xmas (3)

After the explosion…stillness,

paper torn, tape remembers

clutching things within,

lost now to the light, the secret is out.

 

Sit on the floor, chairs taken

by bigger bodies, one brother shows a shirt

that will never be worn, another a book

or a new record by the wrong band.

 

Some already gather the scraps…

 

Promises never fulfil; the harvest

has been lost, replaced with bright colours,

tinsel wrapped boxes, bows

that hold nothing, good things

only become apparent in later years –

none came gift wrapped.

coming home at Christmas

 

Years take us away, childhood

brings us back;

December mid-morning,

sun threatens to explode overhead,

walking up the winding road

to a house that was never my home

but is now theirs

I see the old man mowing –

the years I could gather

like seed

if I counted the times

I have seen the old man mowing

and on the porch old mum

waves a tea towel,

I have seen an ocean of tea towels waving,

all colours,

all fashions paraded through the ages.

 

Between the old man

and the old mum,

in the shimmering tar beneath the sun

I see shadow spaces, seven in all,

where once children ran and pushed, shouted and

cried at an injustice then laughed at a joke.

 

Where are all we now, broken

like rocks under the fury,

and yet

brought home by currents, sand

washed up

every Christmas at their shore.

sand in the crotch

The sun

rests low and sullen

in the west, the heat of the seat

sticks my towel to my back

I feel the tassels scratching

between my shoulder blades,

travelling home in the car

heat sits on the chest

like a heaving dog

windows down but the wind

causes lips and cheeks to blister

no relief

the sand caught in places not wanted

but being squashed between brothers

hands cannot ease the discomfort

of grains rubbing against skin as if my flesh

was the lamp of a bothered genie.

Guy Fawkes night

Anticipation unravels the set mind

creates havoc with intention;

the child’s mind succumbs

to timeslips –

last year’s rockets

and Catherine wheels,

the feel of the tom thumbs and penny farthings

the heat from the fountain

the joy of name-writing sparklers

makes the gap a trap…

 

mother, father,

I cannot sit still and wait for the sun to set

mother, father,

can the heavens not be a blind

pulled down this evening

so I can swim once again

in the chaos and colour

the noise and smell

the howling, yelling, laughing night

of Guy Fawkes!

mother (7)

I see mother, see your forgetful mind

has forgotten me now but not as I was

in the days of spring then summer

when the grass beneath my feet

entered through the skin into the veins

traveling up through the body’s secret passages

into the heart and mind. I see mother

 

the confusion in your eyes –

who is this old man before you now?

You see the child who plays in your garden

toys and sticks forming a world

amongst flowers and insects, his knees

bare beneath the legs of his shorts, dirty again,

his eyes bright with creation. I see mother

 

my old man voice startles you

until it manages clumsily

to take you back to the voice

that called out from the snare of a nightmare

or sang in that familiar kitchen

and laughed at your playful tricks

when April the First came around every year.

 

When I hold your hand mother

I watch as you look down and even your hand

is a stranger, until memory slips away the veil

and now your hand, the larger of the two,

holds mine as we stand at the street’s edge

watching carefully the cars pass

so we can cross to buy dinner for the family.

 

And where once when I was little

and we were on an outing, pancake

and tea at Coles that does not exist anymore,

you held me when the diesel train screeched,

unstopping through the station –

now I fear you hear a screech and my offer

of comfort is dismal and inadequate.

 

Leaving then, as I must,

leaving then, knowing you will forget 

this moment, knowing each time I drive 

away the distance is such

that I can never truly bridge the gap

but must watch it grow ever larger

in your fading, sad eyes.

 

I want you to know I remember also

when you were young and I

was younger still, when the world

spun easily and the days

were strung up in the brightest sun

like freshly washed clothes

upon the revolving clothesline.

mother (6)

marooned at the front window,

the little boy stands in shadow behind

silent, patient as the mouth

that knows the words are right

even before they are uttered.

 

Mother waits for a daughter

a roamer, a wanderer, feet

that take the child far, far from home

into the undergrowth, the forest

the realm of wolf and wildebeest.

 

Mother’s right hand crinkles quietly

the Venetian that blocks her view,

eyes moist with fear or revelation

study the street lit

by the flicker of the florescent.

