Off The Grid Chapter 2

To The Lighthouse

The Saint Augustine is a silhouette between the jaws of an inlet as night creeps toward her. The huge shape of the vessel fills a splash of distant ocean beyond the narrow channel.  Her Larch planks moan quietly at anchor in the inlet under the last colours of a setting late August sun. In front of her a dense fringe of mangroves seem to close up and draw nearer around her as their branches and leaves disappear from green into reddish blue, and gradually dissolve into a darkening wall of black shadow shapes.

On deck, sitting on the edge of the deck, a figure pulls an arm free from a makeshift sling and rubs the shape of an injured shoulder, then, with deep rubbing, feels satisfaction in the density and definition of toned sinews and muscle.

The evening is growing and a half moon, tracked close by Venus, gashes a celestial image into the face of  the sky creating a silent pathway for the carpet of milky way lights emerging behind.  Hints of redness are still spilled across the warm horizon, but the only meaning for this nervous person is sufficient light to make out the lighthouse shed. “two hundred metres – not too far  - swim it in fifteen or twenty -no problem no problem mother – do the necessary – do the necessary”.

Only the tin roof of the lighthouse gleams out against the wall of mangroves. The inlet has now become a black cave.

The figure climbs down the rope ladder which hangs over the planks of the swollen hull. Dangling a foot into the water it is pleasantly warm and soft. “not too deep” and then startles as a bird cries wheeling overhead.

Pausing, remembering a dream from last night where flocks of petrels, thousands of petrels which were being hatched but were out of control, attacked swarming all over, but fluffy and warm but choking. “did I die” the casual thought is murmured. Hard to remember although the feeling of the warm feathers around the skin is mirrored by the skin of the water

The figure slides into the darkening water and beneath the surface it is cool against the legs.

The moonlight is beginning to make the tin shed of the lighthouse glow white – the tall bamboo poles of the shack are in darkness and hard to make out, but the roof is shining clear like a beacon and the water is a pulsing silver sheet.

“be with me god and keep me safe” out loud, floating beside the comforting power of the wooden boat edge, and the child inside prays again and again. Pushing away and beginning to stroke the body through the clear stillness, pushing through the warm surface and the gentle coolness of the water.

The shape of the boat has now receded behind, and the black box shape of the wooden shack looms ahead. Tiring a little, feeling the ache growing in the sore shoulder. The tide is mild but it is coming in and helping, rubbing the shoulder while floating, rubbing gently.

Then a gentle bump against the left calf. The urge to shout leaps into a silent throat, a freeze rushing through veins rushing it to the heart. The moon watches passively as the shout of surprise is a silent alarm.

Taking a deep breath the figure now floats unmoving on the surface of the inlet water, like a log, feeling the soft swaying of the incoming tide beneath. Now edging closer to the mangroves in stillness and suspension. The reality of the bump against the leg fades into disbelief but then the reality of it cannot be denied. A look across to the glowing roof of the shed then back to the empty safety of the boat. The big hulk of floating black wood seems closer. “do the necessary god – look after me – look out for me” quietly, and then propelling onward toward the shack. Not splashing or breaking the water, only gently breast-stroking.

Bang! This time the bump is harder. The victim tries to swim hard but now going side-ways and only one leg will work. Suddenly dragged beneath the water there is struggling and kicks with a free leg. The leg kicks against something huge – some monster – more kicks and twists with urgency and desperate anger.  Then the figure bobs to the surface like a bloody cork.

The surface of the water is calm, lit softly as the moonlight picks out the detailed patterns of the tide like thousands of intricate scales moving and breathing in a glittering gown.

Now swimming furiously and splashing arms wildly but one leg is not working. The shack is looking closer, nearer “please god let me...” Bang! hit again at the hip this time, and beating wildly silently screaming above the water and under again against the great jaws that have closed. Punching punches, punches, punching wildly at the huge head, searching for eyes to strike. Then released again to see the moon, but the sound of bone cracking is like a horrible signal of approaching doom. “Not me not me not yet god please” and a thrashing hand at last closes on the rung of the ladder of the shack and the figure begins to drag itself upward.

Then struck again and slipping under the water, only the silence of the inlet is restored, broken by occasional swirling as the great beast rises to shake and roll its prey.

