#2359 -- a quiet desperation

 

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a quiet desperation

ekphrastic for Fred McCubbin’s 1896 ‘on the wallaby track’

 

ticks, snakes, spiders

just for a start

expect sun to burn

tent to leak

the natives

no, they’re taken care of

 

why, and what were you thinking

 

here’s a little shade away from the tent

little languish

belt holding up the pants for now

 

the grass like rust, a gnarl of trunk

nothing yet a stump

axe holds down the wind

 

gather twig bent to the billy

 

do you think it floods here?

 

summer’s coming

it gets away

 

the child is showing how half a chance

we’d all crawl off

this one’s a biter

 

the wallabies have fled

everything’s ready for settlement

 

nothing will ever grow straight here

soon this will all be fire

#2358 -- set afloat

 

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set afloat

ekphrastic for Lorna Robertson’s 2023 ‘Love and loneliness of a young mother’

 

mannequin pale gone faceless

at least here are some lips

why corsetly

smudge wove bent

there’s the cloud of coiffure

 

a dripstreak stocking trim

 

it’s cheering to be so outgazed

to measure silence

let lines run

 

elsewhere must appear

 

it’s only the shoes point on 

#2357 -- midwinterlight

 

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mid winterlight

Gore Cove Track Series

 

everything’s larger

 

with weather

and under a hat

 

no clock

but cloud to hide a sun

 

grass grows over rot

 

how old is what’s before?

 

brackish whiff

in leafspill

 

a sandstone wall

 

the dead stand a long while yet

and I, to catch breath

 

taking all this in

 

magpie riff

crow caw

 

touch of sky

or a voice thrown

 

stairs are an upward haul

 

so there’s my tide gone out

 

some hammering and unwise saws

bitter engines of the city hum

 

I come for the daydark here

 

make an X on the page

 

it’s wherever my feet fall

treasure marks the map

#2356 -- a footlong dog at the burgermaster fifty years ago

 

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a footlong dog at the Burgomaster fifty years ago

boys’ own

 

who could we cram behind the backseat of the beetle?

T!  A drove his tripping once, not far

that cannot have been a good idea

 

mainly we were on foot until then

or else on two wheels, self propelled

and sometimes there were brakes

 

the train for more remote adventures

there was the Charles, there was the Greengate

no bouncers, but they’d size you up

 

there was the uncles’ Christmas Scotch

mum and dad didn’t drink, would never miss

three of us down at the old quarry

 

a three way split, vomit

these, it turned out

were all survival skills

#2355 -- the picture gets bigger and bigger

 

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the picture gets bigger and bigger

for Ralph Wessmann

 

don’t we call that kind of thing progress?

 

a world expands as we describe

 

worlds multiply

they shine their suns

make moons of a latest fling

 

take all in

 

the picture gets bigger bigger

we’re all from a song sheet singing

 

thing to sneak past, lurk in a crack

doesn’t matter what you think

always leave a trail

 

life lengthens to be lived

and in the end, sink

to the full extent of this law

 

it’s like looking out from the whale’s jaw

before you’re counting the ribs

#2354 -- walking in the after rain

 

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walking in the after rain

 

a Tuesday trickle mist singing

 

light never to be repeated

             falls

and then the sun again

               a proof

 

stand on a leaf

set beak to meditation

 

the cleft and settle mist and clear

shows up a valley fold

 

one goes on from here

 

these are the bones of my day

#2353 -- at all events

 

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at all events

 

strange armour

the damaged wear

squeaking past the fact

and often blame themselves

for the crimes of the scot free

lounging smug

have you heard them say

‘there’s always a choice’?

and something must be true

 

they blame themselves away

 

done to and doing

kicked up for a fuss

they know to be scared

the damaged do

 

try to think of it without religion

you fuck up every time