ERNIE

There’s Ernie my Dad,
sits with the other murderers
at the retirement home,
sits each day and kills time.

He sits and waits
for breakfast,
then waits for smoko,
then lunch,
tea.

Next door is Don,
partner in crime,
never convicted.
He’ll talk all day
about cutting the sugar bush
up Mulgrave way.

Tell you about Joe the Yugoslav
could cut and load 20 ton a day.
He’ll talk of Badilla
and Trojan cane.

And Ernie,
he’ll tell you about packa poo tickets,
his Dad used to print them.
Ernie,
he’ll tell you of opium dens,
Uncle Jimmie used to run them.
Ernie, he’ll tell you about Mah Kong
and other stories
but you have to have lots of time to kill.

16
FATHER SON

I tell my sons, ‘I love you.’
They bounce back with,
‘Love you, Dad.’
Too easy.

With me and Dad it’s different.
He loves me,
calls me, ‘Number one son.’
Only son, actually.
But—
‘I love you.’
Those words are as big as the Berlin wall—
he can’t get his mouth around them.

I’ll remind him
next time I see him:

The Berlin Wall these days,
comes in bite-sized pieces.

17
WHATS’s-A-MA-CALL-IT

Listen,

rain.
When heavy rain falls in Townsville
it’s front-page news.
Yesterday, rain fell
an hour’s drive from here,
that made page two.

Three years ago my son was born here,
in drought.
in rain shadow.

He doesn’t know
the meaning of
‘rain shadow’
but he lives surrounded by the lie
of the words:

Dry Tropical City,
cocooned
by brown parched mountains,
back drop for
green Frangipani,
coconut and palm.

When my son was three he said,

‘Dad, you know that stuff
that falls
out
of
the
sky?’

‘Rain— Son, it’s called rain.

18
FIFTEEN

He,

Fifteen year old son,
is prowling
like a lion,
locked
in circus cage.

He,
lets out a roar—
‘You won’t let me go
to the party!
You don’t want me to have fun!’

He,
charges imagined bars,
stops short—
fear of lion tamer’s whip.

‘No,
you’ll do as you’re told,
you’re only fifteen.’

‘But, Dad,’
he roars,
‘ I’m fifteen.’

19

JASON

When you were born
a voice inside me cried out.
‘No more war!
No more war!’

I don’t know whether that voice
was the new father in me
wanting to protect new child
or
child wanting to protect
new father.

20
HINDSIGHT

I could give you warning of the years to come,
I recall them clearly.
But advice is like medicine,
often hard to swallow
and
only effective if taken.

I could beg you to listen,
but my words can’t compete
with the wattage of your Walkman.
Besides … to you,
the years that have not been,
will never be.

When the years that will never be –
have been –
will you say to your son –
‘I could give you warning of the years to come.’