Off The Grid Chapter 3

Setting the Nets

Matthew Cabot runs his finger around the rim of his mug of black coffee. His finger, like his whole body, is tall and thick set. His frame easily fills the sailing club chair which is nestled deep into the grass under the coconut palms which line the foreshore. He is seated at a table which has been dragged from the dining area onto the grass.

His eyes wander across to the other side of the table to contemplate the old man’s hands hands in front of him. He notices that one wrist is decorated with two gold bracelets and a fine gold watch. “The old man still has style” he thinks.

The arms of Theo Tasarakis lift and wave the watch to emphasise every word “ So that pure diet without killing is what I have decided to do and three weeks now – all I am eating is fruit and nuts, no meat, nothing that has been killed, only fruits and nuts, and look at me what do you think? “

Matthew seems slightly amused “You have always been a scrawny bird Theo - I’ll look at you in six weeks when we get back if I have to – what about coffee, and cheese”

“nothing is killed for them” says Theo feigning offence “only what is offered by god my friend – when do you go?”

“August 15 we go after lunch” Matthew mutters without looking up. He picks up a pen and is checking back through lists and notes.

“two days – ok – customers here yet?” asks Theo. Matthew does not answer. “ I only get certified organic anyhow so none of those pesticide things see – you know no pesticides that are killing all the bees – only what is offered by god for taking” and Theo’s arms fall back onto the table and he looks intently at Matthew “you could make that way for the clients you know –special feature – dietary feature - charge lots – you know my friend go for the top of the market you know”

“no change unless we need it” Matthew says still flicking back and forth in his notes “don’t rock the boat”.

Theo looks down and lifts his hands from the table and folds his arms. He searches around the crowded tables in front of the sailing club, with the sea-breeze fluttering his shaggy grey eyebrows. He squints against the morning sun which reflects bright off the thick lawn. He sees the figure of his grandson climbing out of a taxi and making his way towards them through the buzzing throng. Mick is tall and walks easily within his skin, dodging through a crowd of children and leaping up the podium stairs. He stops at the bar for drinks, and at a cooking stall and orders some food.

Theo says loudly as if addressing a number of people at surrounding tables “Six weeks then my friend, six weeks in that Indian tub of yours – I told you to buy that one made on Samos – they are the best builders – they have the history my friend – why would you buy a boat from Indians when you have the greatest culture of building boats right there on Samos my friend? When you have a Samos boat you fear no evil. You know....” then he looks around. Matthew looks up and follows his gaze and catches sight of Mick at the stall. “you mark my words....” then he drops his voice and leans forward “so how is your little project then?” and before Matthew can answer “and Mick don’t know nothing?..”

“No” says Matthew, looking into Theo’s ancient wrinkled face. Then he notices the long hairs on the old man’s shoulders and how they are grey and stick out around the neck of the singlet and he feels the sense of gentleness which Theo always seems to carry even when he is cranky about something “no, not Mick - I have built the last set of co-efficients and we are running all the stuff through again - through them now. Still probably a month off getting anything worthwhile”

“Well I don’t know nothing about it either cavayari – just in case someone asks” says Theo and Matthew looks up deep into the old man’s eyes. Theo grins and his eyes spark slightly then he looks away. Matthew returns to his notes.

Mick arrives at the table. He sits and drops a newspaper onto the table in front of Matthew. “Hey dads, hey Matthew” he says “Seen it skipper? So big it can’t even dock here” he pushes the newspaper image of a vessel across the white table. “beautiful cutter though”

“’hey dad’ you sound like a Skippy” says Theo frowning and waving an arm “where is that girl? Drug addict she is” he directs his words to Matthew who is reading the newspaper article “he won’t get into that I tell you – you start taking drugs I cut your hands off – then what use is the best carpenter without hands I ask you”

“she is a comedian Pappou – her own woman – she is working for goodness sake – I never would try and tell her what to do” Mick responds as he starts to eat his souvlaki  “anyhow it isn’t fair to sit in judgement on her like that – she is good hearted”

“good hearted enough to spend all your money too” and he turns to Matthew again “good hearted but a prisoner of addiction she is – wasting her beautiful life”

“Pappou please“ Mike frowns, then in the silence to Matthew “so what do you think skip?”

