writing

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

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.

ten minutes

I watched the fire die out this morning

and thought of those mornings of waking early

to clean the shoes for those who slept in the house

blowing on my fingers to warm the knuckles.

I walked out of the house into the sharp cold to watch a train

move slowly

along silver frozen tracks.

It moved like steam in the mists of snow,

slowly, slowly but unstoppable.

That night, years ago, when we went to hear him sing

and he sang so well.

I’m going back to hear him sing now,

with his tired, choked throat that can never be cleared.

Ten minutes!

she called

I turned partly, nodded and turned back.

Ten minutes, ten sixty second periods.

no time at all.

How many sixty second periods in a life?

No time at all.

 

Rushing fire

Pack it away with the toys and the books,

those days of dreaming.

The dark stain on the rug pushed under an old chair

that spews dust with every pat.

A scream from under the fridge,

milk running down the door and drying in a neat puddle.

A text from a friend saying ‘don’t worry about me’

Delete

an email for a sale on now.

Light a candle and fall asleep,

wait for another hand to snuff the flame,

a lover’s hand,

the candle burns to a nub and smoke drifts gently to the ceiling

a black mark.

Remember the handshake where he held your hand too tightly, for too long

And remember the dream where standing in your backyard,

your saw a mushroom cloud rising in the south

and you pray that it is far enough away that you are not killed

by the rushing fire.

 

Apartment building on 347 Favoux Street

The clerk working in the bank

Itching his legs under the desk and getting up to go the bathroom

For the third time this hour.

He walks home after work.

It has been raining and water pools on the footpath

And drips from the shop awnings.

 

At home, he stands in his kitchen and heats up

A packet of noodles.

Outside it begins to rain again and his little window mists over.

The water boils in the saucepan slowly,

Like a bath.

 

He has talked his neighbour into going out with him.

She is a small woman, with a friendly smile.

He meets her at her front door,

She is wearing a blue dress with blue buttons

He is wearing a brown polo shirt.

He takes her to the movies.

Afterwards, they walk along the pier

And eat spiralised potatoes.

 

She tells him about her last boyfriend,

And how he drank too much

He listens with a pretend interest,

Hiding his annoyance.

Back in her apartment

She puts a movie on Netflix

And they sit down to watch for a while,

Until yawning, she asks him to come into the bedroom

And they have sex.

He leaves at two am

Feeling the dampness that the night brings

And the dampness that this kind of love brings

And he sleeps a deep sleep

That only the numb can sleep.

In the morning he wakes late and has to rush to work.

She wakes late, and not having to start work until the afternoon

She takes a bath.

She makes it as hot as she can

And watches the clouds through the skylight

And wonders what the day will bring.

Calmly she thinks about last night;

As if youth lasted forever.

Movie Stars

She was beautiful and innocent,

She would wear plain, shapeless dresses, but on her

They looked like summer rain on the canna lilies.

She turned 18 in 1997.

Back then,

On a rainy day, when I was even younger than her,

We went to a bookstore.

Timber trestle tables were set up, and cheap books were spread across them

All in a jumbled pile.

She picked up a book on actors of the 20th century

And took it to the old man at the cash register and bought it.

At nights, she would read the book to me

Telling me the life stories of these actors and the movies they were in.

These people were so far removed from our lives

But they seemed so glamorous.

She would tell me one day she’d go to Hollywood and see where these people live,

See their mansions.

Sometimes, she would take me to the movies

And we’d see films,

Cartoons and whatever was playing.

Over the years that old book,

With its heavy hard cover,

 would come out and we’d go over the names and photos.

Every time an actor would die, she would carefully, neatly

Write in the date of their death next to their name.

Years past

And many of those old actors died.

Beautiful women with long blonde hair,

Men with burning eyes and large chins.

I would listen to the news and when an actor died,

I would rush to her room so I would be the first to tell her the news.

It was a morbid connection.

The movie stars of the 20th century

The old world stars slowly fading and disappearing.

She never made it to Hollywood

Instead she met a man

And she married him.

Still, when a celebrity dies, I think of her

And I’ll text her

Hoping I’ll be the first to tell her the news.