Category: Poetry
Act 3 – My Jealousy is a Clown, Melissa Farrell
Act 2 – Mirror Maze, Melissa Farrell
Act 1 – The Telephone, Melissa Farrell
Rorka, Rohan Viswalingam
Blood be the body
Surging in it and out of it
Dribbling over the dimming eyes
Separating those eyes
Sending the fire out of the mind
Spurting it out of the head
Giving the body supremacy over the city
Drenching the windows in a fiery dark
The unmixable smoke
It penetrates the body
Hollowing it out of life
Destroying the centre
The crunching face rages with fury
Breathing the black smoke from the air
Sending it down through to the lungs
Deeper deeper go the tainted vapours
The city will fall before me
My power will snap the infrastructure
The statues will crumble
Until the rubble will be a second sea
The sea will roll interminably
Burning the bodies falling from the surface
Swallowing the enfettered souls
And I will watch those ghostly pained faces
Sulphur will penetrate the safe havens
Where the innocent are hiding
In their shady burrows
Warmed by their fleeting love
The Black Widows will peak out from the gaps
Come sprawling
Out over the totems of falling civilization
Possessing the newly purged landscape
Mercy, there will be none
Just a reminder ever brutal
That homes are temporary
That the reckoning is inevitable
The spirits have just been waiting
Forcing a false sense of security
To the lethargic inhabitants
That nothing will come of their decisions
But the nature of the land will take hold
Giving no creature a second dice roll
Erasing all hope in their prayers
Leaving but the peaceful silence before annihilation
We will teach the people
Of the hierarchy of breath
The legions of emissaries will show no mercy
And the land will be cleaned flat
The sea will calm
The Widows will relinquish their thrones
Leaving a vacant, dusty city
Waking up to a new age
And it is without the stragglers
For they have whittled themselves away
In the dark crevices that we made
The ones they hid in before perishing
The new sun will be born of water
The water of their blood
That ran down the buildings into the stream
And the sun will be called Rorka
The purity will be the rage
The rage of extinction
The seething hate of being chosen
Chosen to be vanquished by the upper power
The sun will warm the new places
Giving pulse to the dried up swamps
Giving jobs to the legged cripples that survived
And leaving the fallen rubbed into the darkness like charcoal
The old safe place is gone
The rebirth is complete
Total Completion
Purity from a sun
A new form must be made
A new leader of the second sun
Born from the new sea
And from the shadows of before
Build it
Start with the teeth
With black sperm squeezing through the gaps
Forming the gums and lips
It all comes back to what we destroyed
A refreshing of the old body
To make a new one
To command the Widows and sea
Fetch the parts from the old coves of death
Feed the veins from the seabed
Supply the bones from the graves in the buildings
Give me the soul from the Second Sun
The soul will be the centre
Herding the water around it
Connecting the tendons
Latching the veins together
Then an earthly being will form
A disgusting new being
A sick reminder of the past
But eventually a new ideal for the future
There will be no skin
Only the crimson muscle
And perfect white tendons
No shroud of skin to hide the lies
And Skinless will sit on a throne of waves
Constantly nourished by the water
Held above the rusted buildings of old
Giving it elevated reprieve from this sordid world
No new citizen will be forgotten
They will come to worship Skinless
They will fill the buildings
Stepping over the stale bones of the past
New words will come from Skinless
And the new citizens will learn the past
Learn the present
And they will know the future
Being: Mark Four, Melanie Adams
I.
The winter of ’92 had infected my mother with its frosty failure
It clutched her womb with barren hands
She haemorrhaged a me, mark three.
With a grievous contraction, she expelled
The coagulated nothing
Spurned by her body.
The stab was familiar.
In 1980, first blood seeped from her young form
Rippling tides of relief.
Summer of ’92, it had gripped her viscera
The day after the miniature cardiac throb caressed her ears
And the surge of maternal love sparkled in her chest.
Her arid figure cracked and crumpled.
My father’s shirt had promised them a daughter.
