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This is a longish walk, so, as you want, take your time!
Walk Sunday, June 26, 2005
Walk from home to 24th coffee & scone
To walk with
Up 24th to Diamond to Romero cross
Market to Rooftop down Corbett to Clayton
Up Clayton, up the Pemberton Steps
to Twin Peaks Drive, up steps to Tank Hill:
Pink Triangle
Pink Cunt
The canvas floats suspended
Down Twin Peaks
Transparent, unveiled through the barely lifted, close, gray fog:
Gay Pride weekend in the City
Don¹t they know my father¹s dead
And I am risen to look over the Bay
Over the City?
(And why would any, any way?)
Slants of various silvered light across the bay to the east
Waters that he once sailed, competitively
Boats, dark buoys & fierce youth:
Amazing how one accounts a history in one image:
Walk through bereavement
Walk through, walk amongst
One ghost goes, one comes back
A tisket, a tasket, a task:
To sit on these craggy rocks
Drizzling fog on fingers that write:
³Purple Perennial
Lily Family
³Ithuriel¹s Spear²
(The white cross inside the flower
The pistil)
First named in ³Paradise Lost², the signage posted on the
fence
over a lavender meadow - gentle, vibrant petals, open -
shifting in bunches - a short way, down the cliff:
Write something down
A Blue Jay leaves its rock:
An eyeball demands clarity
Before death, after death
Let it be known, he wants to say
There is none.
*
Tank Hill down Twin Peaks to Clayton to 17th
To the stairs up Ashbury Heights to Terrace
Down Terrace into Corona Heights
The trail up the rocks over the cap and down
The amazing gray bellied hawk feathers slightly a-twist -
Atop the pine on the north a fearless mocking bird attacks
The hawk shifts his head to repel, regains a silence
I sit down to look up and share:
Down the hill into Randall Park, the
Lower level, the community garden in wooden boxes and barrels:
Note the highflying artichokes crowns and purpling leaves
Next to the basketball courts down to State Street
Down the steps to Eureka to Market down Market
To Castro to 18th:
OThe ³C² Club
Comedy, Clits, Cake¹
A poster on a pole, women¹s faces
18th Street, a little below Castro.
*
Stop to shop for oats at Bi-Rite, the grocery
³Spay Free Blueberries from the Bi-Rite Family Farm²
hand-inked, white label overlooks the berries in little gray baskets:
Vigilant, amused, I show management (ha ha) the missing ³R²:
*
One block up Guerrero her breasts in profile
against an open, black iron gate
The lavender blouse
Dark flowering bougainvillea
Her almost odd, ceramic, white flesh:
*
The poet¹s widow in a lemon top
A little pigeon-toed
Wanders down the hills of this Valley
Smiles rhythmically to each passerby
Perpetually, it appears, wounded and alone:
I know the woman from long ago
I cannot bring myself to say hello.
Home to Sandy's garden, roses in full wheel
Rose, white and yellow
The flowers I can never fully name:
Absence is presence:
Father, gradually, an unfolding flame.
Stephen Vincent
June 26, 2005
***
VARNISHED
with skill
a perfectionist
perched high
on his ladder
he finally finished
after rubbing down
each and every coat
with care and love
his front windows
ready weatherproofed
against all elements
cruel snow frost
harsh sunlight
insidious rains
and whatever
all sealed
and so snug
he cleared up
ever professional
his eye fell on
the tin's small print
for interior use only.
pmcmanus 9am
raynesparkwimbledonukn658
***
city washed with rain
the church librarian runs on
ginger beer and gentle Jesus
city corner's obelisk
the nun's belltower
Mother Phallic Superior
the bouncer at Sappho's
imitates a scrapyard dog
i attempt to disarm her
with my winning smile
'fuck u 2' graffiti (illustrated)
attracts a small busload
of Japanese tourists
Auditions TODAY at Exotica
before the evening trade
stockings wet with rain
Andrew Burke
29 June 2005
Mt Lawley
***
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The Reading Express
has been unveiled in the speech therapy waiting room.
As hoped, it cheers up reluctant young clients.
And after work the therapist continues her godlike work:
populating its glass-topped little world.
These figurines are from Germany, uniform teams
of this and that: humans, donkeys, chooks and dogs.
The steep stream that tumbles from one mountain
now has pairs of anglers, their black rods so slender
you need sharp eyes. Skaters circle on the factory front yard
(it purports to can fruit) while the boss gestures them away.
Train-spotters point their cameras. People visit the pharmacy,
the video shop, and the newspaper building.
A tow truck is backed up in front of a stalled car.
But everything is stalled, except for the trains.
Shepherd on the mountain, never can you muster your tiny flock.
Housewife at your clothesline, never will you get the wash in,
though caught up in a stiff wind, and snow has been falling.
