Spanish Rock

One day to lay down

be a passive rock

in time

allow moss to explore

and cling - a beard of sorts.

Tiny moss hands

find holds

in crevices and thoughts

whisper

secrets into dreams.

One day in time

to soak up eternal sunshine

like the rock

heat penetrates

blocks the doubt.

To find the silent song

so strong

all ears can hear

and decide

to pay it no heed.

One day to be a wall

a spine, a gated arch where hands

your hands

might linger, touch, remember

the fields once rested in.

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Farewells

There are these spaces,
gaps, like branches,
with mouths that whisper
and scratch at our sacred dreams.

Leaves emerge from branches
at the disappearing point –
magic in the moment
different from the image at large.

Memories are travellers,
inhabit our gaps,
pretend an existence
lost in the space folds of time.

I carry the weight of fallen leaves
feel the heat of their decrease,
disdain the way they catch and hold
all liquid regrets.

I remember footsteps,
sunshine and a million oak leaves –
yellow and red stars fallen, cold,
crying out for a Spring long since past.

Displacement

He stands, right hand holds the shaft

of a spear – solid as a tree rooted in dirt –

left foot

communes with his right knee, he

stares out across unfolded years,

searches for the home

lost beneath the brutal feet of sheep and cows.

She sits beside the meandering river

her feet – weathered by sand and sun –

cleansed,

mind full of white-water churnings, she

stares deep into the days

before she was removed,

brought to this station of cattle and blowflies.

They once came and parted like the waves,

stood silent – eyes shining, opals of the land –

or sang together;

before strangers came, they

shared food and painted sacred sites,

strangers changed everything

with disease and lies.

Now the young

begin to gather – celebrate in smoke and paint –

find their memories,

their wisdom unearthed by feet thumping land, they

fight the tyranny of histories

written on the bones

of their displaced ancestors.

A white man dreaming while sitting on his front porch:

 

Rivers snake across the ground

as sun catches the water, scales reflect,

sear the eye; behind the closed lids

footprints of luminous red sand,

above the curved tin roof, hidden by day

stars the same and different, known figures

turned upside down, scrutinize.

From the branded and beloved familiar,

plants transplanted into mulched soil,

blue cottage flowers sway, fruit trees, fruit flies,

bruised, fallen rose petals, the quiet suckle of aphid –  

loaded shotgun demands attention, hungry

for twitch of rabbit and fox – if you have to kill

better it’s the carcass of an animal you comprehend.

The stone people:

This land is made of stones,

stones along its shores

washed by the ocean, stones

that listen to the waves,

that cry with the gulls

and understand the journey of sand.

Stones guarding the mountains,

stones playing in the fields,

large stones with white swirls,

small grey stones;

even the heart of the Land is a stone,

the greatest stone of all, it pulses

from sunrise to sunset,

a red stone that shares the land with all.

The stones of this land are alive,

Understand the serpent

that is river winding beside them,

stretch with the tree and grass,

run with roo and emu;

this Land’s stones breath and feel.

This land is so old the stones

have learnt to be, formed a lasting friendship

with the people of the land,

with the animals also.

The stones of this land have heard the songs

and learnt to sing,

a deep beautiful stone voice

that weaves peace into everything.

The people who came to this land

in wooden ships

and canvas sails,

who came with cotton and wool,

with steel and wheat,

did not pause to listen to the stones.

The new people who came across the sea,

proud in their accomplishments

ignored even the greatest stone of all,

treated it as a sideshow.

The people who came

could not hear

for in their chests they carried

their own small stones.

Those stones,

so recently arrived,

had not yet learned to hear

and were unable to feel.

The stones of this Land

sing still,

hope with the Land

that the people with stones in their chests

will one day hear

and learn to understand.

crazy white fella

Time…
Time was
Time changed

A slow drift of embers
Changed into a yellow ant fire –
Repeated scurry
Crazy hunger to locate
The next source of dinner

Time…
Time was
Time to return

Loop back – a river’s meander
To send the ants back to their homeland,
Leave this land free
Of their greed and hunger.

Time…
Time was
Time is

Never to return,
The meandering river hoops too far
Turns into the billabong;
A circle that does not flow.
A slow decay.

Time…
Sixty-five thousand years of time
Two hundred and thirty-one years of time

Crazy white fella time,
The rush towards
Never the pause to look around;
A clutch
Never to unfold.

