Blood Brothers

for Les Thompson

Born on the wrong side of the tracks
Or was it the wrong side of the world?
Under the Fish and the Southern Cross
Their destiny unfurled.

A dozen summers passed them by
In suburbs stark and still
Till Education lit their way
To Taverners Hill.

Servus servum servi servo
They chanted the hours away.
Algebra, parsing and chemistry
Kept them from play.

Five years nailed to grimy desks,
Their ties and blazers damning,
Honours French was their reward
For years of cramming.

Sons of unlettered working men,
Their fortunes then looked puny,
But the Commonwealth, bestowing grace,
Sent them to uni.

Rabelais, Proust and Molière,
Phonetics, translations by the ream,
Distracted them from female flesh
And made them dream.

Racine declaimed by candle-light
In a crowded, noisy garret,
Filled many soirées in grotty Glebe
Washed down with claret.

The Liberals ran a lottery to find
Defenders of the nation.
Our heroes won the major prize
But declined the invitation.

One went to France and there began
To undermine the République.
The other went to Canberra,
Stuck up a creek.

At millennium’s dawn, the boys
Are now world-weary, wiser men,
Separated by hemispheres but
Blood brothers to the end!

Putting the pieces together

in memory of Mark Ellerman

the door he opened
the chair he sat in
the cat he stroked
the fruit he peeled
the letter he read
the lamp he broke
the note he left
the car he drove
the brother he caused to weep

Aquarelle

A delicacy of touch is needed
but how delicate?
a sureness, a lightness
transparency
but how transparent?

you don’t need your glasses, says the teacher
fuzzy is better
Turner was almost blind in the end

my watercolours today were disasters
rubbing too hard
even scratching the subtle surface
you can wash it all off
and start again, says the teacher
but the paper’s distressed
and the colours don’t flow any more

when we said goodbye the other day
feeling the softness of your lips
the smooth round of your shoulder
I didn’t want to leave

a question of technique, surely
but not only that
letting things flow
see what happens
develop a finer sense of touch
take risks
let all the colours soak into my soul
(2008)