From the south
What is the smoke?
Is this a city or something
more inexplicable?
Don’t talk of alleys, this is
a suburb, see the trees.
There is no river, not really
roads are slightly tattered.
There are garlands on the strips
between districts, wine and roses.
Trucks fall from the hills
full of heat and catch.
They fall through the ages
and their sides open.
Who understands the steam
the drains, grates, overpasses
all too strange now?
A kind of history that arrived
out of the south
with tradewinds, something
to sell.
Clipsal interludio
Mosquito racing cars
bus huffing peak hour side
swipe in addition to
squares you go round
mallets in your head
attempting da capo
again to catch
the ghost of Bach’s
Goldberg ‘composed
for…refreshment of
…spirits’ or local
ghosts Gawler Gouger
Goyder Grainger
as singing past
the cemetery as
ratty or raspish as
a colony pretending
it’s free singing past
the murdering guns
and waterholes
metal is still calling
periodic table drifts
across the plains a hole
for whispers all that
porn distributed
like a Pirie Street
brief syncopations
in the city grid
control gone
on Gorge Road
welcome to the barriers
bushfires rage in
your head the mall bawls
flash aria break glass
in emergency lick Pale
off the Rundle
kill time with variations
in a Port Road jam.
Early thoughts while turning onto Anzac Highway on
14th September 2015
Stuck at lights at Anzac Highway, hello Le Cornu corner
a rooster crows, is it a phone, maybe not, it is early
so, it may be a rooster, the city is full of birds
Like those magpies on TV aerials on the treeless plain, on the lookout
like car drivers, like hunters
like someone trying to avoid Richmond Road in the morning
Ah, the city, full of straight roads made for managers
political news made by managers
and summer’s early swerve is like any heat
but not like any heat, it’s a spring surprise, and
this is now
among the Austerity houses, the mock Tudor houses
and the new factories, where small things can happen
such as not ticking the boxes
such as not turning right to the airport
not rushing to the east coast (but I am)
or taking a plane to Port Lincoln or Whyalla
paid for by somebody’s budget, someone keeping tabs
Or not turning left, as if there was any authority left
in a straight drive from Bradman, or South Road, or Cross Road
all roads are cross roads, with that heat that is now, and unmanaged
Later, the security industry will pull me aside to test me
for the bomb I thought about in a new dream you can’t control
it’s just a job, scanning for nothing, not like the magpies
that are being hounded away by wattle birds, native miners
they swoop us all the same
But this is now, the airport still waits
there’s some broken glass glinting in the spring sun
just there, by the roadside
today someone will crunch it, another roll-over that hurts
Like the waning welfare state and official kindness
apologies retracted or run down by the spectre haunting the brown sky
where all that’s solid holds itself within the air
the things that can be measured but ignored, the real conditions of life
Whatever it is that happens now, in the hard light
small, beautiful, endlessly suburban
the melting air
Note: the earliest draft of this poem was written on the day of change of Liberal Party leadership (and prime ministership) from Tony Abbott to Malcolm Turnbull, 14 September 2015.
Driving through Dulwich
Looking along the city plain
there’s nothing to say
trees shimmy or wither
unexpected wind
a sigh of making
weather depends
from branches and eaves
depends on actions
synaptic, molecular
and sky seems ageless
but above clouds
it’s fading where
sun drops in
a hissy machine
music radiates
day’s wheels are careful
around the barriers
this week we have spectacles
and avoidance
an election poster says
‘save the unicorn’
already torn.
Murray andante
The night fills with Bach
with the clear cold
a gas fire doesn’t touch
outside rattle of a skateboard
not gelling with the violin
skateboard guy, I’ve seen him before
rolls back towards Gilbert Street
the slow movement begins
it’s not quite a baroque town
the grids almost classical
but the Bach andante claims it
now the outside softens
again giving access somehow
to measure, of steady streets
lack of blue shadow and a
width of days along with my
steady lostness in a bowl
of clarity, while above my eyes
the green and grey hills
need to stretch my thought
and rain suddenly hits the roof
then stops, quick, all this water
that doesn’t go to rivers
that doesn’t cease the drought
nor bring me back to
a mind that accompanied me
once through funky allegros
and andantes and other
more humid songs
unlike the passing of trams at
Pirie Street, as lawyers progress
to sandstone courts where
cameras linger, sensations of the local
a city’s petty crimes
well, that’s cross continental
like the sad river, as even
the blind hours remind me
killed state by state, classical neglect
not even this rain nor
this music allays.
