#2112 - Launceston random

 

2112

6.284

12.x.25

Launceston random

for Joy , on the day of her joyous cup

a kind of Bloomsday meander

 

here in the roaring forties

not hard to practice my art

 

that’s not knowing where I’m going

 

who can be as wild as this weather?

it’s laid on for all in this place

the quarter hour chimes it

 

at Invermay – on foot a long way

at least I’m avoiding the hundred year flood

 

I don’t expect locals to agree

but it’s winter as far as I’m concerned

 

speck of city and suburb this town

the first with hydroelectric sewerage

a Cornwall transplant, a garrison town

with its gash of gorge, hills rolling

never quite inland enough

 

I go to the Salvos to see if there are Harris Tweeds

no luck

 

‘we preach Christ crucified’ – the Baptists’

ancient lettering

but there must be another kind – think love

and actually it’s all around

 

in smokers’ alley – a gidday

 

there’s Gospel Hall and Vinnies

here and there the odd statue of Jesus

so many signs of spent belief

 

church clutches must once have had the godfearful of here

music in doorways now

impressive, the choice of beer

 

waiting in the barber’s shop

blokes already show their ears

they look to have been pre-shorn
brave souls!

 

there are folk inscribed to show their skin

I think it ill advised in the circs

 

like everyone else here

postie nods to me passing

 

Joy’s advice was just ‘look up!’

 

so doing, I see BILIARD ROOM

from back in the day

so I know that there always was hope

 

and I see the postie’s tin avatar top of the GPO (is it?)

dog chasing and chasing him round in this wind

 

I see how the town peters out in every direction

it’s the wilderness edge a human comes to

this is a kind of success

 

it’s a trick of the wind a place like this

 

there is no place like this