Draped in the vivid spirits of the Violent Femmes
His mind incanted: Let me go on.
My father bought a bounding ball of puppy fuzz
For my mother, as consolation.
Later, I heard ‘constellation’
Picturing all my selves that never were
Coalescing into celestial objects.
Doctors told my mother
Her anatomy was the great antagonist
Bellicose, designed to obliterate.
And yet, this determined speck
Clambered out of the mire of non-existence
A scatter of atoms, at first
Uniting into lungs, a brain
And a heartbeat.
And so I was.
Born all aperture, drinking my surroundings
With large brown spheres
Gleaming. Winking.
Slung from stellar oblivion.
II.
I was fourteen years, crushed up
A thousand tiny shells spat out by the sea
With its wringing tide.
Sinking in its mouth
Until my bones lodged in the back of its throat.
Life coughed up my skeleton.
The Violent Femmes and their jagged colours hung about my ribs
Fluttering, gored into strips by a decade of spin cycles.
I had grown from a clot of cells
To this, a self-immolating bush
Destined to blacken and burn out.
They said God’s hands had
Plucked me from the astral plane
Of their empty bodies
Flinging me through incandescence
To this dimension.
Why would God waste his divine fingers
Stitching something to squander?
My bled-out siblings called
From the belly of the earth.
I ruptured and burst like a tired star.
I was the sprout that had struggled
Through the concrete fissures of the footpath
Poking its fecund face
Into suburban spring.
I wanted to crawl back down.
To slide back down the spiral at the centre of the world
To slink back into
The hull of my mother
To sleep within her dormant walls
Secreted for a century
Before my renaissance.
Instead I was an unblinking eye
Inhaling weltschmerz
Without slumber.
Eating the city’s grime and feasting
On its acrid disappointment.
The shirt’s prophecy unravelled
Me, a violent woman
Dreaming of gunshot wounds
Pockets groaning with stones
Weighed down in the river
Hoping to sink.
Diffuse like light pollution
Lying limp on the floor.
Atomised. Paralysed.
Shredded to a joyless confetti.
Floating away.
III.
The moon mirrors my mother’s love
Luna urges me as she does the ocean
To lift its arms. To rouse itself from its bed.
To swell and embrace the salty shoreline.
My fragments, like iron filings
Magnetised back together.
I raise myself as a filament
Conducting light. Throwing it back
To my family, who so loved me
That they shovelled the soil of debt on their own shoulders
Just to hold me. Just to see my newborn face
And hear my infant giggle —
The mellifluous tinkle of chimes
Thirteen years in the making.
The shirt sacrificed itself to us.
Its vibrant creatures stretched and ripped
Beyond recognition.
I still feel the noble ghost of its ribbons
Stroking the crevices of my back.
Existential guilt still hums
A covert wasp’s nest crafted in my skull.
I will spray it away someday
But for now, I will cradle this tender glow
Cupping my hands
Over the blazing candle
Of being.
Works Cited
Violent Femmes, “Blister in the Sun.”1983. By Gordon Gano. Violent Femmes. Slash Records, 1983, Cassette.
The Answer To That, Sir, Is Nothing, Georgia Buley
There’s a matchbook, in case I want to set myself alight.
It didn’t happen yesterday, nor the day before—
My cheeks were wet so the sparks can’t catch—
But one day. Maybe.
But there is no lighter.
It’s the only bright light in this sea of addictions;
I’ve never sought to taste death on my lips
And blow it back through my teeth.
I’d celebrate if I could breathe deeply enough on my own.
I can’t blame the catch on smoke.
There’s a tiny little turtle that snaps and begs at my skin
And reminds me with frozen beats that I’m not who I say I am—
Not who I write I am.
I take the turtle out and paint him gold
But it always rubs off in the light.
There are pins and needles in my fingers
Where the feeling’s gone and the cold creeps in.
It doesn’t get past my knuckles or up into my wrists—
My heart beats too strongly with that warm warm blood—
But one day. Maybe.
There’s a whistle that screams brightly into the night.
