poetrytownsville

17/10/19

Spencer St Station.

In a Melbourne winter that falls in summer
I’m listenin’ at Southern Cross.

‘We’re just two lost souls swimmin’ in a fish bowl.
How I wish you were here.’
Busker chants.

And now it’s commin’ down Melbourne,
and the summers blown away
like in ’68.
Fourth season today
and it’s only 12:30.

Busker stops
for fear of bein’ fried
by the fall,
by the 240 volt.

It’s never easy is it,
for a busker
when summer turns
to winter on Spencer Street
or any street?

‘Wish you were here
(one ) lost soul swimmin’ in a fish bowl.’
I chant.

He could a done
‘Who’ll stop the rain.’
I was gonna give him a dollar,
lighten the load,

lighten my load for not feedin’
the beggars on the street,
livin’ in fish bowl.

But it’s comin’ down Melbourne.
Winter that falls in summer.

Is never easy
is it for a beggar,
when hearts turn to winter
on Spencer Street or any street?

01.10.15

Pick a time under the clocks at Flinders Street Station.

People are waiting –

no sign of Goedt.

They wait forever optimistic,

they’ll find,

meet,

liaise with,

under the clocks at Flinders Street Station.

Patience

She was waiting for a bus on a road where no buses come.

High on a mountain,

wrapped round with stars.

Did no one tell her?

There is no point,

to wait.

But was she waiting—

or watching

the points?

Again I’m seeing bits
and
pieces of lives
loaded into a truck.

Generations of memories to the dump.

Not that!
Grandfather’s old clock.

How many nights I lay,
listened to its,
tick – tock.
Sixty years, now.

Not that,
you can’t throw that!

Grandfather’s old table,
carved dragon legs
supporting round top,
supporting a family.

Icon!
Not just wood legs and round top.
Talk table.
Tell them of the all night poker games.
Chinee families gathered round,
Throw down losing hands,
curse their luck
or
lack there – of.

Tell them of the family grouped around.

Tell them – you must stay –
give witness to that now gone.

Lew,

I will write a poem for you
when you’re gone.
(On one condition of course.)

I’ll tell of the tales
you spun,
of painting black stripes on humbugs

in your Dad’s lolly factory.

Of travelling as a showie,
riding the wall of death
or
further back in younger years,
riding atop a timber jinker
piled high with logs.

And later years in the northern land of crocs
and
T.I.
and hard hat divers
and running a pub.

and
scratching for tin on the Cape
and finding Airocobra Aircraft
left on the beach

and Cocky Watkin
and Sid Beck and
a flotilla of sea farers
you knew (mostly gone now to D.J.’s crowded locker.)

and beginning the Volunteer Coast Guard.

and
army/air force days
(you sailed on sea and air)

and secret cave art behind Lavarak Baracks
and bush tucker man days.

and your memorabilia crammed

house/room/shed/mind

full of native spears,
pearl shell
and precious books
and bits of everything!

And wanting to be left
finally at the Point
to make a point.

(Lew wanted his ashes to be scattered at the point between Florence and Arthur Bays, Magnetic island, as these were his mother and father’s names.)

Lew’s Learning.

Your learning wasn’t a comfort to you.
Your knots and navigation
didn’t cut it
in the end,
when
you had to navigate out of life.

Such tricky waters of tide and eddies
to trace a path
from life to life,
old to new.

But your learning never helped.

You had the Tibetan Book (at bedside)
Did that help?
Maybe you didn’t read
long or hard enough.

We all must navigate
those currents,
swift and swirling.

Will my learning help?

Each day I throw you a death line
of sweet smelling incense you loved.

Do you catch it?

Do you smell and know

or

are you hooked like a fish?

Tied to unreality
of longing,
of junk moulding?

Pirate treasure,
stacked floor to ceiling
in your storage shed,
in your mind.

Be free
old friend,
be free.

Lew
3:24 am 150218
‘This is not sorrow, this is work, I build a cairn of words … .’ J.S. Manifold

What’s left of you now, Lew?

Cartons full of memories,
pieces of paper,
dusting,
musting old boxes
of life.

Where are your photos?

The stills of life in motion
moved by tide,
by current,
undercurrent.

are they in those cartons,
so precious to you?

I can’t burn photos .’
The voice said,
sadness in every syllable.

Where will we build a monument to you?

In the moving sea you loved so?

Or the place of palms?

Or is it as simple
as
this pile
of words,
stacked
one
on
the other?

Henry

I saw Henry fall.

Henry,
last living link back to Bismarck.

I saw him fall,
not in love,
but in life.

I could do nothing.

Henry,
I could not move to catch,

but there is no catch
or cure
for falling into life.

Henry,
in the house
held by generations
of kin,
you lay still,
breathing.

I had warning but not sufficient
to cushion,
cacoon your crash.

A tumble of body,
of time
of belief.

A library of encyclopaedias crashing to earth,
falling open at … Bismarck.

Home 02/10/17 Townsville

Home now.
Pilgrimage over
or just begun.

I write by torch light
trying not to disturb my love
and
a sleeping ghost.

I give thanks
for what I’ve
unlearned of self
and no self.

Ten days of sitting
learning,
unlearning.

Empty now
as in the beginning.

Level Four, State Library of Victoria 02/10//17

I’m sitting,
wishing to be home.
level four,
tourists,
families, pass, I sit.

What I came for
seems so far away
now,
though only a heart beat
distant.

I’m sitting,
I’m wishing to be home now.