#243 - typecast (Gulgong Pioneers' Museum)

1.ix.20

243

typecast

 

Gulgong Pioneers’ Museum

 

 

signage and steam

from where few

and brisk

now still to see

things kept for no reason

such as maze the mind now

 

grateful for this godtoss are we?

 

carriage lit symmetries

moulds

plain and refined

so many churns

as if time always required pressing on

in the town that never fell down

 

old watches have lost their hands

 

fine china

dolls to afright

the children of mortality

 

engines cut chaff

pump up a head

outchurched the pubs

 

Empire Day is May 24^th

colour in the map

 

all tin a sky inside

 

here we are back in the day

 

lace linen frilltops

the dinner gong

red velvet handkerchief sachet

 

and the faces!

long buried and here to see

 

pressed metal

a little clock shows what we can afford

nine pounds seven and six per hundred

tossed on the sorting table

 

miles telling between

a hot metal line of type

penned in

 

nothing to print now

chooks roost cows home

 

further and further go back

and one day young

when far away

 

where are the horses to draw all this on?

where are the blacks we wished away?

the grinding stone’s in with geology

nobody mentions them now

 

not a hiss from the blacksmiths

 

here’s eternity -- lost in the wagon high hay

and a fork to pitch more on 

#242 - great divide

 

 

31.viii.20

242

great divide

to Gulgong

 

a lovely young cloud

chased over the ranges

 

no one could have painted this here

and we, as if afoot, to pursue

 

the matter of the day all chatter

 

in the grass come yellow

fielded for far

 

locks wispy

fluff, forgetting

this over our heads

 

frilly diaphanous allure

 

sun somewhere too

otherwise no show

 

snug nap afloat

tucked inwardly

while we went on

 

would be so dizzy up with

was that even a question?

 

silver fleece gold shone

afternoon touring   

 

in another age -- the vapours

 

these are merely impressions of season

 

had all this been climbing

now trickle down

 

can’t hear the music to carry us over

 

cannot say we were following

 all attention’s lost

 

and earthly

out of the blue

as much

 

so gossamer and gone

 

#241 - joy

 30.viii.20

241

joy

slow movement

 

lay with an ache

 

here in the glimmer of firstly and was

you were cradling a tree like child

 

climb limbs in

 

do all this from disbelief

I, beside set, as all should  

 

we, the inkling at

a cast of iron

 

voice and another

tell a grief grip away

 

all who were laughing

fall too

 

tell you mine

please show

 

once love in the duty of

this mud chuck

now accident sphere

 

golden and golden

the afternoon light

 

we were slow

to the truth

of it there

 

 

#240 - I figured time

 

29.viii.20

240

I figured time

 

because I wouldn’t play by the rules

rather with them

 

figured time

in an elsewhere cup

and held it to these lips

 

a garden

trailing off among

and called it to me

once

twice

gone

 

forget the tune

figured it would pass

 

carved over the lintel

found filigree

blissed afternoon

a tea cup pinky lawned

to serve

 

cast question over all the world

and I was asked as well

 

like a ripeness catching

static

 

signed up for the truth

 

machete kiss

crept to a gospel

 

here voices broke

a forest grew

 

who kept the count?

no matter

 

it wearies the not-a-soul to be said

but have some up the sleeve

 

go to it breathlessly

often as not unhorsed

 

with the rabbit from the hat

or hanky

 

picture time – cliff’s beach

 

call curse on

heads you come in spinner

 

if only spent wisely

but tricked down a hole

 

ever chased tail like this?

companion to the echo’s cheer

 

are we blessed with ?

 

deep in sorrows thereof

 

not a word

but won’t obey

 

this too will pass

say all of us

 

it is  a kind of retribution

which nobody can deny

having wished it all away

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

after a few glasses

 

wasn’t the shedbrary

bus run into

but beside

and surely damage

though I never heard the crash

bus, like a little to-the-mill job

and they pile out guiltily

trying to reverse

hoping unnoticed

but what did they bash?

that’s what they did

 

or the else other

you can hang onto

first for mere

eyes shut and see them on

 

ghost stairs

the building as it was

must rather have been

 

back in the day

the old entrance

side of

and they’re grey with funny hats

gone dull about their business

certainly shorter

 

how little of amazement attends

 

it’s a long time there

lack of local information

 

can you be sure you’ve really seen?

