are strange and still for a while and then come up blue and bruised and twisted.
I accept this is my body's way of telling me that late afternoons in Autumn are for napping, not for running.
It is autumn
First Sunday morning
where the air smells autumn soft
and grey sky give way to
blue punctuated with Simpsons clouds.
By late afternoon my shadow
is so long that cars drive over it
while I am out for a walk.
I look down at it stretching
before me and my head
is a long way away.
This distance between me and my head
can only be a good thing.
While autumn is about nature
getting ready for winter’s sleep
it is the time of year that gives me most hope.
This may augur well
for my own twilight years
if I am lucky enough to have them.
Feed me ...
I started a feed
so you can read
New Words
in the comfort of your own
in-box
please note: these crumbs have come from between the cracks so cannot be verified for nutritional value.
Adelaide Festival
I am in town
staying 10 floors up
with a view of cranes, cars
and the casino
I visit friends with small children
Four heads bob
to Play School songs
faces slack with delight
Their small white limbs
flail and jerk
clap hands
crocodile jaws
stars in the sky
Stomp Stomp!
eyes wide
spittle sprays
dancing is an inalienable right
wading through late afternoon
white wine
we cheer them along
affirm their inelegant joy
Later that night
I dodge drifting posses
girls with owl eyes
and ironed hair
boys rolling on beer
baggy jeans
and spanking new white runners
Across the road
a crowd is frozen
in halted momentum
3 bucks tip forward
chests lean
legs scissor
fists clench
explode across the pavement
shouting revenge
while the girls
and softer boys
hover
suspended in the burst bubble
of hot night inebriation
over the body
red shirt
cream pants
slumped to one side
he does not move
I did not see the punch
but it has split open
the bustling night
of festival city celebration
Everywhere I walk in this town
I am knocking against shoulders
and elbows
no-one watches where they walk
At 11pm a line of bobbing bodies
puckered flesh
and slack alco pop mouths
spills out of Hungry Jacks
the mall is littered with
broken glass and abandoned French fries
Police on every corner
I count ambulance sirens
1-2-3
In the festival club
burlesque acts top off the night
a woman with a black bob
inserts a corkscrew into herself
then stands on her hands
spread her legs
and a red flower pops out the top
of this inverted vase
artists and those who like to be associated with artists
sit under fairy lights
dance on wooden boards
drink beer from plastic cups
swanning in their sense
of in-house belonging
It is a half hour walk
from the apartment
-where the children are now fighting off bedtime
I leave the mothers alone to deal with that one
their anger as uncensored as their dancing joy
to the festival end of town
I walk through the roaming
stumbling groups
who – fifteen, twenty years on from the dancing children
now need to be lubed up to try and find
that uncensored joy
just over the line from
random explosions of anger
The boy in the red shirt
lies still
sensible adults wearing linen stride past
ignoring the trauma
not my business
don’t want to get caught in the splash of
blood or dirt
The police buzz towards the scene
The snapshot starts to dissolve
as I walk past
head down, eyes straight ahead
trying to navigate
a straight line
from the sleeping children
through the unfolding street tragedies
into the place
where a green plastic pass on a lanyard
tells me I belong
Melbourne downpour
Melbourne downpour
means it takes everyone
hours to get home
I am safe and dry in my car
end of irritating work day
Restless and bored
Flicking through radio stations
I select the most popular
commercial drive team
There must be
a reason why
millions tune in every day
Within twenty minutes
I hear the drive team duo
a recap from breakfast
and a promo for the next show
Their voices are
hoppy beer on a hot day
creamy chocolate
a bubble bath for my ears
their words are big
fat bright shiny
glowing lies
about themselves
about the world
about the intimate
and down to earth relationship
they have with me, the listener
about how similar they are to me
and how far removed they are
from that mendacious
world of celebrity
Their lies
are so crunchy and
delectable
that I want to eat them all up
told with such brazen joy
that I long for them
to be true
Each lie is worth
more than my day’s entire work
ballooning their already
brimming bank accounts
inflating their already
elephantine egos
I drive on
the rain
steaming up
my car
I want to believe them
as much as I wanted to believe
that boy murmuring
sweet lies
in the rain
steaming up
his car
so many years ago
We want to believe the lies
but once you arrive
and open the car door
and step outside
you are alone
with only your voice
resounding
Thursday Morning
Driving down Barkly Street
I wait at a red traffic light
and see
two men sitting on a bench
One – dark haired
and swarthy wears a blue shirt
leans forward
arms resting on knees
The other – blonde
with sweeps of grey
yellow shirt
smokes a cigarette
They do not speak
Two men of middling years
with lives that carried them
to this Thursday morning
muggy grey summer day aching for rain
With lives that will
propel them on again
once this brief pause
in their day is done
In my story
they are little more
than featured extras
a snapshot I will carry
- until the memory fades
But for this moment
- car in neutral foot on brake, waiting to keep moving
they are the perfect shape
of contentment
Heat
At the library
a man with
a gaunt face
and stringy black hair
is approached
by a polite
Indian fellow
blue checked shirt
tucked into jeans
The first man is
sitting at the computer
terminal that the second
man has booked
Outside it is day two
of a Melbourne summer
heat wave
fast approaching
forty degrees
Many of us have chosen
the library as shelter
from the angry elements
The gaunt man
is not going to move
his face closed and hostile
someone took the computer
where he was going to sit
A third man
also Indian
a busy staff member
young and funky in
a Jackson Five t-shirt
diffuses the heat
finds another terminal
for the polite
waiting
fellow
In the foyer of the library
a stack of local newspapers
show images of the
memorial service
for a local Indian student
recently murdered
No-one in the article
can be sure that the
attack was racially
motivated
The melting pot
of Melbourne’s west
always simmers
and can rise to the boil
with violent surprise
But today
in this place of respite
things
are
cool