The Fremantle Press Anthology of Western Australian Poetry
Page 17
Mary Champion (b.1947)
Long Park
It’s pension morning and very quiet as I sit in Long Park. It’s mid-morning now and people begin to move around rushing to and fro, cars zooming past. It starts to get noisy, then our Wongi mob start to come in, looking for the best spots to sit in the cool of the day. Long Park is central, it has everything you might need only a few steps away. There is the Red Rooster across the road, with public toilets on the side; there’s the Woolworths store with a liquor store on the side. So we have a lovely place to sit all day and enjoy a yarn with our friends, with all the things we might need only a few steps away. Yeah, that’s my sister up there and my uncle sitting right up the top and that mob over there are my cousins; we come here every day. But it’s a special day today, it’s pension day. It’s now mid-afternoon and Long Park is nearly full. Everyone’s telling stories. At the same time they seem to be past listening, but who cares? We are all having a good time.
Jan Teagle Kapetas (b.1947)
Slaughtering the Lamb
1.
On the crossed bars in the dust
beside the blacksmith’s forge,
he throws the sheep down belly up,
legs trussed like spears under a galvanised roof.
This is a challenge:
My father wants his daughters strong.
I am the one who fails him.
I must look at that rolling eye; show him I see her fight
the hairy yellow twine; remember how it felt
tight knotted round my wrist to test my nerve.
Hold still. Give nothing away.
One slip and he’ll know.
Separate yourself from this now,
before you see the neck drawn back —
see the dog, the hay fork,
the bright shaft through the shed’s shadow —
hand him the knife when he asks;
let your face be keen,
be his bold girl.
2.
The knife is dull.
He pedals the wheel, makes the great stone turn
fast, faster; brings the blade slow balance
down till the steel screams.
His face comes over his shoulder.
‘Keep an eye on her, Janet.’
The child sees the sheep on the killing block:
remembers the rector,
his tight white collar; his eye for an eye,
Abraham slaughtering a sheep for the Lord:
does not trust God.
He says he does this for me:
takes the knife, and kills so that I may eat
a leg roast crisp with potatoes;
the liver.
3.
Old ewe, I am the farmer’s daughter:
see because he says I must,
the knife enter your throat,
your bright blood spurt.
When shivers run through your body,
I count seven times
till the dark blood curdles.
‘It’s time you learned,’ he says,
‘This is what life’s about.’
Will a knife run handle deep
from my throat to soft belly,
skirt close under the skin?
Will hands reach in,
tug deep sinews, intestines?
4.
He turns.
I plunge hands into the bloody wound,
lift pulsing entrails, heart, stomach bag,
forearms hot glistening, heaving the weight,
straining to show daddy his strong girl —
but the heat quivering out of the sheep,
the dark stench betrays her snivelling
tears and snot, mouth spattering egg yellow in the dust.
‘Oh, you gutless wonder …’
This is not allowed.
He heaves the ewe up on the butcher’s hook,
takes the child’s shoulders, closes hands about her fists,
makes her strike, strike again,
punch off the skin —
will toughen her yet,
this daughter.
Alf Taylor (b.1947)
Moorditj Yorgah
You are a cruel
Deadly moorditj yorgah
An’ um marrdong for you
But um
Just a wintjarren
Nyoongah man
But um gonna try
To get off
Diss gerbah an’ gunja
An’ be a cruel
Deadly moorditj nyoongah man
You are indeed
A truly deadly solid
Moorditj yorgah
An’ um
Jerrepjing something wicked
For you
But um
Just a wintjarren nyoongah man
Um gonna
Get off
Diss gerbah an’ gunja
An’ show you
What a moorditj man
I can be
An gib you
All da lub
Dat I can
But kurndarnj choo
Um shame
The Land
Sitting in the back seat
of my brother’s car
reading the Australian
and glanced briefly
at my mother’s country
the red pulsating land before me
I felt my pulse beat in time
to energy
the trees, rocks and soil
that emerge from my mother’s land.