Sometimes I think it’s broken—
Last time I tried to use it, it didn’t work—
It deafened me as it shrieked
But not a soul came running. (Someone told me since that I probably should have shouted ‘Fire’.)
I like to hope that lightning can’t strike twice, but it could happen.
One day. Maybe.
There’s a model of a train
For no reason other than I like to turn the tiny wheels with my fingers
To keep them from flying around another’s neck.
There is a chess piece with its tiny head torn off
With sword and shield prepared for the battle that doesn’t come
With soulful hands carved in prayer to the unfeeling marble.
He comes from the battle of Troy. He comes from the losing team—
A pawn in a game gone way over his little head.
(Wherever it’s gone.)
There are some coins—
Not enough for anything worth buying, mind.
A ten cent piece coated in grime
A silver dollar with an American eagle
A twenty that had been run over by a train
Dali’s clock-shaped, her Majesty’s great visage melted in a gory rendition of The Wizard of Oz.
I like to think my insecurities take the form of hedgehogs
Who prickle and growl and stick out their tongues
And hobble along in their own little way.
They snuffle at the skin of my thighs from inside.
I keep them on hand at all times, ready to bring to the light at a moment’s notice.
It doesn’t do to ignore them for so long: they can go feral—
At least this way I’ve got them under rein.
Maybe.
There’s a heart all wrapped up in butcher’s paper.
It’s leaking out the sides, some thin warm thing that still beats angrily on my thighs.
I touch it sometimes, but it’s too hot to hold;
I can feel it beat against my skin like oceans.
There is a pen. There is always a pen. I find it harder to write on paper.
(Maybe there’s an element of sadism in that.)
The ease of keys under fingertips dulls my sense of the page
I crumple more sheets than I can afford to buy
Notebooks fall into the trash filled with meaningless scribbles across the margins
(And sometimes I ask myself, aren’t they all meaningless scribbles?)
But there’s something of value to them if I demand there to be.
I type my thoughts out into an online void, and I’m applauded by one hundred greyed-out faces.
None of them know anything of me. There’s no joy in this capitulation.
And it’s certain, now, that there’s almost nothing to the thoughts that run rampaging rhino through my mind.
But I write them down anyway, with little scraps I keep handy
And the pen.
Somewhere in there, there’s a ticket stub or five
Train tickets and musical tickets, coffee cards with four holes left to punch—
There’s no real regency in a temporary life.
Tissues long since turned to scraps, tumbled through time
And a vibrant scrap of fabric that once might have belonged to something beautiful—
Or someone.
There are scars and chips and wrinkles all across my hands
Some are from accidents—
And some not.
If pure recklessness causes accidents, then perhaps it might tip the balance back
But it’s clear I’m not as clumsy as I appear.
There’s a few photographs, too.
Not of anyone I know;
I find them in garage sales and fold up so tiny they fit onto one fingertip—
Creasing them makes them feel somehow more authentic—
So I remind myself that when I’m gone I’ll be more than aged sepia.
I’ll be almost more than that, at least.
I draw my hands out and find them empty
Clutching at the banknote-crisp air like if by the reaching I could will it to appear.
And what?
Oh. Something. Anything.
Someone once asked me what I keep in there
And I feign ignorance with those big ol’ baby blues flutterin’ like butterflies
‘What could you mean?’ I say.
‘What could you possibly mean?’
Solid Sand and Broken Water, Hannah Baker
i.
He had soft sage and lavender fingers
When his mother took him up the estuary
To his brother’s tiny grave. Her first-born,
She told him, still-born, but still borne.
For months she carried him, thinking only
Of his potential, then lost him like a limb.
Suddenly become a second son,
He doesn’t feel like a miracle.
Unless they’re supposed to grow
More insubstantial, year by year.
Now he can’t help but hold sensations,
Keep them pressed into the soft mud of
His muscles, either side of his stony spine
Like the smell of cold grass, broken and
Sharp, wound round his little knuckles
Until he felt the hair-thin roots give.
