poetry

Salamanca Bay

Eyeing the water

Sitting on timber boards

Drinking in the dark

We watched the boats in the bay

I wondered how the people get to the boats from the shore.

We sat there until late in the night

Moonlight played on the white boats

One name stood out, Penelope.

An old man sat on the bow

Scrubbing the side of the boat with a brush.

Later, I walked home beside the blue-white quay

And saw the little rowboats that must have been the answer.

I turned from the harbour and wandered up into the city

Passing the 19th-century sandstone buildings

The night was full of ghosts.

The night has a demon

A dark, dangerous spirit that travels at midnight.

2 and 3 am are the most dangerous times

When breathing is difficult and panic sets in

Eyes open, looking out windows at a city bathed in black

And yellow street lights.

The demon is there

Dragging its feet by your bedroom window

Possessing you with a madness to fly out of bed

To run out into the street

To clutch at your throat to get a breath

Silence, blindness, terror

 it is the night hour of death and lunacy

Of loneliness 

Of the fear of death

Waiting for morning

And the yellow-gold light

To chase the monster away.

Summer Swimming

We would go swimming on summer afternoons
We were so thin and fit
Walking on those baked sidewalks of cement and red dirt
We would cut through the city streets carrying our towels.

The Saturday afternoons were ours alone
We had a special key and could enter the closed pool
We would swim and watch the sunset
The magpies, at peace, in the huge trees by the fence.

She would swim and dive in the cool blue water
I would grunt and struggle to complete my twenty laps
We would walk home in the evening redness
She would sing softly a tune about summer

That one summer, I wanted it to last forever
The Weekend evenings
We would also, sometimes, go at five am on weekdays
The water unbelievably cold, and we unbelievably tired.

It ended. We parted
As Autumn came, I would go bike riding and running
She preferred the gym and yoga
The swimming was something we would do again, but alone.

Cutting room floor snippets

The rain falls off the leaves
Creating puddles
For the frogs

I take out the garbage
It is dark
A man stands on my roof

Sitting in the café
I hold my shopping
And look out at the city

Glancing up at the moon
I think of the people
Who fell in the water

Reading by a tiny light
The train jerks
And I lose my page

Her lovers send her gifts
While she
Busy, puts on perfume

The man holds the door
While he dreams
Of the movies he could make

Her blonde hair
Shone like beams of light
a sun show

Mornings

I am always the second to wake in the morning
The room dark
I hear the footsteps in the hall
And half awake, I hope it’s not six a.m.
But it is always six a.m.

The house is cold.
I find the button for the gas heater in the still-dark hall and
Pressing it, instantly hot air pours forth from vents in the ceiling.
When I was a boy, there was no heat in the mornings before school
No one had time to light the fire.
So, I would linger in bed, hoping to be forgotten.

Later, when I was a little older, we had a black and white TV in the kitchen
Where I could watch a cartoon as I ate breakfast
And wish away these days of school and rising early.

At nights, bus riding and walking in wet streets of stinging cold
I would light the fire if I were first home.
There I would fall asleep beside it.
Once, a spark caught my school jacket and burned a hole in it.

There is little in that now
But my father grew up in a house without a bathroom
His father was without electricity.
What would a child know of these things now?
And yet, happy moments were found.

Harbour Street

Where I used to live
In a room in the corner of an old brick building
The streets would stretch out in all directions
Some winding down beside the river, some disappearing through horse lanes
One stopped at a rock cliff
The last one ending at the harbour.

A man lived in a building opposite, and he would dress up each day
Winter or summer, In a thick coat
And head down to the water to fish
His wife would wait for him
She would clean the house
Talk to the neighbours
Go out sometimes on her own.

They had lived in that house for fifty-eight years.
She had a stroke one winter afternoon
The man would only fish once a week, then
He had to stay home and look after her
He grew thinner
I never saw her again

One night, at midnight,
There was a funny smell like toast being burned and burned
Then the street filled with smoke
And there were sirens and fire trucks stuffed into that old street
So nothing could move; even the hoses had a hard time getting out
An electric blanket had smouldered into flame and killed them both

Seafresh Laundry, 31 Beckworth Street

Sarah worked in the laundry,

She worked hard

Her hands red, and back sore

She wore the uniform, a blue dress

Twice divorced, kids in the Catholic school

She never had enough money, even with the Sunday shift. 

Henry drove and unloaded the trucks

A lady’s man, he took to Sarah 

And pursued her, winning her eventually. 

Henry never could value things correctly

And his days of breaking and lying were far from over.

Sarah had a recurring dream

Where she was on holiday 

In a beach resort where she was swimming in the sea,

Her foot caught in rocks, the ocean rising

She could not breathe, and choking she would wake. 

Henry saw her do this twice

And eating breakfast with her kids in the last morning 

He sneered at the daughter and asked her what she wanted to do in life

The daughter looked down at the table and did not speak.

Henry set his eye to find new pastures.

Sarah pushed the load into the dryer

And wondered where things went wrong

And that surely they would improve.

Steam rose from the top of the vent

And out a window into the cold day

The Pendle Hill Battle

We met the enemy on Pendle Hill
Where I had played as a child
Among the soft grass and flowers.
The enemy dug a trench right through where I found a sparrow nest
We set up the machine gun down by Torren Stream

They had the higher ground and cut us up like mice
Kurt had a leg blown off
Tommy lost his face
A tear in my side gave me no pain
But I also copped a bullet in my eye

As I sat in the grass, I went back one last time
I could hear my father’s radio play
I could see the swing and slide
I could feel the grass under my feet as I went running down the side
Pendle Hill erupted in black as bombs fell from the sky.

Age

The clouds parted

and like light through the trees,

the sun danced around the puddles

shining like coins on the wet, shiny stones.

My legs hurt from sitting down all day

and I didn’t feel well

I was too fat

and the less I did the lazier I became.

The oval was wet

and the heels of my boots sunk into the muddy grass

and I remembered when I was a boy

that I loved to wade through puddles and sink into mud.

I was so thin when I was young,

and full of energy

but I could sleep for 12 hours straight too if I wanted.

Those times seem lost now,

gone cheaply

as if I took fifteen years of my life and set them on fire.