I am sure I saw the apparition
of my ancestors
emerge from the belly
of my mother’s beautiful land;
they waved, sang and danced for me
in their ceremonial colours.
Awesome!
And for my eyes only,
not the cancerous salinity
that dies under the hot sun
after the first, second, third … settlers
have ripped out all the trees
in the farming areas of the land
we have just passed.
Then scribbling on the newspaper,
realising I was back to now,
I put these words down
and began to think realistically:
We the Nyoongar people
of this country
they call ‘Australia’
have been traumatised and suppressed
throughout those assimilation years;
although our land has been taken
we must retain and guard
our boundaries
as we the Nyoongar people know
that we don’t own the land
passed down to us by our forefathers,
that the land owns us;
for we must cherish the land,
the trees, rocks, water,
the birds and lizards
that live on our sacred soil —
care for it
as we would our children
our mothers, fathers, brothers, and sisters,
also the elderly, who cared for the land
long before the birth of Jesus Christ
so that we
can tread in their footsteps
and allow our children to follow.
Marion May Campbell (b.1948)
Time Inside
In the sun-slatted room, listen
the little cat licks, purrs
stops absent-mindedly.
Eyes narrowed, she suspends you
in amber warmth, lets day fold over you
until, in any mother’s belly, dark
you’re less alert to sharp vowels
of children in their bright space
far from yours. Now deep inside the water bowl
receiving only mirrored skies
you hold at bay all that’s compass slavery
sextant, vector, set course.
Somewhere else, heaping up
are punctual ca
lls unheeded
terminal clauses tangling.
Here, only tidal intentions
sea’s surge & trough or wave slap.
Glad within this time sack
that is your life
turned back so future edge, edge past
touch to make the loop now
time out, you are
amniotically buoyed
& rhythmed by the not-you
beating in your belly
humming in the traffic’s wake.
Jimmy Chi (b.1948)
Black Girl
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me tonight?
Come over darlin’ make everything right.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
I know, I know,
It’s hard for you,
And you know darlin’ it’s hard for me too.
I know, I know,
I love you true.
Come over darlin’ say you love me too.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me tonight?
Won’t you come over darlin’ make everything right.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
Some day, some day,
We’ll be alright
Just like it is on this shiny night.
Some day, some day,
We’ll have it all.
’Cos you know darlin’ you make me stand tall.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me tonight?
Won’t you come over darlin’ make everything right.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
So love, so love,
Won’t you say you love me?
We’ll be together eternally.
So love, so love,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me tonight?
Won’t you come over darlin’ make everything right.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me tonight?
Won’t you come over darlin’ make everything right.
Black girl, black girl,
Won’t you love me and then,
Come over darlin’ and love me again.
Dennis Haskell (b.1948)
The Basis of All Knowledge
for Cameron
He is a child
less than three feet tall, impotent,
his fingers not yet curled
around problems.
He screams with pain
for the simple fact that
his teeth bite his gums like needles.
Take him up.
He has no beliefs.
He displays no regret
nor any knowledge
of what regret could mean.
He entrusts you and
your meaningless arms
with his whole body,
with nothing less
than his whole life.
Take up what will not be questioned:
a father given to his son.
After Chemo
Your hair is falling like thin rain,
like mizzle, like long, silent,
lightening snow. An invisible waterfall,
your hair cascades
or lifts away from you
like gossamer, like an inkbrush
gifting new patterns to the floors,
furring our mouths, our thickening thoughts,
our almost-said words.
In each corner of each room,
swirled across the tiles,
I find them, these networks,
these fine cobwebs of you;
they’re flowering down your clothes:
every jumper, every skirt,
even your socks are
laced with these filaments,
hair like slender moths,
like will o the wisp,
these fine threads of you,
drifting away …
And our lives are fastened
by more shadows
than we cast.