He shuddered and stopped tugging
But those blades bit back and dug
Their imprint deep into his fingers.
Surely his brother would only be bones,
And even those pitted in this acidic soil.
Porous surfaces never used to panic him,
But the stinging sight of honeycomb now
Swells his tongue back to close his throat.
He tries to run, to only glide over the earth
And so ward off its patient hollow hunger,
But gravity forces his feet to knead the ground,
And long for rest on this grassy headland.
Though his soles are callused they still sweat,
And the veins show through his instep,
Blue and green like branches and streams.
Thick clay skin means nothing
When the cracks threaten to leak
His beaten blood.
Even the sea breeze bores into him
But the warm honey sun is soothing
And from this high the sand is as solid
As anything can be.
Every direction leads, he thinks,
Not to headstones holding old bones down
But to ribs exposed like mangrove roots.
ii.
Death happens, not easy but often.
Entropic, all matter is mostly vacuum,
It would be easy for lethargy to sink into
Atoms, and for weary rock to turn to sand.
Observed closely enough, coastlines are infinite,
And molecular gaps keep anything from ever truly
Touching. But somehow matter retains, regains,
Its energy, even advances to animation when
Bodies meet, or bloody waters break and
Out of the lather erupts something new.
Not easy but often, life happens too.
iii.
She laughed out sea roses as a child,
When her father warned her off wanting.
Still the smell of certain perfumes and the sea
Clearly recalls to her the sticky softness of
Petals unfurling and clinging to her tongue
Before tumbling off the cliff of her lips.
He told her she had been born too early.
Half-knitted, with fluid in her lungs
And a film of foam for skin,
She might have unspooled again.
But she chose to cough and cry instead.
Surviving with just this, she sometimes still
Feels like a miracle, and marvels at herself:
No tiny flame wind’s whim could flicker out.
By holding heart-sized stones she learnt to
Swim in a lake as cold and sharp as glass.
Her lungs already knew the worth of leaking,
But gravity needed help to hold her down.
With hands like lace she dried and sewed
Lilies and larkspur between her petticoats
And cocooned herself, as if with paperbark
Then paced, finally leaving distinct prints,
But passing unstung through the bees in the
Clover, over pine needles and rosemary, into
The solid embrace of the wind. Sand blows
Into the old scars of her eyelids, still she reaches
For the shape into which she wants to grow.
She will expand, year by year, from within,
And when all her layers chafe she knows
Her pumice-light bones will keep her afloat.
The bruises that bloom and linger only show
Where everything else ends and she begins.
Her pulse beats in her lips, drowning out
The pounding waves. Her heart had been,
Before her birth, only ghostly filigree:
Useless, however delicate and complete.
Now she’s dense and centrifugal, feet planted
In shifting sands, scoured by salt spray and
Spitting rain. She can afford to shed a little;
She’s known plenty of loss, but no lack.
NiKKi, Hiroki Kosuge
18th April, 2014
Church
I went to church on Good Friday. A man standing by the lectern preached about the importance of choice in our lives. Then, we sang a hymn. Every single believer but me sang pretty well.
The preacher said, ‘Anyone interested, please come over here.’ The believers flooded to the lectern. They were asked to choose either a black bean or a white bean. Some took a black bean in a transparent plastic cup. Others took a white bean in an opaque plastic cup.
After having completed the countdown of three-two-one, they swallowed their own beans hastily.
At that moment, the floor underneath the believers who swallowed white beans cracked open and they fell into a deep pit. Those who chose black beans seemed to be relieved and returned to their seats contentedly. The preacher said, ‘You see? This is the importance of choice in our lives!’
Just before leaving the church, I looked into one of the deep pits by the lectern and heard a voice: ‘I should’ve chosen a black bean.’
28th April, 2014
No Woman No Cry
I saw a woman weeping in the train. Her face was reddish and slightly swollen with alcohol. Then her phone rang. While she was talking she only said, ‘Why?’ Hanging up, she started sobbing again. She cried like an animal. She opened the window, and threw the phone to the outside of the train.
