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.