#1320 - these scenes

 

1320

13.viii.23

4.226

these scenes

i.m. Rodriguez

with thanks

 

obscure, the Old Union

already could be forgotten

 

remembering the record stuck

 

a vinyl turning

like a path lost in woods

 

in those rooms

each world its own

and such that questions disappear

(because of victimless, did to ourselves

and with what gusto too!)

 

one was a letterbox forest

an Itchycoo Park indoors

 

one was needle and fuck

 

here again a crowd of friends

and curious

wolfing down these maps of the unknown

 

Julie and the Professor

and John would set alight

 

gladbags of trips, garbage bags green

something coal coloured back then too

sadly lacking since

 

it was lucky weather then

 

no one had scales,

you could see what was what

while it lasted

 

and as with any thought vanish

what was I thinking?

 

we made an undernight

the tune and gift still with

 

before all the pages of print would be

I recall a great debauch

 

all on a silver magic ship

where later we would wonder

 

how – against all rumour –

he had survived himself so far

 

but for us it was

these scenes

that was where the record stuck

and that was where we were

kind of dreaming together in colour

 

and someone would need to raise themselves

to walk all the way out to where the records were being played

to get attention there

to articulate – to fire up the vocal apparatus –  

it was a little desert cry

to say how we were

 

and could be lured with something sweet…

false friends!

 

we’d only just been in school

out of which stupid boys rolled mum’s car

now we had Honi Soit and demo and jam

there was the stink of Tony Abbott, the engineers and beer

apartheid, uranium, Bjelke Jo

so much to stir up song

 

most tribal of all – we had these scenes

 

what thought gave we then for essay or slide test?

 

to think that this all would be gown hire soon

that abomination unknown to us then

 

there would be Steve the Bikie

and the Joint Association of Youth

up in the Debating Rooms

with the Malcom Fraser Easter Island Bonghead

immediately preceding the ‘Poetry of Vision’

but that was all in the future then

 

I speak of the time of the Music Rooms

 

and after – still afternoon –

sneak up those endless stairs to Bugs Bunny

or the Beverly Hillbillies or it might have been

Dr Who and K9 off on such an adventure

 

we did not see as others saw

 

Rodriguez, you were a voice in my wilderness

I can still hear you now