about the kids who don’t make it home
kids who were just like us,
innocent explorers
brown water looting
with no shoes, no money
no fear
just the eternity of the mudflat
the sun never setting
jetty nights
it was an arm that stretched over the mud and sharks
from under the song of the swaying pines in the darkness,
the night water fondles the pylons
as mullet dance in the cold blackness afraid of nothing
we too, walk against our curfew
we see the eyes under the jetty,
phosphorescence and ectoplasm
under the death of the floorboards
looking up from the muddy grave
stealing a glance at the clear cover of stars
a fishing boat drones somewhere out there on the water
and in the distance a buoy flashes red lights and green
and you suddenly feel the loneliness out there
that’s where you can escape to
the smell of mashed potatoes and chops hang in the air
drags our attention back to the shoreline cottages
Ray Martin chatters somewhere in the glow of sixty watt lighting
we turn and face the clatter of dead wood
our lifeline home
and leave our jetty,
leave away the mystical squawks of curlew in the swamp
that eerie bleakness we came to love,
this innocence we behold
that we had nothing to fear but our parents’ scorn
carefree
you’d never forget the pelicans
because it was their home too
and that occasional one who’d try and swallow your baited hook
while we cast out into an endless mould of brown and blue skin
sometimes catching our line in its enormous and clumsy wingspan
floating around the jetty constantly boasting that huge gullet
so close to the pylons covered in poison oyster shells
that waited for the bare flesh within our gait,
inviting our bare flesh to dance
Mum worried that we’d get sick from eating them
Dad saying the sewage from the caravan park
would sometimes flow near where we fished
and that the oysters bathed in it too
little buckets of a few bream
silver catch of a meal
and the persistent cats at our ankles
lapping up the smell
running up past the shop
a front window necropolis of stonefish in vegemite jars
suspended in a vault of clear alcoholic brine
still deadly in death
and us in bare feet all the time
three kids in stonefish-infested mud
playing Russian roulette—
one good pair of running shoes between us
deadman’s mouth harp
walking along a bitumen shoulder
’round the witching hour
it comes through the darkness
an unwelcome companion
that levels the grass and foliage,
a whistle
like a crystal spear
cuts the stillness into fine pieces
a maiden carried in the wind
sultry, yet hollow,
a tune from a deadman’s mouth harp
a cry that follows the night
chilled and evil
it echoes the little spirits in the breeze
black lips and diamond teeth
it strays beyond the ebony cover of sky
spat out of a deadman’s mouth harp,
played over and over
a monotone symphony
from the tired beast
of damned and lonely eternity
a verse for the cheated
growing up on the southern fringe of the Sunshine Coast
we often heard adults rambling on about the local economy
and saw the bright plumage and wealth of tourists
those who came with an odd hunger for visitation
and soon left as tourists
some who copped the brunt of our youthful grievances
those buying postcards of pristine beaches
that were nowhere near us
and purchasing painted coral stolen from hundreds of miles away
and branded with the tag, MADE IN TAIWAN,
they arrived in their brand-new cars that sparkled
upon a strip of bitumen that we regarded as a petulant beast,
a highway that carried some of us away
forever
young and unaware of the finality of death
its greedy black claws lubricated on the nectar of broken dreams
my mate who had his licence for only a week
...the sister of a friend on a casual drive home
...an academic in the senior class, the world at her fingertips
...another mate taken on a motorbike
and a friend who ended up as a plaything for the monster
pulled from the wreckage screaming, fed on painkillers and nightmares
all of this and the tourists taking photos of the roadside crosses
thinking how fortunate and cool we kids looked in this haven
how carefree it must be approaching adulthood on the Sunshine Coast
and the recalcitrant animal
prepared to deliver us on our future paths of success
and to pick a few off on our way
the fatal garden
don’t judge me by my skin
at 4.30am
under
the street-lit madness
black—white—yellow—red
all the people
of the spectrum,
like an arrangement of flower-show blossoms
peace is plausible
but
it seemed easier to create
a mockery
of the human condition
born
of immortal Greek philosophers
well, how immortal is it?