The phone pinged, and was run over and killed. The louder she cried, the more brilliantly her tears dropped on her light-blue dress, and shone.
Finally, her body was completely covered with her tears. They looked scaly. She had become a large fish. After flopping on the seat several times, she leaped through the window and dived into the water under the Harbour Bridge. She left behind her tears, which were as hot as melted iron.
11th May, 2014
Mother’s Day
From the bus, I saw a woman in the cemetery. She was polishing a tombstone, kneeling down on the ground. She was the only one in the cemetery. The tombstone was shining like a gray gem while other graves were deserted, or broken.
I arrived at the Shopping Centre. There was a huge arch of pink balloons and flowers for Mother’s Day. There were a lot of people carrying flowers in their arms. The petals of chrysanthemums in their arms were rigid as soldiers. I bought eggs and milk, and left, wondering how cruel Australians were, since chrysanthemums are only used in funerals in Japan.
On the way home, the bus passed by the cemetery again. Nobody was there, but a fresh bunch of flowers were left in front of the shining tombstone. The flowers were swaying like a giggling child, blown in the wind. I wondered how many mothers were lying in the cemetery. Then I remembered my own mother, Nanohana, who was named for a flower that blooms in spring, and was proud of that.
29th May, 2014
A Shovel
I happened to find a shovel at a museum shop, which was heavy and reminded me of my childhood. When I was a child, I was afraid of shovels. Every spring, without any good reason, the heavy lumps of iron were given to us, and we were forced to plant sweet potato seedlings. We dug, until the teacher told us to stop. The teacher said, ‘We’ll harvest in the autumn,’ although none of us asked when to harvest. I didn’t really want to harvest, because I knew I would have plenty of food in autumn even without sweet potatoes. I would rather have washed my hands as soon as possible, and have run away from the garden named after the manga character in which I was least interested. The hole I made looked like a grave for me. I didn’t like adults or children.
A museum attendant asked me if I would be interested in gardening. I smiled, looked at the shovel with a floral pattern and then asked her if I could make a grave with it. The staff was appalled and stepped back, but assured me, ‘If you want.’
30th June, 2014
An Over-Familiar Possum
I went to a swimming pool in the city. My goal was to be able to swim fifty metres. I managed to swim forty-five metres today. I am almost there. However, as I forgot to bring my goggles, my eyes became bloodshot and everything I saw became hazy. Even after I had left the sports centre, I couldn’t see things clearly.
Later, I went to a Turkish restaurant. The restaurant was filled with smoke. Rubbing my eyes, I ordered a kebab. A waiter asked if I needed a regular salad. I couldn’t read the menu but could only see his white teeth shining dimly. I left the restaurant, groping for a beacon outside.
The street lights were the strangest. I could see a dim ring around the light. It looked like a halo, and I regretted that I went to the church frequently these days despite the fact I was a Buddhist.
Walking at a snail’s pace to the station, I passed through Hyde Park. There was an extraordinarily huge possum. The possum looked at me as a beggar. I remembered that I had a Tim Tam and opened my bag. However, because of haziness, I couldn’t find it. The possum seemed to be really irritated. Finally, I found a Tim Tam and threw it to the possum. However, the possum rejected it and said, ‘Mate, can I have a durry?’ Then I finally found that it wasn’t a huge possum but a homeless person. I apologised to him and scurried back to my home.
13th July, 2014
An Accidental Indian Dance Instructor
As I make it a rule to write outside on a sunny day, I went to a park. When I was sitting on the bench and writing, I could see two girls dancing an Indian dance. One of them was Indian and another girl was Chinese. They seemed to be practicing for a performance. The Indian girl was teaching the Chinese girl. As they had danced for more than an hour in front of me, I realised that the Indian dance consisted of four patterns.