Rooster on the fowl-shed, your hens are about you but
forever beyond your treading. Loving couple on the platform,
forever you miss the train you dream of eloping on.
The Reading Express powers on, overshooting the station.
Max Richards
Express Speech Therapy
Templestowe, Melbourne
11pm Wednesday 29 June 2005
***
I dream of children I have known, women
now; fickle, graceful, demanding. A stranger
consoles me. This house is encased in fog.
It is like a shell, this house. It encloses me
from winter. Summer washes through like
water, waves of scent and passing. Science
tells me my mind is made other than yours.
Set us the same destination and we will arrive
at the same moment, but travel separate roads.
This must be, then, why I travel alone. West
of the divide they forecast showers, morning
and scattered, with evening thunderstorms
and fireworks, from which Sierra, an aging
Great Pyrenees, ran last night and wanders
without collar or tags. The wild dark lilies bow
down of their own heaviness. Aphids attack
the honeysuckle; it will not bloom. Humming-
birds make do with clematis and columbine.
The parakeets chatter and complain. I have
left them to each other for weeks, and now
they greet me, these hands that bring millet
and water, fruit and seed, with a great fluttering
of fear, threat, and refusal. When I withdraw
they stretch out wide their blue and white wings.
--
~ SB =^..^=
***
Porthia
.........
Porthminster - high tide
.........
Almost full tide.
.........
The harbour's filled:
fishing-boat-bobbing
is enabled.
.........
Jetties are surrounded. Boats
test their rope leashes. Luggers
and other sail craft flow out and in.
.........
Gulls bounce where the Stennack dribbles
into the bay, headed at The Arts Club
the same speed as the counter current.
.........
Wind takes much of our noise to sea,
brown fields of air above brown field water,
making the motor boats magical.
.........
Further out
in converging channels
predatory small boats
one or two within
stooped
and patient
.........
trappist quiet
.........
a heath group of them
like spiders where shrubs begin to intertwine
.........
Horizon watery
.........
White tops, and white birds over
.........
The strong arm of the clock
slides upwards to eleven
propelled propelling
.........
and then down
.........
and then back up
towards midday
which shall come
reliable enough
regular
.........
my watch a little fast
.........
my own time lagging
.........
.........
.........
Porthmeor - low tide
.........
porth a landing place
hence an incurving, sheltered and accessible stretch of coast
.
porth meor the large, the great, perhaps the best
landing place
.........the great harbour
.........though here were built few harbours
.
a white froth line, signifying untransmitted sound
.
Porthmeor Beach language canalised
almost as tautologous as "Castle an dinas" -
you'll be rooked here -
no boat in the offing
no ropes or chains
wet sands
and hordes with hoards including furniture
.........some surfers, penguin-ungainly
.........wind breaks
..................oriented randomly
.........or built as pens
.........ground sheets of considerable extent
..................grumpy and aggressive upon them
.........special trolleys to carry their organic copies
..................learning to contain their imaginations..................
..................and constrict their self-expression
.........beach gowns
.........beach sandals
.........beach towels, large and small
.........large bags
..................containing wipes and drinks
..................and sandwiches and jumpers
couples
stable and unstable threesomes
and groups
and isolated ones, upright and separate like grave monuments
.........there are tents
..................one with a Cornish flag unfluttering upon it
.........there are tents that one might live in for a month or so
..................radios, to cure the boredom of the world's noise
..................airbeds, untested for seaworthiness
..................metal-framed chairs and tables
.................. .........to facilitate each meal
.
they don't stay long as individuals
there is nothing much to do
cameras provide more interest than the subject filmed
.
crabs and the like have been stoned and crushed
.
gulls wait on lamppost tops and rush for the refuse
......... ......... ......... .........ripping at carrier bags
.
west upon a piece of higher sand, a dozen play a form of cricket
there was one there yesterday
I ate an apple
and watched a crow inspect the core
looked up and it was over
the players no longer on the beach
mid-view
a life guard
propped
in a powered
buggy
surrounded by surfboards lying flat
like fish of unexpected colour, drying
Lawrence Upton
***
Curiously
There was more to the story
Than he let on
That his toes were like bent nails
And the moonwhite sand was unbearably hot
The waves had warned him
And tossed his uncomfortable nature
Back at his flamboyancy several times
Suddenly the chenille noctilucence
Which by now had fallen like a limp wet bird
Surrounded his heart
Manufacturing a black iron clip
To hold him back
>From the licking of the tepid forgetful waves
Where an orange moon, round, as the head of the Buddha
Waited patiently
For the ocean to swallow him
Like a spoon
Peter Ciccariello
***
sometime it's plain
my cells cluttered with water
while outside pours grey
the basics -
with each cough saying
still here
the throat works it out
abrasively
and then there's the rain
Jill Jones
Sydney, 1.05pm, 30 June 2005
***
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