1943
6.117
27.iv.25
a frame of still
ekphrastic for Sidney Nolan’s 1953 ‘Drought’
a colour like the dust
the eye
and where it was
skin contracted, seeing still
hide ribbed
the hoof
the horns
the tail
point out
the whole effect, a clock to stop us
a sprawl to not yet soil
and all of this is an accusation
a colour like the sun
1942
6.116
26.iv.25
between us and doom
ekphrastic for Yosl Bergner’s 1941 ‘pumpkins’
thin string
and the window dark
hand torn
holding
built to
dark
have you
seen the broken?
how they’ll
twist, out of the pain
and a
thousand years
then a
thousand
the sky
looks lower
as if there
had once been colour
like a hand
would reach down
but it won’t
there’s only
one way to go
1941
6.115
25.iv.25
Manning Clark House
the old
paling mist
a backyard
of it
kitchen high
above the day
the telling
of the walls
and where
there hangs the hat
brisk
ceremonial
chairs of time was
all the
ambivalent ethics
ladder to
and from the task
here comes
the morning tea tray
cupboards of
gone time
short window
checked curtains to draw
tap dripping
of another age
that time
when paving was really brick
like putting
a wall in the ground
the suburb
of dollars grows up around
I sleep in a
narrow bed for childhood
know all
this time some elves have been here
bearing away
the dust
it’s
remember
a clock
stopped house
piano as old
as this tune
the relative
ages assert
nor preening
in was
but so much
done
I’ve come to
work
I’m here for
the story that has to be told
I see where
the gallery ought to be
in the
autumn piling yard
1940
6.114
24.iv.25
1940
no Olympics
but Tokyo would come to us
the Winter War, the phony war
Dunkirk, then the Blitz begins
and rationing
beginning of the finest hour
Hung Parliament in Canberra
Ming still ruling
the Auschwitz kickoff
Lascaux discovered
The Great Dictator premieres
Fantasia
40,000 horsemen
Melbourne’s double deckers
I remember as if it were yesterday
the gene pool safe in Australia now
Vivien Leigh and Laurence Olivier
Einstein’s officially a Yank
Bugs Bunny’s debut for leaven
Captain America appears
the great arsenal of democracy
already over the rainbow twelve months
John Steinbeck goes fishing
reminds me of my own year now
how the worst is yet to come
.jpg)
1939
6.113
23.iv.25
old hands
just in a certain light
the forepaws, haunch up
as by nature given
and anciently, before
how often up in wonder yet
what have they held, these secret
hands
how else to throw a stick?
breathless to the ink, or keys
trigger finger, arrow twang
animal yet
a rush to tangle strings
I remember old headmaster hands
on manoeuvres across my half desk
a cramped hand and the writing run
off
when they would have had a war
wrinkle telling onto next
time in the paws
and golden too
held cane by grief
for miscreant necessity
the tattered coat upon unless
and now here are mine
I think two of the best
a falling of the hands where may
how wealth, light handed
counts to gather always more
there is the opposable thumb
the finger click
a fond array of sign
then some make prayer
or pilgrim’s blush and touch
hold mine
you
know you want to
what have they done?
what will they next?
sociable, these two
to cover a sneeze or a cough
to stuff a ballot box
upwardly cupped to catch
call sky
the itch and scratch by turns
world bore them along
what could they hold up?
sky falling
who shook mine first
or made a fist to shake?
strange words!
firm and clam
limp telling too
each time to surrender
bones for an ache just under there
and grabbed a thing with both
by these means I touch,
let go
old hands
and suddenly mine
1938
6.112
22.iv.25
best pope ever gone
named for one who spoke bird, beast
come from the nearly death dark
into his confession
come from nothing
he was a man of no exceptions
bouncer in a nightclub
spoke his power to power
broad shoulders
to bear all the wrong of the church
through the age
crusades, inquisitions, our auto da fé
tin ear to the kiddyfiddle
you may say I’m setting the bar low for
great
I cannot agree with his illusions
liberation’s better than theology
there are no angels, never were
a sow’s ear out of mystery – that’s
what religion is
the filling of the vestments
as in the case of ghost
he too got lost in a dirty war
there are no saints, no martyrs
the living and the dead there are
he was one called to the precipice
he was one who climbed
to greet the cheering crowds and go
those two priests the junta had
… what did he do for them?
we can ask
a good man a good
man
villains line up to say
and carry their murder on
he told them what he thought
he spoke from poverty’s palaces
a man for all that
chosen by men
man of many failings
he could do dignity for us all
bridges not walls
ever at the truth edge
imagining the all as good
on not a shred of evidence
this was a prince of peace
time washed him away