1. Make a loop with fingers
2. Bend knees
3. Shake hips
4. Tilt neck.
The Indian girl (I named her ‘A’) did two-four-three-one-three-four-four-two, while the Chinese girl (I named her ‘B’) did two-four-one-three-one-four-three-one. ‘A’ did two-four-three-one-three-four-four-two again, but ‘B’ did two-four-two-three-one- four-four-one. ‘A’ did two while ‘B’ did four. When ‘B’ did three, ‘A’ did four.
A: three-one-three-four-two-one-three-three-two-one-four.
B: three-one-three-four-two-one-three-three-two-one-one.
So close!
Then a strong wind blew my papers away. ‘B’ kindly picked them up, looked at the B4 sized papers on which numbers from one to four were scribbled and tilted her neck.
That’s it!
14th August, 2014
Lost
I took a wrong train. It was a night train to go to Melbourne. I had plenty of time and didn’t have anything to do but sleep. My face reflected in the window was as black as a portrait drawn in Indian ink. It wasn’t easy to sleep.
I looked at an obese man sitting on the other side of my seat. He had been talking to himself, while looking at his computer screen, ‘Crap…Crap…Crap…’ I looked into the screen and found he was watching a film. It was a film of his own life.
He was a child who was lovely, smart and vulnerable. He could get high marks in any subject, but wasn’t good at playing any sports. One day, he was chosen as a rugby team member by lots. It was obvious he was the poorest in the team. He didn’t practice and was absent on the day of the rugby match, because he didn’t want to show his poor rugby playing. Next day, nobody blamed him, but he blamed himself. He reckoned himself a loser. He graduated from school and got a job in a construction company, but soon quit. He stayed indoors and kept on eating. He believed he was always starving despite his body swelling like a balloon.
He clicked a rewind button and started watching the film again, murmuring, ‘Crap… Crap… Crap…’ Then, our eyes met. He said, ‘What are you looking at?’
After an awkward pause, I said, ‘I’m lost.’ He said, ‘So am I.’
15th September, 2014
This Is No Longer A Bus Stop
When I got to the bus stop, there was a sign. It said this was no longer a bus stop due to the changed road conditions. I found an aged couple sitting on the bench. I said this was no longer a bus stop. They looked at each other, laughed and said that was why they were waiting here.
Again, I said this was no longer a bus stop and therefore the bus wouldn’t come no matter how long you would wait. The husband studied me and then whispered something into his wife’s ear. His wife slightly nodded and opened her bag. She fumbled her red enamel bag and took out a piece of a yellowish paper.
It was a timetable. However, I couldn’t read it because there were so many small holes in the paper. Again, I said the bus wouldn’t come, folding the paper. They burst into laughter. I was disgusted with them and started walking. After a while, however, I felt sorry for the couple. Both of them must be suffering from dementia.
After having walked for a couple of minutes, however, I heard a thundering sound. Looking back, I could see the bus stop flying across the sky, like a skyrocket. The couple in the rocket-like bus stop waved to me with big grins. Then, I realised they had been waiting for the moment the bus stop would no longer be a bus stop, literally.
16th October, 2014
Arsonist
She called me and said she wouldn’t be able to talk for more than ten minutes because she was now imprisoned. I was really surprised because she was my best friend and was unlikely to commit a crime. I asked what she had done. She said she set the woods on fire, which wasn’t intentional. I suggested that she should have claimed that she was innocent. She said she couldn’t because it was true that she had set fire to a palm tree in the woods. I asked her why she had set the fire on the palm tree. She answered she was falling in love with the tree and couldn’t forgive it for reaching its branch to another palm tree. She confessed that she was about to lose her marbles whenever the palm tree quivered its leaves in a blowing wind. When she was about to say something, the telephone was disconnected. I wondered if she had already become crazy.
Afterwards, I told this creepy story to my partner. ‘It’s crazy to fall in love with a palm tree, isn’t it?’
My partner, a eucalyptus, didn’t say anything as usual. I hugged him tightly, closed my eyes and then enjoyed his clean scent.
4th November, 2014
Coy Carp
There lives a coy carp in the Sinobazu pond within Ueno Park in Tokyo. No one has seen it swimming. Hidden under waterweed, seemingly, it keeps still. It has a hobby, though.
