Poems

Gail Hennessy’s ‘In a Second-hand Bookshop’

from Written On Water

I am with Virginia Woolf’s
‘variegated feathers’ searching
among wild, homeless books…

old friends cheek by jowl
nestle from floor to ceiling

I am searching for
Abelard’s Letters to Heloise.

A young man tutors a scarfed
woman at a paper strewn table

they are darkly exotic
from old Persia perhaps

I think of Scheherazade
flying carpets, Arabian Nights

her tutor translates as I
teeter on a stool behind them

and hear -

my flesh is too sweet to explain

I come down from the stool
and float from the shop 
cradling the pearl of his lesson

and so…

I have framed this line
by an unknown poet

so that you may know
words I do not want to forget

a line from a poem
I am unable to write.

S. K. Kelen’s ‘Coming Home (from my Papuan holiday)’

from Yonder Blue Wild

Goodbye Moresby.
Goodbye jungle.
Flying home. Over the phosphorescent green reef
where the wing of a Japanese transport plane
stands like a broken soldier.
Across a jade desert that joins the sky.
Over the mountains that were really clouds.
At thirty-thousand feet: when clouds look like
they’re just on top of the sea. Through 
a chicken leg, a glass of white table wine 
and six continental cakes. 
Over more sea.
The Great Barrier Reef.
Sugar plantations, rivers, towns.
Factories and roads.
Keeping the plane late by being the only person
to declare his carvings in customs at Brisbane airport.
Flying farther south into night.
The sun is a red ball at the edge of a purple sky:
a piece of left-over daylight touches
the horizon. The sun slips over 
the side of the world. Then darker blue, darker blue, 
then purple, indigo giving way to black sky.
And stars all across it. 
Somewhere down there is my house.
Sydney, the city, and I can see buses and lights on the 
streets.

And it’s raining. The captain says it’s cold.
All those fools in their Bombay bloomers 
and safari shirts shiver, trundle off the jet
and run across the tarmac through the rain.
Mum, Dad. It’s your boy.
                  Home after three weeks.
You can kiss me when we get home.
A transistor radio for you, little brother.
I’ll tell you about it all in the car.
How are things? How’s that dumb dog of mine?
                         Have I learned anything?
                         Sure, sure.

Kit Kelen’s ‘A Sociology of Paradise’

from a pocket kit 2

First I came through a hoop of flesh.
I didn’t jump, I swam. There was an endless
mud plain and another storm coming.
Rain beat the rice shoots green from the soil.
Millions were huddled round the still ether.

The century dragged on. I missed the boat
swam out to the island. And the air was still
in the sun’s quarter and the half a sky where
waves could have been. The moon washed
up where the tide rusted into the sand.

Cars came out of the twentieth century.
Coca Cola came ashore, lapped on
the hard live shell of paradise. A coconut
fell out of nowhere onto my child’s head.
I didn’t stumble. There were stars and bars
everywhere. I could hear the West
crackling through looming shadows of bliss.

Back country, hills were dense with trees,
Dissidence, notches for climbing up.
And curled into a noose of straw
the disappeared hung, swaying — invisible
burden of paradise. I jumped through a hoop
of gold. I had the ring of confidence then
and a flag colour of mud.

Helicopters filled up the sky. When the noise
came, birds shifted in a line, black, palm to palm,
fifty metres. Then when they came back
there was nothing the wind could move.
Trees clung to a rock in the sea.

On dry land a had a good steady job
in the fly-spray factory. They paid me in cigarettes
so naturally I took up smoking. The mist
from the nozzle formed up a halo to martyr
the very air. You couldn’t call it a leak.
It was more like missile testing.

Each day here proud of the fallen, brainless
slaughters to glory in. The earth makes up
a place for each. The new rice sings from the earth.
The colour of the mud in our veins is a flag
billowing over a hoop of bright gunmetal:
the welcome mat. I didn’t jump, I swam.

Richard James Allen’s ‘Birthplace’

from Fixing the Broken Nightingale

someone in your family once read my novel
or maybe studied it at school
I found an old copy
an early Penguin edition
down behind the back row of books
at the bottom of your bookcase
the front cover was ripped of
but I could tell they had appreciated it
because the title was pencilled
about thirty times on the front page
there was a recipe for fruit cake
in the blank space between sections one & two
scrawled down the margins of pages 126 & 223
were the departure & arrival times of the North Coast Mail
& across the back fap
the names of fourteen people
who used to be alive
frozen in a line
like sitting ducks in a shooting gallery

Beth Spencer’s ‘We Are the Rejected’

from The Party of Life

The rejected in love 
come down to sigh in the park 
at Glebe Point

The rejected drive down late at night
crammed in a yellow two door sedan
radio blaring, 
arms flailing out of windows
hair a mess, mascara running

We shout 
'We are the REJECTED!'
across Blackwattle Bay

and wait

and the shark coloured water 
creaks against the bank
'Hmmm... Hmm...'
like a $90 shrink.

because it is comforting to be something
even if it's only this

and up on the other side of the bay
the cars cruise by
headlights politely averted

But we are everywhere,
in the dark in the bushes, on benches
kneeling or leaning against the white rails
resting our foreheads against lamp-posts
bumping them against fences (boop, boop)

As dark falls on Glebe Point
you can hear the rustling of the 
grievers, the decieved
listen to the
'Hmmm… Hmmm…' of the bay
and see the cars drive away
(the unrejected, with places to go, busy schedules)

The chimney stacks:
(no comment)

The skyline glitters 
out of reach
like a big birthday cake
for someone's party that the rejected are
too dejected to go to
(and weren't invited in the first place)

We are the world's nocturnal shuffling creatures,
hunched shoulders, long thin overcoats
pale lined faces.