Matthew holds his coffee steady and peers across the top of the white rim of the mug at the newspaper photograph “what’s she do?”

“20 knots” says Mike absently as he gestures for a coffee in sign language to the barista “90 meters, got two tenders with 90 horsepower twins”

“Nice” says Matthew as he looks across the crowd toward a group of people who are moving toward him laughing and talking. “Keeping the waters safe not a problem for us”.

The giant body of Kopu turns his way and their eyes meet. Kopu bows ever so slightly and Matthew smiles back and hints at a nod of the head. Then he turns back to look at Mick again. Mick continues “heavily armed and makes distance but nowhere to park. Not a problem for us“

Matthew puts the empty cup on the table and looks around the market crowd is if checking for someone then back to Mick “how are we looking? Got everything?”

Matthew is recently turned sixty and his face is ringed by white hair and whiskers which are not well trimmed, though they look as though they should be. His skin is tanned and weathered.

Mick pulls out a list with receipts and Matthew puts on his glasses again and begins to carefully check through the dockets. He takes a pen out and makes notes in his pad. Coffees for Mick and Theo arrive “Another one skip?” Mick asks and orders without waiting for an answer. “All finished, smell of the stain gone now.  Shipshape skip – replaced two of the rails across the beam as well”

Kopu comes up to the table with his wife Maria, and Mick gets two chairs for them. They sit without saying anything.

Maria takes a notebook from her bag. “All paid” she says, “three women, one man and one child -The child is with two of the women – got some behaviour issues on the spectrum you know autism spectrum – I looked it up – no real issue – and one woman is travelling alone” Maria pauses and looks to Matthew who has not looked up, still checking in his notebook. She looks to Kopu who smiles and nods. She continues “the man is travelling alone also”

“OK thanks”, says Matthew, “how old is the child?”

“He’s nine nearly ten” says Maria. Silence.

Kopu says “She says he has the mental age of about seven but smart in some things you know”

Matthew looks up at the sound of Kopu’s voice. He puts the pad and pen down and accepts a newly arrived coffee, and leans back in his chair. “OK that’s great Maria thank you and very well done. What are the specials?”

“Well” says Maria,  “solo woman is Dutch marine biologist wants turtles, trepang, and she says a range of molluscs – specialises in parasites it seems, two women are twitchers so Peron Islands might be a good go at the end, and loading up on the Inglis and Wessel Islands, and so...” Matthew waits... “and our solo man is American vacationer with interests in Indigenous Culture – tourist”

Matthew nods “OK good”

Maria looks at Kopu then continues “the two women with the boy – main cabin. Single woman cabin two and the man in with the crew. He needs laptop space, and I imagine so will Dutch woman though she has not specifically requested it. She wants to bring a white-board on”

Matthew makes a couple more notes then puts his pen down and reaches across to touch Maria’s hand. He looks directly into her deep black eyes and she looks away sideways. “I am sure you have an itinerary outlined?”

She looks directly back into Matthew’s eyes for a moment then looks to Kopu and she nods. She looks back at Matthew’s hard blue eyes and says “Kupang nine to thirteen September”

Matthew leans back in his chair again and rolls a cigarette in silence.

Theo stretches and gets up from the table. He calls to a distant group of men, and then turns back to Matthew and puts his hand onto Matthews ironed linen shirtsleeve “the songs of my ancestors still ricochet through the wind - everyone is crying out for peace my friend, no one is crying out for justice” Matthew looks up into the brown eyes of his patron and favourite philosopher “stay safe and look after my boy – iasu” and he turns and melts into the crowd on his short wealthy bow legs.

Matthew watches Theo depart, briefly, then turns back to the table and says “Mick, this kid is yours – ok – yours - you look out for him every waking minute ok? I don’t want him going for a shit without you watching him, and if you have to belt him I will back you – never let him out of your sight ok! – you will be his best friend and nothing happens to him ok?”

“Would you want him belting someone else’s child?” asked Maria surprised “anyhow all passports, visas, done permits done, and all paid up”.

“He means a safety line so the kid cannot fall off” said Mick “too many snappers out there in the water” and he grinned at his own joke.

