OLD BATHROOM
it is one thing to wipe off
the little spots of mould
from the roof
another to renew this old
bathroom.
the tiles are old-fashioned
and the grout yellow and
pitted
the paint job of a
few years ago peels
hot water has cascaded
over tight bums and
taunt stomachs
it has seen the madly in love
the rush to work
the long lingering weekends
a cheque will fix what’s wrong
dump its innards, turn under
its song.
READING THE POEMS OF PO CHU-I
Reading the poems of Po Chu-I
1500 years separating us,
we become two nobodies,
empty folk, brothers in poetry, but
made of line and verse, in the same
beautiful lament and in mutual sharing
of the cascades of the lovely, iconic, seminal
hues and tones, outside this window,
a flowery palette of soft-pink by magnolia,
red by carnation,and pure whites by azaleas
all sprung from the cold bone of winter,
retelling life, setting to song again our deep
semi-somnolent depths, signifying that poetry
Po Chu-I and I, all this can light up
this tin-pot tired world.
NEW NORCIA
They went to noon prayers
to ‘see the monks’
but he held back,
better to spend the time
in the deserted sun-blasted
cemetery, pace out the
weathered iron crosses,
shuffle silent thoughts.
These brothers and sisters,
you love them for their quiet
lives, the inverse of ambition.
You suppose heaven needed their
simple hearts, still now forever.
HOSPITAL PATIENT
He didn't mind staying a
few more days.
And why not?
They came to him in
calm succession:
the two adult daughters and
their docile children, the
quiet wife, sitting
whispering the worn mots
of marriage; the priest
setting up a miniature altar,
reciting the silken words;
the friends anointing him
with fellowship’s oil.
They all came making
a circle of love in the
sterile ward.
And outside?
that empty house.
Well, that was another matter.
FARRELL
He had come to play again,
the small undernourished
boy from the crummy flats
in Mosman, like a cocker spaniel
his eyes pleading.
We played and he asked to
come tomorrow. No, I said.
Then when? Never, was the reply,
with the tactlessness of twelve years.
Poor Farrel,
he did not interest me in
so many ways, by his skinny face and
unwashed neck, his green teeth,
knobbly soiled knees,
crumpled school pants.
And then there was the
home he came from, the pokey
flat in dark brick, the icebox
crammed with smelly meat, buckets
of lard, the dust-coated mother
with the rollers in her hair,
the absent father.
No, it was not possible that
he could be my friend.
With regret, I still see
the rejection in his eyes as
he retreated up the lane.
Wherever you are Farrell,
come and see me now,
let me shake your hand,
put an arm
around your shoulder.
THE FALLS
A short way down from the
steep decline,
the pungent air,
the shimmering silence,
rippling loneliness
said go back.
I came to tumbled rock
and green water,
saw a lizard fleeing erect,
absurd in its posture
of escape, then just
missed the pale
slithering creature.
It took with it this
deep gorge, these falls
cascading leaving
the terror, a stumbling over
boulders, a heart
beating, a fear swelling
grotesquely, a dream
to awake in dry sweat.
To the top, where
the dry grasses blow,
a time for rest, then
wonder, a look down
to the place, her home
not mine, to her
cooling hour, her
interrupted moment
of forked thirsty business.
NOW YOU CAN’T SEE THE CURRAWONG.
To my wife’s dead mother
Now you can’t see the Currawong
settling on the pergola
in the excited morning light,
stark, pitch black feathers
neat white tail, peering at me with
yellow unfeeling beads
sipping the melted hoary frost
then suddenly gone,
or perhaps you are there too.