 

tomato bounce off on a chessboard

 

home for us all

snuck out in the corridor

aching time

as by rights

 

it’s all night sounding

nose from the inside considered

one line can’t be made out

 

nurse says because there are mad’ns in there

but does she really speak?

 

no one will call them ping pong balls

how can it be done without cues?

# 239 - reflections for a pond and hover & the mechanics of far

 

28.viii.20

239

reflections for a pond and far

 

a leaf float corner dell

tucked in

never below the notice of treetops

 

figured time was elsewhere

would pass

 

pond moon reflecting

crescent, half

 

a drift and dwell

 

grown silence

gave night to a frogsworth chorus

 

called to me

once

twice

gone 

 

 

the mechanics of hover

(as done with ideas)

 

have often been left

with only the last thing

lost a good title too

just the washing up

 

imagine avatars

the bee

the damsel

dragonfly

 

if I name my friend for the table

or the chair for my friend

 

will have committed metonymy

 

an intimate class for digression

so rote, so been before

but

how did we ever get in there?

 

took me a while

or kid a self

ache tucked under

 

and taken lying down

layers of a fold and turn

 

flush out a spy with supposing

take heed

 

you wish a way

but these are not parts of a story

when we have thing patch image set

 

wide eyed

and done with no light at all

 

and all the tricks of day

will never get me back

 

 

#238 - play with

27.viii.20

238

play with

 

see in

(on bush TV again)

 

there is a firstness where we’re from

how does it go?

tell tune from stone

 

say

I was the love of lives

everyone remembers

 

knowing later would catch

pants on

but first of all all true

 

when I was world bright

much leafed

 

held in whose hands (?)

caught before I fell

 

an opening then

to every book

 

would toss for who goes first

and it was always me

 

to build

even in the fire

 

a blur to ash

and ghost it

(an edging in the nevermore)

 

in hearthpaint

licked

see in

signatures of trees were

 

dance for

time and those

won’t return

 

under the dreamhat

 

these heartstairs and headfirst

you’ll feel a thing in

still a fire to catch

 

it’s always before we’re too late

this advice

 

day raiment

and full finery

 

I remember the bushes

flats red in the brick

and the old railway path

 

sometimes a high road

the broken down bus

waiting in the summer upstairs

 

somewhere there dreamt

a found guitar

and other nights crept in

 

along a main corridor

weddings and from

the navy for instance

 

wash hands of course

 

let me remember

all my students once

bright as a knockdown hillside

here on the corner linger

 

they’ll want to go through the tunnel with you

knockabout fellows I mean

say Homebush to the city

 

dark stairs

some loose pipe

do not trip

 

and what to go back for (?)

 

there must be

but where?

a locked room

 

#237 - Spring & aubade

 

26.viii.20

237

Spring!

a little wake-up call

 

have you been visited?

and pay attention here

 

like an old pun back

as if it had been round the world

now we’re back

 

in a dew globed guess

day longer

make a little fire of the stillness just begun

 

everything young’s to be tested

take little earthbound clouds of breath

float

 

the coldest dawn is just before

 

lie lit under glass inside

 

we collect the sun all over

for

can you guess?

 

pile winter fears

and wool wash

 

hey bud

is there a bee in the cause?

of course

 

a petal flag to breeze it

 

here’s hope

 

these are the early days

everyone’s saying not yet

but we’re here

 

all these wings say so

aubade

 

me-rise

and first bright

none tending towards

 

there’s day brain

like a cold edge creep

from under covers

 

thing to another

where I have been

 

catch faster than fire

the hidden of heart

 

birdsong core of light to keep

 

a stoking –

trick of here, sleight of how

where have we been?

 

in the other language

where I’m corrected

travel back

night’s lit fuse

 

pile image

toss inkling at

 

unword the wish for home

 

but none of this is the shining that was

that kept the spread up branches

until some shadow grows

 

a road was always there