 

The occasional growling car

passes, voices cry out – who is calling?

To whom?

Children about to drown

or in the act of discovery?

 

Cars are horrible emissaries

of the devil; steal keys and promises,

carry children to places 

a parent cannot journey

even those that know the path well.

 

The daughter’s voice is heard, the echo of her appearance,

mother releases the Venetian, breaks the spell,

I turn and flee back to bed,

head on pillow, slip into a dream

I hardly know or understand.

Do children still spin?

Hot summer night

the stars so bright a hand should

be able to pluck them

to adorn a hat or coat.

 

The creature stirs within

when the nights are warm

the sky clear

and school is over for the year.

 

Primordial, the beast fanged and clawed

stalking the aorta

rummaging in the stomach region

forcing voices loud as thunderclaps

feet to step and leap

hands to slap and clap.

 

The creature’s release is in the spin

arms flung wide

head tossed back and eyes closed

for as long as dared.

 

The spin weaves the brain

away from thought

from words and lessons and

conscious creation.

 

Around and around

feet propelling the spin,

the creature driven to explode

outwards into the cosmic bang.

 

The body hits the earth

arms again wide

mind spinning

and the world’s weight

an embrace –

humans have roots too.

I never went to kindergarten

 

every day I sat

on the Hooper’s front porch

waited for Ian to come home

from kindergarten

without needing to know

what kindergarten was

or why I didn’t have it

 

I wanted to play

and when he came home

we played

 

unless he was too tired

then I would wait some more

time is infinite

until it isn’t.

peripheral living

There were several children gathered,

cousins and almost cousins

playing cards,

imitating the parents inside –

children are the lyrebirds of the human world

adopt tone and stance to perfection; once

I copied my mother’s words and tone,

cried out from her lap,

“hurry up Mick.” Father entered

pretending to undo his belt.

It was a joke but not for me

I fled, crying like a corned fowl,

hours later mother found me

but reactions can never be undone.

 

In that circle a children’s game

played out – the thing remembered

is not the game, nor words

nothing except the way the un-cousins

stared at two of the cousins, those two

were engaged in a losing battle

to maintain their eyesight;

could only see their cards peripherally.

 

Grownups imitate those two cousins,

pretend to see reality

but adult eyes are always slightly turned

so instead of seeing truth

they watch the peripheral shadows

and never have to say a word

about what is actually seen.

pram rides through miniature worlds

 

Mother knew the child’s mind

how still emergent, a pearl

remembering the clam,

the child’s mind echoes

with the twilight sounds of the womb.

 

No one needed to explain to mother

the child’s mind

preferred miniature marvels

to the titanic artifacts man creates

almost in defiance of that earlier, innocent state.

 

For the day’s special journey, Mother

would ready the pram

then she and I would roam the neighbourhood

visiting the sacred front gardens

created for a child’s delight.

 

Tiny cottages hidden between towering flowers,

a windmill beside a pansy,

lakes large as two ice-pole sticks laid

end to end, two storey houses

for beetles and bugs to inhabit.

 

For hours she pushed me

around the streets visiting each of my favourites

or discovering a new one,

houses and bridges smaller than a moth’s wingspan

waiting for eyes to feast where feet could not.

 

At night, in bed, the walls cracking in the heat,

staring up at the ceiling, imagined

inhabiting a motionless miniature setting

still and silent, bloated with expectation,

safe in time and space.

.

sticks and stones

My skin had the capacity,

when I was young

and the ozone was still whole

and the sun friendly, not harsh,

to turn dark in summer.

 

I would find time

before the beach holiday to lie

outside and soak like a reptile

in the rays,

dream myself away from time and space

into a red shifting land of puzzles and flight.

 

People would look at me

tanned skin on display in shorts and singlet

and call me abo or darkie - it hurt me nought;

it is nothing to be called something

when you are not

when the comment is only about the tan you have acquired

and not

the person you are, the associated

forest of faults and failures and reasons

you can be treated differently.

 

When I was a boy

tanning myself those distant summers

of long ago I had a book,

the flora and fauna of Australia.

Along with kolas and paperbark

were pictures of aborigines –

part of the wild landscape (there is the insult)

and in that book

if you held it close to your ear

I am certain you would hear a faint whisper,

“black lives matter,”

but it was the sixties and the call

was only heard by a few,

the rest told Abo jokes

while stealing their children,

their stories, land and sacred sites.