Kopu laughed right out loud at the thought, frightening a waiter who had crept up with a cordless phone. “Call for Mr Cabot”

“Hang on Toby”, Matthew says into the phone, and he looks up at Kopu and Maria who have both stood from the table and he says “fifteenth 0600 embark 1300 – thank you Maria you are the only woman I ever could have married – let me know if he ever leaves home”

Maria smiles warmly and confidently, then hesitates as Kopu gathers himself and they walk away together, greeting tables as they move toward the exit gate.

Then Matthew talks with Toby at length regarding supplies and re-supply points. Mick gets up and waves cheerio while Matthew is still talking to Toby.

After Mick has gone Matthew finishes his plans with Toby and then leans back in his chair and casts his eyes over the armada of yachts moored before the great sailing club, and where the Saint Augustine was moored until Theo bought the marina berth.

Off The Grid

Chapter 4

Arms of the Saint

“15 August 1115 the log for the 37th commercial voyage of the Saint Augustine is hereby set down on an incoming tide, moored and readied”  Matthew types on the verandah of Theo’s house. He looks up from the carved metal table over the collection of classical statues which have been randomly set down by removalists and are scattered across the vast lawn, looking toward the vessel which is moored at the far end of the garden. Behind her a blue stretch of water winds away and is a deep channel between mangroves, and in the distance the flickering white horses where the channel meets the sea.

Mick and Toby emerge from the house carrying a large wooden table between them. Matthew smiles politely as they struggle past wearing their new red t-shirts and black flared trousers. The big table has scrolls and boxes, and the men carry it across the lawn and set it down in the distance next to the Saint Augustine. The walkway is hidden by the swell of the lawn, and the vessel and the table look as though they are part of the eccentric and random lawn sculptures.

“1132” he types,  “preparation to receive passengers”.  And then Matthew rises, folds the computer into it’s case and walks across the lawn, through the statues, without noticing them, to the walkway, along the walkway past the table, and without a glance for Toby and Mick, up the gangway onto the deck of the Saint Augustine. He allows himself a flicker of smile as the giant wooden Cutter tries to yaw slightly under his feet as the incoming tide rises to it’s task. He feels the eagerness to be underway and the vessel strains against the ropes and rubs the fenders impatiently at the mooring pylons.

Mick and Toby go and bring chairs and are followed on their final trip by old Theo who is dressed in a pale pink suit with grey shirt and white shoes.  Then behind Theo comes the floating grace of Theo’s wife Kyriaki. Kiryaki is dressed in a drawer-full of colourful silks with a white shalwar kameez beneath, and the breeze ripples against her as she glides along behind the men, the breeze making the silks float out from her like so many flags of nations, and her skin radiates the colour of first press Kalamata olives.  Her long grey hair is gathered tight across her forehead in a black mourning band.

They all sit at the table and Matthew unclips his binoculars from his belt and holds them aloft. He waits until Kiryaki looks up and when she does he waves them high and calls to her “Thank you Pizza they are the best” She smiles her white teeth at him and with her hand motions ‘it is nothing’ and ‘you are most welcome’

The party at the table look toward the sound of a motor car arriving. Matthew turns and goes down the companionway with his laptop and plugs it into the docking station. Then he climbs back onto deck and flips open the mini-station “1148 passengers arrive preparing to embark”

He watches as Maria leads the group of passengers from the vehicle onto and along the walkway and Kopu walks behind.

Two women walk together behind Maria. They are both dressed in expensive camping shop gear and the older of the two women has a broad straw hat. The younger of the women has a baseball cap turned back to front. Between them, walking stiffly and formally is a young boy. Matthew notices his awkwardness and determination to walk properly and guesses 10 to 12 years old. The older of the two women reaches to touch his hand and he holds her hand briefly then returns to his ordered march between them.

Behind the two women and the boy, is another woman, very tall and elegant in her walk, very European. She has both a rucksack on her back, and a woven cane bag on her arm. Matthew notices the shock of curly hair bursting out from her overly large tennis visor cap. She is very tall. At the back of the group is a man with a shaven head and dressed in long trousers and colourful shirt of the style Matthew likes. The man seems relaxed in his walk and looks around a lot seeming to ask questions of Kopu who smiles back at him but says little. Behind the whole party are two men with trolleys of luggage.

