24 January 2012

Good Friday 1999



I’m not religious you understand
but I didn’t feel like calling anyone
or going to Darling Harbour to see
the Flying Fruit Fly Circus
under the freeway.

So I get on the bus
and go to the Museum of Sydney
in the rain.  I should have known.
Closed Good Friday.
Revenge of the Christians.

Showers, trickles of grey tourists
in Martin Place looking stupidly at poster ads.
I’m not the only fool.

Eight died on the roads today
trying to escape this watery, grey,
sad as a cinema queue in the rain
trapped in coffee shops
terminally dismal

Sydney day.

Flight out of Timor


How many Hercules will it take
to evacuate the promises we made,
the lies we told,
the hopes we gave
and then denied?

How many Hercules will it take
to lift the despair of a generation,
the dreams of a proud people,
to transport the bodies of the children
and the blood of the martyrs?

How many Hercules will it take
to rescue a single shred
of Australia’s honour?

Fire sale


A question not, as you may think,
of Shakespeare and show-ponies,
but more fundamental culinary matters
such as who eats whom, and at what price,
here in late industrial suburbs
threatened by longevity
and bored indifference.

People dream their way into tomorrow,
screened off from the institutions of yesterday -
church, family, decency-
consuming tackily glued emotions
on current affairs programs,
black or white it's all the same
between the ad breaks.

Don't you wonder sometimes, fit to burst,
by what algebraic journey we reached
this end of millennium fire sale,
how the disaster corps managed to avert
a show-stopper of smoky nightmares?


Aliens



They laugh at us
the dark ones,
our heavy dance and wobbly gait
treading on stones with tender feet
feeding kangaroos by hand
eating fish from cans

but we know poison
and real estate
the force of guns and laws.

Listen to their keening,
faint now,
for all the generations lost,
a pissed corroboree
outside an empty parliament.

Diana


Like instant noodles
our freeze-dried hearts melt
for the dead princess
(just add television)

Nurses throw teddybears;
teddyboys, more confused, just stare
at the cameras whirring,
whirlwinds of emotion
whipping up historical trifles
from re-enacted slow turnoffs,
runaway cars,
wrecked and flattened tinsel crown.

The stockmarket of souls
advertises our inadequacy
to deal with ordinary death.

"But the people want it", someone says.
I'm bamboozled too
by the pomp and circumstance,
the glue of glitterazzi
holding the set pieces together,
the stupid flags on the Edgecliff Centre
still at half-mast ten days later.

Primo Levi at Thredbo

-after the landslide in July 1997 that killed eighteen people

They’ve closed the Alpine Way.
The death site looks neat
as the museum at Auschwitz.
Why did I bring you here, Primo Levi?

When the Germans buried you alive
you weren’t handsome and strong
like the young Australian.
And when you walked out of the grave
you were wasted away
like some creeping Jesus.

Forty years later
you hurled yourself down the slope to death.
You’d written your evidence in blood
and now had to join
the only true witnesses.

16 January 2012

Progress


Walking in the bush this morning
I did not come across
a single convenience store
or video game arcade.

No integrated alarm system
or current affairs programme
or high-security low-risk user-friendly multimedia freedom tellers.

There were no frozen stir-fried yogurt-dipped posturepedic bagels,
no fluorescent ergonomic integrated rollover kitchenettes
or single grandparent tupperware modems,
no KFC, BHP, FID, TAB or after-sales no-obligation deals,
or microwave snap-on set-and-forget condom dispensers.

Not one low-joule frost-free heat-seeking self-adhesive wrap-
around carbon-dated rust-proofed sandwich-maker
or infra-red poly-unsaturated take-away four-stroke closed-
circuit recycled tar-reduced deodorised seat-covers.

Just birdsong
and smells of eucalypt.

04 January 2012

Writer's blot

Without looking at a line
this (suspended) spring morning (it is the city)
wondering what I'm still doing here,
what this land means
beyond the flag and the flatulence.

Media missiles cruise into the living room
- search and destroy thought -
telling us over and over everything's okay. 
Help!  Helicopter lifesavers, snatch us
from this flooded island mini-series
of denied yearning
for somersaults of death and beauty,
kamikaze comedians. 

It is no time for levity, 
no time for introspection either
as relentless sparrows announce sunny Saturday
(no haiku please) in Sydney,
named after the maggot-headed politician
as Ruth Park said. 

Blacked-out computer screens, invisible icons,
edit me, quick! 
Powering through, am I still powering through? 




Rational


When the judge cried “Euthanasia”
all the people loudly cheered
at the Rest-Ezy nursing home.
They didn’t want to hang around
and be a burden on the budget.
Give me liberty and give me death
shout the new patriots
(Stop needling me, I’ll go quietly)
After all, we have to bring down the deficit
somehow.

02 January 2012

autumn, north sydney


last night after the movies
in the high decibel bar

I wanted to touch my heart
then yours as a sign

but instead we sat smoking
watching the rain

and the taxis
in the blue street below

Union


My lanky son sprints down the field,
blond mane streaming behind,
but when the ball comes to him
he gets rid of it quickly.
I know that feeling.

The field overlooks wild ocean,
the wind salt-charged and blustery.
Now a downpour drenches the striped boys
scattering through melting hail.

I walk to the cliff,
a rush of blue air and emptiness
above  flecked waves,
follow the escarpment down
and swim in the sea
among brown boys.

My son joins me after the game.
In late afternoon sun
we cavort like dolphins
in the spiced, foamy delight
of the buffeting ocean.

hungry head


in urunga we bought leatherjacket and chips
then on to the golf club

dress regulations after 7pm fri sat sun no thongs
damn

we came back on the sat night
sweating in shoes especially for the occasion

walked in to the pokies you felt cheated
look at that fat guy he’s in thongs

half way between sydney and brisbane
reading dazai’s no longer human

I know why some of them up here
turn to christianity

01 January 2012

Return from the island


Hovering around the airport phone booths
hesitating, playing for time
the wall clock ruthlessly correct
my father dead
and the next bus south in an hour
fumbling a suitcase for coins
getting the wrong number
you were there, patient
letting my confusion settle
until I was ready
to let the taxi
take us home