it didn’t last long,
until the tulips and the roses
and snapdragons
and poppies
began slaughtering each other
the killing season
bitter harvests:
spring
summer
autumn
winter
and
escape
radio thick blood
I sit in my room
as they advise
that another united nations envoy
has been captured to the shock of their country
by another country
another suffering
we kill a few of theirs
so they kill a few of ours
and the beers won’t pour all night
but five dollars will get you a look
at the darkside
in all our hearts
to a charlie parker tune
and even he had his own hell
that we’re still looking after here
when someone else visited china
people committed to bring about change in chile
and the beer is going down twice as fast
but the contraband didn’t even make it past airport security
and someone praises botulism in our hemisphere
and radio thick blood
while I just sit here and get narrow
like a crowd at the bullfights
where hemingway made it,
approaching the dregs like a slow dawn,
tears inconceivable
midnight’s boxer
midnight’s boxer he has become
that the ghosts from the ‘tents’ of long-ago pay homage
memories that fill
a boardinghouse room
busted knuckles soothed endlessly with goanna oil
and on the soul, scars that can’t
stories in his eyes
could have been an olympian
try and extract the truth from his fists,
although
he wouldn’t know how to sink in the boot
a tender honour picked up off the battlefields of assimilation
midnight’s boxer he has become
fifty-seven-year-old gas tank that can’t see empty
blackened skin like blackening memory
and hard
plain hard,
the urecognised pillar of his mob
and
after midnight has gone
way gone
and his time is over
will he be missed
and his triumphs mentioned,
midnight’s boxer he has become
surgery music
they’re always cooking bacon in the cancer ward
it’s tuesday
and head injuries last
until monday
but they’re still cooking bacon on a patient’s bed
a face blistered in fat
as screams reign unchallenged
until the surgery music
softens all
but the few
few to die
few to live
few to cry
and darkness takes care of the rest
few to die
to feast on the bacon with death
eyes to eat with
hands to choke
white sheets to catch pain
soaked in purity on a stick
and a corner in which to breathe
a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee
deadened crow with eternal lockjaw
a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee
not as gracious as a magpie,
neck bent into the wind
and bitumen madness that claimed you
scorched mark
and tears
fallen into the blackened tar and earth
blood soaked earth through massacre
war
and plague
this is someone’s land
played host to someone’s lust of
a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee
ants scream
wage war
and curse the rain
black feathers scatter the highway
teasing the frozen bitumen spirits
locked in the heat and tar
sealed forever
like the constant anger
and sorrow within
a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee
the gloom swans
and they found shelter in decay
as the morose ballet
danced across the wreckage of metropolis lost
fingering the broken glass, dreams and wind
constantly fuelling the graceful progress
of the gloom swans
a death march of sinister beauty
drawing survivors back through ruined hearts
seeing a blend into the melted, living forms of day
and crawl back to shadows smooth of night
appearing only to undertake the execution
of sky’s foe
why so vicious, oh gloom swans?
why so death?
why do the children weep
in contempt of your sterile feather?
why so pardon the corpses
laid out in the cleansing of your mockingbird departure
a black bird of my mind
migrating thoughts
of bitter sweet anxieties
come once
in a curse
or on a
road
of stone
harshly cut rocks
of little chance
that attracts a man
of word
of time
of sacrifice
to lay against the grain
but why walk a road of bitter sweet?
when easier
to cut one’s throat
and watch a sea of
death
red
swimming in the
rain
fly-fishing in woolloongabba
facing the mirror
and having a shave
in the near darkness
after an evening of watching the wine disappear
listening to traffic outside
rivers of exhaust and light
white light upstream
red light downstream
schools of syringes
wade in the shallows
needle packets float in the gutter
absurd fish scales in the breeze
my partner understands it better,
better than most
understands the intersecting flow
gently, she understands
as a young girl living on a remote, black community
a minority of her
in a majority
understanding, she is too gentle for this river here
and back in the mirror again
a spot of blood appears on my face
the water running down the drain with my blood
night-juice into the underside of the current on our doorstep
a small fire is ignited up the street
we hear the faint pop
when someone has lost it
tossed a chemical bomb on the steps of the Serbian church
and just what did it solve?
as they escaped down one of the side streets
down one of a thousand bitumen estuaries
of the big river
when tomorrow I’ll stand on our doorstep
cast out a line in the comfort of full ‘contents’ insurance
the sharks motionless in the disguise of the undertow
and the little fish sighing, for the want of better
shout-me-a-wine requiem
let’s just say
it is a little more
than an obligatory action of mine
this person from outside my circle
a colleague with whom I visit
in a room of four walls and melancholy
bed linen unshaken for some months under a retrospective painting of poker-playing dogs
in the tobacco-stale atmosphere his unshaved haven
and I feel the end of it all when I arrive
his words composed in a collection
rudely on top of each other
like the swaying tower of bourbon bottles in the kitchen,
shoves some red wine into my 9am face,
the tip-toeing around his verses and luck
and mine and politics and protocols
and amidst the death march he asks, within a staccato of our banter
“so how do you get published?”
over and over like an echo, this sour requiem I endure
and yes, yes I am glad
there is no longer heroin in this place
no sharps, no nothing
yet, cheap red wine and regurgitated
memories of a young woman
who once touched us both
wakes a bad taste in my mouth
“you have to submit your stuff to the literary mags...”
“I have!”
sun trying to bend the dust-caked blinds
little death hands down my back
knowing I could write better in there with him
but no, whilst there are more negotiations as I reach for the door
some plans to have dinner with Sarah and I in the future, sometime
“can I grab some money from ya ... shout me another wine?”
crust
man in the glass crust
walks up to the bin on the street and rummages
> 10am traffic and oblivious
vitreous and dirty and open
no one builds a nest for him,
him in his stained denims
and glass crust
and vitreous ways walks the sidewalk alone
probably fought until it got over him?
maybe still fighting?
maybe victorious already
but then again, we all figure
you never really get over the big punches
the glass crust
or the vitreous demise
the writer’s suitcase
it spilled out onto the bitumen
like the bursting stomach of a consumed beast
the writer’s black suitcase
bleeding onto the pavement
where he fell for the last time
and the black moths within escaped
fled for cover in the light they’d been deprived of
witnesses and prisoners unto his pain
secrets into the wind
onlookers gasping in shock
the writer in a ball of terror
his state exposed to the world
and little immortality to come of anything
light shining on the darkest of journeys in the suitcase
nights of drunken ramblings
where the writer fell lower than ever
body convulsing
thoughts fleeing the open air
pages scatter amongst the breeze
the writer dies lying in a pool of his words
a mess of lies and truths
Smoke Encrypted Whispers Page 2