 As the passengers arrive at the table and chairs Maria introduces Toby and Mick who in turn introduce Theo and Kyriaki, and then refreshments are offered. The passengers sit to listen to Kopu deliver the safety on board address. Matthew hears the voice of the young boy interrupting Kopu “what size is the motor? What size is the motor?”

The older woman leans forward and touches the boy’s shoulder to hush him, and then sternly tells him to be quiet and listen. The boy stands and shrugs his shoulders away from her and steps closer to Kopu “I want to know what size the motor is” he says more angrily. The women are apologetic and both rise from their chairs but the boy now turns and backs away then turns to run across the lawn. Toby steps from beside one of the statues and strongly picks the boy up in his arms. The boy stiffens himself and tries to push away and Toby says “I will show you the motor – on board – when we get on board” The boy remains as stiff as a board in Toby’s arms, his sailor jacket rumpled up to his armpits and his face reddened, and he looks hard at Toby and says straight at his face “what size is the motor?”

“It’s a Volvo Penta D2 72 horsepower 2.2 litre diesel – alright!?” says Toby looking straight back at the boy. Their faces are close, and the boy suddenly relaxes completely and still held, puts his hand on Toby’s shoulder and grins back over his shoulder to the women. “Alright” says the boy. Toby lowers him to the ground and he runs back to his seat and says “I am sorry Mr Kopu I missed the part about when the sails swing across the top”

 

After Kopu’s talk has finished Maria, Theo, and Kyriaki lead the passengers to the boarding gangway, and cross onto the deck. Matthew stands hands behind his back at the top of the rope rail. He offers a hand to each of the passengers as they are introduced. In the background Matthew spots Mick and Toby carrying the table, boxes and chairs back across the lawn.

 

“Alysha DuMaurice” says Maria as a tall blond woman steps onto the gangway. Her rucksack is squarely balanced against her back and she is wearing a loose pale blue smock over deep blue knee-length bicycle shorts that have white stars scattered over the front of the legs, and stripes at the hem above the knee.

Matthew feels her strong handshake – she has long fingers and warm hands. “Welcome aboard” he says looking for softness in the bright blue eyes “always a pleasure to welcome a marine biologist along on one of our voyages” She has hung onto the rucksack Matthew notices, but the cane basket is on the luggage trolley “I have your whiteboard installed”

Alysha pauses with the handshake, and looks at Matthew Cabot. She notices that his eyes are like her own, and his face has something of the Dutch mouth lines of her own father. She lingers and allows Matthew to end the handshake, and steps onto the deck, wobbling slightly under her rucksack which Theo steps forward to help her with, and she nestles it amongst some ropes by the mast.

“Tanya Pellegrini” Maria announces next, and the more senior of the two women who have the young boy with them, steps onto the gangway. Matthew looks at her strong, lined face, and admires her casual smiling demeanour as she pauses and looks at him, before accepting his handshake and embarkation assistance to land on deck. Tanya has long flowing hair which she allows to cascade from under a broad straw hat, and as she shakes Matthew’s hand she takes the hat off for her hair to unfurl around her. The hair is grey and white but alive and shining and she tosses it away to allow their gaze to meet. She is wearing a kahki shirt and trousers with lots of pockets everywhere, and a red silk scarf flows from her left breast pocket. “Mr Cabot” she says in a way that reveals a hint of her Italian heritage “it is such a pleasure to meet you. I read of your Banded Fruit-Dove story and it was an inspiration for this visit” Matthew looks into her green open eyes with the speckled cornea. He wonders what her eyes might have been as a young woman flashing that open smile and speckled eyes like pale green birds eggs. She steps across the deck, avoiding a coil of ropes without needing to look, and moves to stand beside Kyriaki, who indicates with a nod the Steiner Commander binoculars on Matthew’s hip. They grin to each other and then Tanya winds her hair back up into the straw hat and retires beneath it.

“Master Raphael  Pellegrini” announces Maria. The boy stands hesitant at the gangway and Maria gestures with a soft downward motion of her hand and the boy steps onto the gangway. “I never been on a boat” he says and stops like a horse unwilling to board the float, feet dug into the gangway and hands gripping the ropes “I want to get on last” he says.