Don't fence Me In

Uncivilized, uncouth, the wild men
run aimlessly through the bush;
the dark skinned, the lazy, the near naked beasts
barely human;
the sloth, the heathen, the devourer, the mere hunter-gatherer,
the precursor, the dwindling line, the mistake,
the demon, the inbred, the buffoon, the dead;

many dead
slayed with bullet and germ, houses to burn,
livelihood to ruin, women to rape, children to take.

The Sacred Land
stolen;

survivors watch
as civilized newcomers do untold damage
to a land the darkies had known for more years
than the well-bred had ever known their ancestral homes.

An unfenced land,
free of war.

An adjusted land;
well worn, hitched when necessary,
cleaned and set aside regularly,
taken care off the way the civilized man
takes care of his favourite shirt.

Danny Fahey's Writing: the interview to study librarianship at Melbourne ...

Danny Fahey's Writing: the interview to study librarianship at Melbourne ...:   I had decided – or had it been decided for me, luckily it was 1977 so any decision was free, contextually. ...

the interview to study librarianship at Melbourne University 1977:

 

I had decided – or had it been decided

for me,

luckily it was 1977 so any decision was free,

contextually.

I wore my favourite shirt,

white cotton, only four buttons to the neck

overly large, unflappably flappy –

it was even clean.

jeans, I think, basically

in 1975

it was always jeans,

I think.

I entered the formal entrance,

two huge doors, wooden, designed

to intimidate and they worked

I had never been in a building with two doors;

doesn’t that say a lot about the doors I had,

and had still to cross,

then followed a sign – it read interviews this way

and the arrow to the right.

I followed, dutifully

and found four students hardly older

than I was seated, erectly, behind a large table,

the table adorned with a white table cloth –

it matched my shirt

unfortunately, except whiter

newer, and suited to that room

and time.

“Sit,” said one. I sat,

and the interview began –

I blame my voice

not its timbre,

its deep, beautiful resonance, a bassoon of a voice;

rather its ability

to locate me specifically

and in that room, on that chair,

it did so perfectly.

I could hear their voices and noted mine

my hair too, long, obviously washed,

overly so,

and combed to perfection –

not theirs,

allowed to just be, hanging loose,

they had no attention

to details to worry about.

as I spoke

I felt the chair moving further and further away

a speech in a long shot – the reverse zoom,

table, corridor – two double doors, outside;

“thank you, we’ll let you know,’

but we already did. Them and me,

my voice and theirs, my hair and theirs,

everything in that room knew –

even the room itself knew – and especially

the portraits knew;

it may be free but I was not

gaining entry.

Danny Fahey's Writing: Thinking of Kevin:

Danny Fahey's Writing: Thinking of Kevin:: The memory I often have is a babble of voices and a rickety table, the cafe could be any café, the place, kn...

Thinking of Kevin:

The memory I often have

is a babble of voices and a rickety table,

the cafe could be any café,

the place, knowing you were there,

somewhere that served good coffee.

You a conjuror on canvas, wood and with paper

would find cardboard (a coaster?)

from somewhere, fold it precisely

in those hands that could, slide it

to erase the wobble before we ordered.

We could sip the day away

like two wooden birds on the back rest

of the carefully driven car

dipping again and again their beaks

into the coloured water glass.

The sky would change colour,

we would watch it

as if before us was your palette

with the white ready to change everything

weak and strong simultaneously.

How could either of us know

the traitorous blood within

carried the thing that would undermine you?

How could we see that the hint

was when you went off your food?

The will of the world is ironic –

how else to explain

one of your grace and humour

would succumb in the stomach,

the tail in the mouth to form the cycle.

Confessions XIV

what chance – a dinosaur’s; 

i came abundant with armour, 

dull-witted but with resplendent strength,  

i strode through life 

armed with a tail club – i was prepared, 

discovered i was not – what use breast, 

thigh plate, 

weapons with spikes, strength and size 

when the ground beneath, through shed tears, 

turns to mud 

i sink, 

fused lizard 

refusing to change, 

i sink

confessions XV

crickets hoard inside cavernous skull 

the echo of their burred legs  

rub neurons — sleep a winged devil 

distant in flight — 

inside i am alight, words  

i should have spoken chirp  

through the long night 

around 3 am i rise from bed, 

pause to hear your gentle exhalation, 

the sound of life creation, 

stand under the shower’s despair, 

hope to drown the crickets 

or at least force them 

to stop the incessant friction  

at 5 am in bed 

on my back  

stare into the past 

the scene replays  

again 

what i should have said 

straightforward in the dark — 

veracious words, white crickets 

chirp and depart, leave behind 

the should have been husk 

Acts for the cowards:

Cowardice festers
loads guns, takes aim at dignity,
slays morals,
dresses itself in the camouflage
of courage.