The coy carp is into Twitter now:
#Shinobazu Pond
Water is lukewarm.
#Shinobazu Pond
Am afraid of Dengue fever.
#Shinobazu Pond
I wanna go to the beach someday.
There lives a coy carp in the Shinobazu pond within Ueno Park in Tokyo. No one has seen it swimming. Hidden under waterweed, seemingly, it keeps still. It is an ambitious carp, actually.
16th December, 2014
Wednesday, the Day of Loneliness
Mr Sato our boss is now often absent on Wednesday. It’s quite okay because he is just taking his paid leaves. He’s within his rights.
One day, one of my colleagues, however, told me Mr Sato’s secret in a cafeteria at the company.
She said in a low voice, ‘A friend of mine saw Mr Sato in a park on Wednesday.’
After looking around carefully, she added, ‘He was on a swing there. Alone.’
I didn’t know if I should laugh in the moment like this. I just imagined a middle-aged man sitting on a swing by himself.
I thought it would be the ultimate loneliness.
6th January, 2015
Beer & Beach
Mum would tell me when I was a child that life originated on the bottom of the ocean. Then I wondered if we would ascend into the sky like balloons when we died.
I had a friend called Jim. When I first met him, we were final-year students at the university. He was the kindest man I had ever met. We would often go to the beach on Sunday. Jim would tell me the names of birds floating in the clear sky. I would talk with him about my dream of becoming a poet. He would never laugh at my callowness. It may be just because both of us were intoxicated throughout the summer, though.
‘I must be strong to be a poet,’ I said.
‘Poets must be vulnerable,’ Jim said.
After we got drunk, we would exhaust ourselves swimming at the beach.
When the summer was over, Jim left the town in order to get a job in a city on the east coast. On the day he left, we promised to meet again. I haven’t seen him since then.
Some years later, I really became a poet.
Jim became an ornithologist, I heard, and died of lung cancer at twenty-seven.
I have forgotten his gentle voice, sunburnt skin and coy smile. We didn’t take any pictures in that summer. All I can remember now is the taste of bitter tides, and that we did believe we were immortal while we drank beer on the beach.
Badu Mangrove Morning, Willo Drummond
When the sun hits
the surface of the Badu
morning do you know
what must be done?
When the sun hits
the surface of what must be done
fish wake to feed
river and ocean
river fish feed
shore birds training
ironic eyes to
assess the day
shore birds assess
the Badu morning
while grey limbs write
shadows across the silt
shadows lace the surface
of the Badu morning
of everything here
as good as breathing
of everything here
as sure as hope, where
the sun lights the
surface of the living
where the sun hits
the hope of the shivering
rippling sensation
of understanding
when the sun glints
off the living morning
there is a rippling
of intention
when the sun glints off
the morning badu
when thought is no more
and only time will do
when everything
breathing is alive
to sensation, alert
to morning glance
when the sun glances
off the thought
of no more, rising
waters turn to milk
when the rising
milky badu
thoughts breathe
under-surface secrets
secrets surface then
to cool their heels
with detritus
in white water
when thought hits
the surface of the badu
morning the sky
glimmers at your feet
when the surface of
trees go under
when the sky rises up
we hold our breath
we hold our breath
with each root
that we’ll make
one more day
under the surface
of this sky, under the
hope we hold for one
more chance of breathing
when the breathing
sun skims roots
as the sky rises up
everything sways
everything sways
and shivers everything
slips just out of grasp
when the shivering
sun breathes badu
do you recognise
your intention?
When you meet your
breath by the sliding sun
when the light hits
the surface of the shadow lace
when the sun hits
the surface of the Badu
morning do you know
what it is you must do?
Notes
The Badu Mangroves are located at Homebush Bay, Sydney. Badu is the Dharug word for water: “Dharug Dalang. A Collaborative Tool for Language Teaching”, http://dharug.dalang.com.au/Dharug/plugin_wiki/wordlist [Accessed 17 August 2014].