Short, fat, balding, beautiful, long-legged,
smart, witty, dull and mean. 
We come in all types.
Shuffing through the trees, 
leaning against the white rail,
knocking our heads againts lamp-posts
doing hand-stands in the dark, 
avoiding the dog shit

'We are the rejected,' we shout and we hear the echoes
and sighs all around us in the bushes and on the benches,
a woman is kneeling at the white rail.

'Hmmm… Hmm…' says the water.

'We are the rejected!' we shout.

'Not my problem' say the cars going up the hill 
(somewhere).

We are the weepers, the left
the ones with
big question marks in our eyes
the ones still hoping.

Gnawed fingernails, chewed hair.

'We are REJECTED!'

'Hmm… Hmm…' says the water.

We are the rejected.

Kit Kelen’s ‘The Sociology of Paradise’

from A Pocket Kit

First I came through a hoop of flesh.
I didn’t jump I swam.
There was an endless mud plain
and another storm coming.
Rain beat the rice shoots
green out of the soil.
Millions were huddled
round the still ether. 

The century dragged on.
I missed the boat, swam out
to the island. And the air
was still in the sun’s quarter
and the half a sky
where waves could have been.
The moon washed up
where the tide rusted into the sand. 

Cars came out of the twentieth century.
Coca Cola came ashore, washed
on the hard live shell of paradise.
A coconut fell out of nowhere
onto my child’s head. I didn’t stumble. 

There were stars and bars everywhere.
I could hear the west crackling through
looming shadows of bliss. 

Back-country hills were dense with trees,
dissidence, notches for climbing up.
And curled into a noose of straw
the disappeared hung, swaying
– invisible burden of paradise. I jumped
through a hoop of gold. I had
the ring of confidence then
and a flag the colour of mud. 

Helicopters filled up the sky.
At lunchtime and late in the afternoon
when the noise came
birds shifted forward in a straight line
black, palm to palm, fifty metres.
Then when they came back
there was nothing the wind could move.
Trees clung to a rock in the sea. 

On dry land I had a good steady job
in the flyspray factory. They paid me
in cigarettes so naturally I took up
smoking. The mist from the nozzle
formed up a halo
to martyr the very air.
You couldn’t call it a leak.
It was more like missile testing. 

Each day here proud of the fallen,
brainless slaughters to glory in.
The earth makes up a place for each.
The new rice sings from the earth.
The colour of the mud in our veins
is a flag billowing over a hoop
of bright gunmetal: the welcome mat.
I didn’t jump I swam. 

Greg McLaren’s ‘A House’

from After Han Shan

I see a darkness above the houses,
above the light at their windows
catching in the eaves.
We are driving away

in your old car, its rattling door
letting the cold in.
The night is a wide space,
entering everything.

You stop, we crunch on gravel
by the side of a road,
looking back at the soft glow
behind the hills and the dips

the river sits in. We regret
the quiet city. For years
you’d hoped to find your brother there.
He never showed.

You explained the mauves and grey-greens
of your grandmother’s jacaranda
and the gum-forest past her back fence.
I am longing, I think, for a house.

I go out into its back yard,
tired of writing another
letter home. The sun is low
in the flat sky, between the trees. 

The horizon takes on the colour
of bruised jacaranda flowers.
A car door opens and closes,
a light goes on in the house next door.

Rae Desmond Jones’ ‘Decline and Fall’

from Decline and Fall

i hate them
the truth is out! & they hate me. 

them, the barbarians in baseball hats,
twisting in chairs lined up in artificial order,
and carving their loathing on the tabletops. 

do you know why the roman empire fell? i ask.
who cares? a boy giggles.
that is the reason, i say. 

you are old & fat, they say.
they are young & fat, I don’t say.
because i don’t want them to get healthy

they can stay ugly and stupid so i can despise them. 

why envy the awkward root they didn’t have
or their perfect wet dreams pearling
on the television screen? 

outside the aluminium rimmed window
a crow strops his beak against a tree trunk

so that it will be sharp to dig
soft white worms from the dark earth.
i yearn for that brutal freedom.
the students resist my will although their heads bow,
broken for a second. 

the room constricts us all.
i almost say get out.
go back to your bad videos & your hopeless dreams:
be unemployable.
daub graffiti on trains
& put as many needles in your arms as you want.
die if it seems romantic. 

let there be war between us.

Anna Couani’s ‘Small Wonders’

from Small Wonders

growing up in Australia

turn the corner at the pub
pass the drinkers sitting
in the north morning sun
like a chorus
constantly watching

the bearded lady sitting outside
The Skull’s house
helping out on the weekend
selling the bicycles he repairs

the Israeli bag sellers in the market
hearing Hebrew as you pass
with the occasional English word
“Wednesday” for example

with Chinese students, more likely
the English word might be “bullshit”

cycle past a friend’s garden
papaya next to the olive tree

a big bush of rosemary, roses
the little red flowers of the
Chinese lantern bush

drop by Clipper café for breakfast
“Hey I come to Glebe for breakfast
at Clipper! I love Glebe!”
peek in Gleebooks window
full of beautiful book covers

she runs through the suburb
in her mind
scanning over the hills
like on Google maps, satellite view

lived there, lived there, lived there
each address like a portal
opening onto those memories
grouped like episodes
the flat with a studio
the flat with dark blue walls
where she taught herself all those
art techniques
way back
the feminist house

women with shaved heads in
the big backyard
the new flat with a fabulous balcony
facing the highway on the opposite shore
of the harbour
watching the car headlights cascading down
the hill
collating a magazine round a big
temporary table

each place so different
down at street level