“That will be fine” says Matthew nodding and motioning for the boy to step back, which he does meekly.

“Gwenda Caldwell” announces Maria next. A slender woman in her early thirties steps onto the gangway, her brown legs still decorated with youthful vigour and her hands confidently gripping the rope rails. She is wearing loose kahki shorts and a camping shirt in the same fashion as Tanya Pellegrini, however she seems almost lost amongst the folds of her garments. Matthew holds his knotty hand out toward her and for a moment suddenly feels very old as this woman approaches him. She uses the ropes and does not take his hand of assistance to step onto the deck. Matthew gives her his smiling frown, as if looking down over a pair of glasses, and she smiles back nervously, flickering black eyes away toward Raphael, and then around the rigging and fittings on deck and back to Matthew. The vessel has begun to rock slightly as the tide hits it’s peaks and Gwenda’s hand appears from a sleeve and grips Matthew’s hand suddenly and briefly. She glances into his eyes then looks away and nods. “Welcome aboard the Saint Augustine Ms Caldwell” and looking across to Kiryaki he cannot hide a grin “welcome indeed and I hope we can add some sightings to your impressive CV”. Gwenda nods and recedes back into her shirt as she quietly moves to stand next to Tanya.

“Lester Winters” Maria reads as a tall slender man with a shaven head and a white scarf knotted around his throat, steps onto the planks. Matthew notices the faint shadow around his temples and decides the head shave is to compensate for early baldness. Lester is wearing long white trousers and a purple silk shirt that flutters slightly in the long sleeves which are rolled twice at the wrists. He has a hat hanging from a pouched knife on a crocodile skin belt. Matthew watches the veined arms reach for a double-handed handshake which is confident and bold, and greets Matthew’s hand without hesitation. “Welcome aboard Mr Winters” Matthew says, watching Lester’s carved heart-shaped mouth with the lips so red they are purple. Lester smiles and looks directly into Matthew “the pleasure is mine I assure you Mr Cabot, and please sir you can call me Brain – that is what everyone calls me” Matthew nods still holding the handshake as if uncertain to let go “Brain, well ok Brain, you can call me skipper, while we are afloat” Lester nods and as his hand is released he steps back slightly as if he had been too forward. Matthew puts his hand on Lester’s shoulder and points toward the others on deck. Lester smiles and moves.

“Raphael  Pellegrini for the second time” announces Maria as Raphael steps onto the planks with Toby and Mick behind. He walks confidently up to Matthew and shakes his hand. “Mr Captain sir” he says formally “this is Mr Toby”. The huge frame of Toby Armstrong grins sheepishly as he fills the gangway behind the small boy.

“Thank you master Raphael the second – it is most helpful of you to bring the crew on board as we will be needing them”

Raphael seems not to really hear but shuffles awkwardly looking for a place to stand while waiting for Toby.

“Did you hear all of the safety briefing young man? Mr Kopu’s talk” asks Theo stepping forward and bending down to be at Raphael’s height.

“Mr Toby is going to show me the engine” Raphael replies.

“I’m sorry” says Gwenda kneeling next to Theo and putting a hand out toward Raphael “I will make sure that all is safe with Raffie wont we Raff eh?”

Raphael backs away slightly and half sits awkwardly on Alysha’s large rucksack, and he looks away toward the channel between the mangroves.

 

“No need to be sorry for anything Miss Gwenda”, says Matthew helping Toby and Mick lift the luggage onto the deck from the gangway. “Let’s get all this stuff stowed and everyone settled below and get away onto the water while we still can, then we can have a nice supper out at Garruma Rock for sunset”

 

Theo, Maria and Kiryaki farewell the party and watch from the walkway as the gangplank is hauled away behind them. The giant Bristol Cutter eases gracefully off the mooring as the tide nudges her out into the channel under a the faint humming power of the diesel, and the wooden shape takes it’s rightful space first out between the mangrove then further into the reaches in the deep channel, and at last through the foaming horses at the river mouth which part under the Saint Augustine prow which is underway again.