It is easy to kill
victims never warned —
image having the balls
to warn beforehand
and then go to war.

Terrorism
is craven, hides behind
the platform of a manifesto, manifestly
it murders innocents
fearfully.

Guardian gone - revision 1

Guardian gone

(For Rilke’s angels)

lost angel

there when young, guardian —

comforting one…

of an evening

as head rested on the pillow,

nostrils inhaling sunshine

the cotton had captured…

feel the wing-tips caress,

softer than sun-captured butter,

forehead recalling the ocean

sand smoothed

footprints erased

each time waves venture forth

then back, then forth again…

once always alongside,

present as a stick held in the hand

to run along the fence

or a school bag, rotten fruit forgotten within,

slung across a shoulder —

accepted, never consulted,

a weight that lifted hours and words;

helped with the walk away home,

provided the reminder to return.

the time cannot be pinpointed

nor the place

the mislaying occurred, only that

one morning discovered to be no longer…

winter heralds a dearth,

trumpets emergent silence and

the sun’s escalation of distance…

no matter how often

a remote reflection is glared at

he will not return…

cannot —

he would no longer recognize me

even if he was looking.

confessions I - V

I

you are not dead – yet

in a thicket

less than one hundred acres dense,

i construct words to be said –

a self-congratulatory warmth;

i imagine the looks i get –

in my perfectly conjured church,

adjacent to the wooden casket,

tulip-shaped tears, a tremble in the voice,

a slant of sunshine that captures

the Kodak moment

II

my children, adults now

(so that i must adjust my expectations

up) occupy the stretched skin and bones

of those i hugged – the discarded husks,

eyeless sockets, toothless mouths,

gather dust in the shadows

of empty bedrooms

as the gate clangs behind them

i swallow, curse my silence —

lips sealed with the stone slab of fear —

imagine them, carefree, hands waving,

voices like laden bumblebees,

departing into lives receding from me

III

the wind catches the pegged sheet

makes it snap like a chained dog

at flies it cannot catch — i sit

on the tram

beside a stranger,

for no fathomable reason —

the seabed so far below fish

make their own glowing lanterns —

he must have adjusted his seating

seventeen times, and in the secret barks

behind my silence lurks the violence

between uncommon foes

who share no reason, only holes

in the clay where hands

should have smoothed the lumps

into sustaining shapes

the jiggle of the tram regularly makes shoulders

touch – as if the tram seeks to dislodge

vengeful convulsions, witness its unveiling,

watch the outcome of two people

unleashed – unable to read,

i stare at the reflection captured,

me and the stranger sitting on the tram,

they unaware

their downfall is plotted

before one of us disembarks

and the imagined spilled blood

pools and vanishes into the cesspool

of unrequited acts hidden beneath city streets

IV

the cricket rubs legs with a vigour

to match my stupidity

but vigour is never a match,

stupidity is the unlatched door,

everything in

everything out

instead of heeding the cricket’s advice,

act like a little devil,

a begrudging smudge that lessens

the whole without intention —

fly to the stench with an eager intention

that ruins the delicate balance

my nails wish to scratch,

and the more the mind

tries not to think

the more the itch grows,

on edge teeth clatter...

believe they are mandibles

but worse is the heart —

a canker able to forestall memory

where lessons like apples dwell —

the heart is the worm that undoes the skin,

undoes everything

in acts so petty –

remorse is the sound that remains

after the trumpets have sounded

outside the walls of Jericho

V

lies emerge from the cocoon of lips,

With baited breath

flitter like white butterflies

into open ears especially —

unlike flowers who close up

shop, dream of legs

and stamens and things that fly

transporting them into the future

— at night

lies have sticky legs, steal

incorporeal grains

that cannot be held,

are rarely spoken of,

yet without them we grow insubstantial —

though truth be told it is as much

about holding on

to the corresponding undefined parts

as it is stealing precious grains from you

i lie therefore i am and in the deceit,

grown like a beard to hide the face,

i recreate the fearful child

for childhood

is the greatest white lie

ever told

in innocence

childhood presents itself,

the eternal path forward

that weaves through hills and forests

created to wander through

or to pause beside a river

and think that reflection is eternal

the old man knows;

sees his reflection, how it is not him,

not the face he expects every morning —

no matter how the preparation,

the shock is always the same

how did it come to this

where have i gone

try to reconcile that face

with the image held

the way the bee carries pollen

from place to place