 

When I was young and innocent

and knew in winter I would be white again

the words touched me not;

sometimes now I wake

regret the Medusa able to turn me to stone,

unable to change the way it was

and still wishing I could.

The new room that was always there

 

The house was built, with the knowledge

and careful forethought, for the arrival

of the day when the waste could connect

to the magic pipes below.

 

All of us children of that time and in that place

remember the backyards dug, the trenches

laid out like archaeological digs; we recall

the many games we played in that earth.

 

In the beginning we lived with the outhouse

and the strong man who came up the drive

ushering in the new can

and removing the overladen old.

 

Inside was a room, just by the back door

on the right side, a room

that had no meaning except a thought

that in the future it would exist.

 

That room once held an assortment

including, but not exclusively,

an Indian tent

mops, brooms and boxes.

 

A small room I could hide in while others searched

even though they always found me,

I was the sort who would rather be caught

than spend an eternity waiting for victory.

 

I could never be a room such as that room

waiting patiently, being many things

but all things done quietly,

no fuss, no stamping and yelling.

 

That room understood the meaning of bide – instead

I followed the tide, out and in, a rush both ways;

never a small room, unlit, quiet, waiting

an allotted time for purpose to arrive.

The royal portrait – twice.

Three siblings lined up behind the two chairs, dressed

in their Sunday best, in a time when we only had one best

and the rest were clothes for school or for mess.

On the two chairs, the eldest two siblings named after parents,

the two M’s, the eldest female the next male and perched,

newly crowned with a shock of black hair and eyes that stare

without understanding, a six-month-old me, the newest,

surveying his dominion without a care. Seven years pass

and the siblings line up again this time four, me on the end,

not the throne, that place now taken by the youngest

sitting as I once did on the lap of the eldest, staring

as I once did, without a care; my eyes, if you search

behind the curtain of a broad smile, seem certain that

what lies in the years ahead cannot be taken for granted.

fuchsia magellanica

The bush that made bees

grew outside our front steps.

Three concrete steps

and depending on the mood

I had sat on each –

the first for gloom

the middle for talking

the third for summer nights

and star gazing –

 

beside the steps

the bush with odd flowers

that drooped,

began as tiny closed bags

that hung and grew and grew

fatter and fatter as if a caterpillar

grew inside

but I knew better,

someone had told me

or I had come to the fact on my own

each little parcel that dangled and expanded

contained a bee.

 

When I was not watching

never when I did and I did

the parcels would spring open

and the inside creature escaped capture

leaving behind a little flower

like a bush of tiny vases

stolen from some mother’s miniature kitchen.

 

The bush was the birthplace of the bees

that buzzed constantly around the bush

then spread from there out

to go gold digging

in the rest if mum and dad’s garden.

size (2)

Atop a neighbour's front porch roof

flat, corrugated tin catches the sun

so small feet tingle;

below the ground flat and hard

dares the test.

 

In the distance voices provoke,

I am the last to leap;

fear is something we cannot share

separates us one and all –

feet farewell tin…

 

hit the ground

swifter than the mind can predict

roll and stand, smile;

nothing is harder

than that first leap.

brother (4)

Sleeps on the crinkled tin

of the chicken coup roof

of the people next door

or ours if theirs is busy
building another clutch of eggs.

 

Sleeps on the top backstep too

of a different neighbour’s abode, tucked up

like Moses in the warmth, carried away

until mother’s voice calls him

back from the lap of some Pharaoh’s daughter.

 

Sleeps during the days

snores at night

like a knight chasing errant armour;

I should know

my bed has been placed next to his.

 

I sleep during the day sometimes

on the concrete block in the backyard

where the outhouse used to be

before the sewerage finally came banging.

 

Watch the day drift away

and even now

a thousand outhouse days later

I sometimes find a couch or chair

and drift into the best of sleeps.

 

When the sun sits princely high

and the world for the moment

pauses not to dream

but a genuine pause as if,

like a shoelace, the day

 

is undone and then in time

securely retied again.