 

Kopu has the tiller and Matthew notes on his log terminal “1423 exit Grinter channel bound for Milingimbi – first port Tiwis”

One More River by DoctorShoot

Back street Aussie Rules.

Here the rules are god given, and the oaks and maples struggle for life in the valley clay soils of parched Victorian country Bendigo. They remember me and watch in silence as I climb the hill toward the forest of eucalypts which growl darkly against the morning sky of my youth. The paddock where I kicked a football seems to slope more acutely than I remember.

Long weedy grass clumps and tussocks grow where a hundred thousand voices roared as I soared above the pack to grab the mark of the century. I fired long punts and wobbly drop kicks at galahs that swung in shrieking pink and grey fits from sagging telegraph lines. I fired stab passes at my sisters who came with messages from my mother about dinner getting cold. They dodged or batted the ball away in annoyance. I bounced the ball and ran fiercely around my little brother who represented all defenders and non red and white players on earth. His laughter as he tried to lay a hand on me still rings as the forest trees rub together in the warm evening wind. The forest seems to suffer the drought more easily than the lonely maples and oaks.

I had wanted to wear skin tight skimpy shorts like the men did. I was unaware in my innocence of their bulging meanings below bright jumpers with numbers. I tore the sleeves from my best jumper and paid the price, but for three beautiful hours I ruled an empty paddock like Royce Hart, underpants knotted at the side to look like home shorts.

The citadels of glory were distant hopes for us, the country lads destined for hay carting and shallow marriage pools. Certain girls seemed to be attracted to the forwards, and some to rugged defenders. Some girls played with us for a while but dropped away as games grew more fierce and physical. They only flirted then.

I wander further up the slope away from the paddocks, into the tall dry weeds, and sit at the edge of the eucalypts. Their smell crackles through me tinged with wattle.

I have just returned from Uluru in Australia’s heart, where red morning suns crack through damp earth, releasing the children of Mutitjulu like swarming  bees around a red leather balloon. They play football in mobs laughing and diving and creating new edges in ancient ways. I wanted to play with them but they are too fast and inventive. At their age I kicked end to end with a couple of mates. How stable and constrained we were compared to these red dust scamps with their twisting, bundling, melting, black scramble. They break apart squealing and colliding again, colliding each other into the dust.

From up here the old maples look distant, sagging beneath their transplanted expectations and Uluru now only a hazy memory. The rules are made but who are they for? It’s a question of culture the one hundred thousand throats shriek.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=55s3T7VRQSc&feature=relmfu

so wont you help me sing

chernobyl
chernobyl
when will we ever dwell
free from the smell of
X termination...

saw no bell heard no bell
no bell of warning
only the dawning
of a deadly maralingerer cloud

chernobyl
chernobyl
when will we ever dwell
free from the smell of
X termination...

here's your no-bell prize for splitting the atom
cough your way through it
then gather up your beautiful children and ring
for a taxi to venus

chernobyl
chernobyl
when will we ever dwell
free from the smell of
X termination...

Doctorshoot – Ant Man - Inventor of Children

That great Cathedral space which was childhood – Virginia Woolf

Bucko and I were like Laurel and Hardy. I bent my lanky scrawny frame around my bike, low for less wind resistance. I tried to keep up with him as he pedalled upright; knotted long white hair bobbing and flashing with it’s nest of wind-filtered debris. Grinning like the mad dog he was.

My father, god rest his beautiful gentle soul, was cash poor but rich in finer things. He was unable to buy me the bike I so desperately wanted (and a guitar and a saxophone), but he took me aside by the firelight one night; alone with him in the old creaking wooden living room with it’s thick motheaten colonial carpets, and he brushed the scraps of dinner from the front of my pyjamas.
“I have something for you” he said in a soft, and I felt then, proud voice. It wasn’t christmas or a birthday but I felt the excitement swelling behind the warm spot where he had finished brushing my belly with an affectionate rub like a football trainer massaging the wounded star. He went to the special locked sideboard and my heart sank. What could fit in there?

Bucko swerved in front of me, first into the green Jackass dam riparian approaches and then bursting through the skinny wattles; all charge and yahoo, then right into the muddy water up to his knees. I skidded on the bank and slid to the water edge amongst yabbies and rotten leaves. We were exhausted and laughing.