Your hair
lisps like autumn blossom,
aspects of the you
you used to be
on racks in the wardrobe,
alert in the trembling air.
Just outside the bedcovers,
the you you were, seeming intact
but in fact
we are as we are
together, alone, as you can see,
with elusive memories for company,
with your wisps of hair
disappearing as gently as breath.
No-one Ever Found You
No-one ever found you self-seeking or dishonest.
Giving is your gift. When you stand
on the spotted tiles, peeler in hand,
large-eyed, intent
on pontiacs, carrots and all the care
for yet another meal, you think yourself
ordinary, like the magpies
that march about outside the windows
while the afternoon light
drifts across geraniums, daisies, lawn,
but nothing and no-one could be more distinct.
Living never came easily to you. You take everything hard.
All that we have ever said and done
seems less than what we meant
but to know this without saying
is love’s bequest, the silent embodiment
that gives our every word its meaning.
We have shifted cities, our shift
into each other’s lives so complete
that any other we could scarcely know.
Though your eyes are tired, my shoulders bony,
it matters little where we go,
how little we know
and how much our lives have passed,
our days will be filled with green
and we grow together like the grass.
The Trees
It is a cloudy day when the light
does not seem ours by right
but only borrowed, and all time looks
much later than it deserves to be.
The land leans out of the window
at your elbow towards where a sunrise
of thought, of ideas, of understanding
should be. Trees mark out distances
like goals, and there are more of them
than your mind, or the light,
can hold. What are they doing there
to you? What are you doing here
racing through the uncontrolled landscape
of your life, all the stations
that will be given to you?
Near clouds clot the air and early
darkness is closing in like fear.
Beate Josephi (b.1948)
In Praise of a Second Language
A second language
is like a room of one’s own
to retire to at night when the letters
and phone calls have been answered
the demands for attention cease.
Then I can push away the still lingering phrases
and go into a clear uncluttered space of words
untouched by today. Today, for all I know,
was a mere construction in another language
to be discontinued at the turn of a key.
And I turn the key and my words
are slowly coming home
homing in on the waiting
like waiting for the bus at the river
the river gray and heavily laden with ships.
I enter the bus, go past the barracks
the chemical factories, the buildings
where my father spent forty-two years
of his working life.
Then the cement works.
The conductor calls the familiar names
calling up names from the past
vernacular words from Roman
and medieval times when the island
hosted tournaments and royal elections.
Until the bus goes over the bridge
and I arrive at the ‘Emperor’s Gate’
in another state but not another language
which I will not leave until I leave
the room of my mind.
Sunil Govinnage (b.1950)
I Don’t Write Poems in Sinhala Anymore
for Eric Illyapparchchi
While you craft your metaphors
And write as you like
In Sinhala,
While you win awards
I struggle here,
Under watchful eyes.
Post-colonial poets
Look on as I polish
My words into metaphors.
At night, when your metaphors cry out
And shine in their newborn glow,
I climb cliffs of foreign imagery
And bleed for a simile.
I eat, I drink, and worship white poetry;
I don a white mask
To overcome the self-pity.
I send you postcards
With ‘cool pictures’ of Perth.
Philip Salom (b.1950)
Seeing Gallipoli From the Sky
To remember the veterans with my child-illusion:
war had turned their faces white
around the eyes, the skin had gone translucent.
Or consider the days of Anzac in the streets
not only those in suits come back on duty
but the ghosts among their ritual ranks
always in uniform. That or the shock of sepia
of platoons just hours before they left:
that shift across the brain from left to right
from the hemispheres of fact to dream,
like troopships crossed the hemispheres
and left men wondering: was it fact or nightmare?
Without a template of history to hold these images.
They soon got one and nothing could shake it.
Like the enemy it was sudden and total
and like nothing else in the army
it fitted their bodies perfectly.
You see them level and sealed in
or splayed like asteroids
among the dimmed star-shells