The pier

 

(I)

Mussels crooning

waiting inside their clenched existence

for a flowering

in the darkness

where the giant squid waits

 

some nights I feel the faint brush

of the tentacle traversing the heel

of my right foot – is that the foot

by which I was held

dipped into the family’s gene pool

and sent then

into history?

 

(II)

The gaps terrified me.

The gaps between the planks.

The planks so worn by water and wind

that I must slip between.

 

Walking I hear the waves

calling

trying to clutch and carry me down.

 

I feel the eyes of an unmet beloved –

if I look back will the future be lost?

 

(III)

At the end

hard against the rail, fingers

holding as if a shield against the water’s might,

watching the distant ocean;

hear how it calls to the sun,

jealous, eager to extinguish the light.

The sun bows low

and always escapes.

 

In the darkness walking back

I can see the tent lights in the distance

but between the planks

in the gaps of the unknown

I feel the giant squid’s tentacles…

If I stop

I will remain as if in a stone chair

and no one will rescue me.

 

(IV)

The salt everywhere,

the foam a delight.

Old fishermen cut lines and bait

with knives sharper than history.

 

I have no patience,

should not venture out

on this strand of make-believe;

already I can feel the tentacles…

 

It is the unknown that haunts the child

and being a child

all is unknown.

 

Even now when I sense the pier,

hear the waves

or the tinkling of black mussel…

imagine deaths – a civil war of deaths

and loss – a Tsunami of loss

and catastrophe – a hurricane of catastrophe

and I am prepared for what comes;

that she leaves me

that the house is repossessed

that the job ends.

 

 

A known disaster

even if it has a thousand sprouting heads

is not as bad

as the unknown.

the boy raised by the flatlands of Glenroy

The suburb recalls dry leaves, brittle

as words spoken between thieves,

actions cast as easily as seeds

to land wherever, become what may.

 

He was raised to look straight ahead,

no dips or lifts, a flat bed,

no changes to the walk and voice

shared throughout the neighbourhood.

 

He was raised by a similarity

found difference through family,

through genes and conditions

through drought and spring rains –

 

a sheet frozen stiff one morn

footsteps printed on the lawn,

Mrs Coppinger’s dachshund

the lisp of a boy around the corner.

 

Fear in that suburban realm

and laughter to overwhelm;

the legend of the man who hung himself

the fist flung because of a brother.

 

The morning woken

standing in the kitchen, sleep hardly broken;

questioned by police

even though his hair was not red.

 

Maybe the biggest influence there,

in Glenroy red hair

signalled something

his hair was brown.

 

He smiled too easily

laughed noisily

cried at sad music

believed in magic –

 

there was no magic left in Glenroy

divided and subdivided

it shrunk into a memory

along with koala and wallaby.

 

He was raised by the flatlands of Glenroy

left them as quickly as he could

and carries them everywhere

dreams of mountains and rivers still.

mother (4)

 

the first washing machine I remember

made her hands red and wrinkled

as she twisted the hot sheets

wrung out the water through the mangle

the steam rising up off the sheets, into her face

her hair hung limp

hiding her eyes as I stood in the doorway

and watched; wished sometimes

to be strong enough to help

and other times to escape outside –

that dilemma resides within

still all these years later.

the beach (4)

squeals of children

who stagger and roll

as if the ocean has entered within them

sets them tumbling into paradise

 

old bodies sit, stand, soak feet

at the edge

let waves and squeals

merge

into the first creatures

that ever ventured onto land

 

lungs to burst

eyes avoid the sand

old tongues lick

salt off old lips

and lose words to the sound

of squeals still held within –

 

let loose perhaps

if all is well

at the moment of death.

beach (3)

 

The heat still rises off the tar

the car loaded with children and towels

the setting of the fireball

lights the sky orange and pink.

 

The sand, beach

and water in the dark

lapping sounds and the white freckles

of bliss.

 

Headed home

late, salt begs eyes to close

finally bed –

the head filled with the sound

of something bigger than a heart.

 

The universe whispers

even as it cradles the head,

perfection found coiled within

an experience so well known

and always a relief.

the clothesline and me (1):

 

First it swung so high above

and mother hung sheets that

when the wind sprang

spoke

in father’s voice,

smelled of spring grass, flittered

and flapped

like the magpies father fed

that came warbling at the back door.