That’s when we spotted him. Across the dam in the forest shadows; a black figure flickering and gone. We stopped mid scraw and held a glance as if to assure each other. Bucko dragged his bike back out of the mud. He had no brakes as was the fashion of the brave; he pushed a sandshoe against the tyre if slowing down was ever a necessary course of action. Now we were both stopped in our tracks. We left our bikes against trees and scrambled off around the muddy edge and up over Tysons mound and through the barbed wire fence into the forest, after the ghost.

The big wooden drawer squeaked and grunted as it opened and I could smell parrafin oil and dust. Dad carefully lifted a leather folder and held it in the suspense of his memory for ever. I waited. Then he turned and brought it to me.

I had never asked him about the war because mum said not to. He didn’t want to talk. He let us look through all the back volumes of Kahki & Green with their endless jokes about ‘Pull your head in mate” and paintings of heroic soldiers lugging cannons through the tropical mud forests of New Guinea, and shouldering bandaged comrades through swamps, but he never talked about it. Now he handled this big leather folder like an explosive, and brought it to lie on the carpet in front of me.

Three weeks later in mathematics, when, for the first time ever I drew some praise from Mr Hughes for my attempts to make the slide rule and compass produce an isometric description of a transparent tetrahedron, I was interrupted, because of Dad’s folder I guess. Taken to the headmaster and given the cuts. Mr Mac, towering six foot six with his leather barber strap. My tentative hand out, forced out into the air, and the big wind-up and down it came. Crack! And my hand went red. Again and Again. “I’m sorry young Doc but somebody has to teach you a lesson” The sweat clattering off his face onto the gleaming leather weapon. Crack! Each blow forcing the secrets deeper and deeper inside me, and knowing my guilt, accepting my fate. Only not knowing which particular misdemeanour was being heralded and exorcised.

Bucko’s shirt had torn on the barbed wire fence we had piled through, and he wiped the blood from his side with the back of his hand. Then rubbed it against his nose as the unstoppable river of Bucko snot always demanded. He looked like a wild eyed warrior idiot as he crept ahead of me, scouting for a trail. I laughed every time he peered back over his shoulder.

I had never been this far off the back of Jackass dam. It was forbidden. Even collecting birds eggs we didn’t come this far. They said old man Tyson would shoot on sight. We went deeper and deeper and the tree trunks became thicker. Great Turpentines and Angophoras watching us from their towering white branches. Then we spotted a clearing. You could see the gold aura ahead where sunlight flooded into a space in the forest, and it seemed that a big earth hill rose out of the ground in the middle. Curling grey smoke dissippated from it’s peak. We huddled at the edge of the clearing. Bucko’s wet trousers smelt of the dam and my shirt was wet and muddy still. We were like two sperm hovering in the undergrowth, contemplating the approach, contemplating the egg.

The fire smelt raw and warm as my dad carefully opened his gift. Page after page after page of stamps. The full collection. The full set. The stamps of Papua New Guinea and New Britain from 1938 to 1942. Cassowaries, thatched huts, outriggers. I watched as this gentle and amazing man gently touched one image or another behind clear tissue paper, the images calling my eyes from their wandering thoughts, diving now into the thick black-page mountings that cradled imagery. Some pages also had mounted pen and ink sketches which he and his friends from the regiment had done. I asked stupid questions but he only smiled and kept turning the pages for me. Suddenly my father had turned heroic and for an instant he let me lean up against his being. “It’s for you” he said simply, then he stood leaving me with the folder, went back and locked the sideboard drawer again, and left the room.

Bucko decided to let me go ahead. I stood, and strode brilliantly for a couple of paces, right into the clearing, right through the cracked long dry grass. Right up to the giant earthmound. Then a sound. I froze. A sound. What was it. A cough. I looked back at Bucko uncertain. If I ran for it I was certain to shit myself. Then silence. I turned back toward the mound and another cough. “Hello?” I pleaded softly, ready for my fate, not worse than having to wash poop out of one’s shorts most likely but certainly unknown.

He touched me from the other side. The side I was not looking toward. His great bony hand on my shoulder like the claw of the eagle reaching from the book of kells to grab the innocent lamb. Involuntary squirts came from every orifice though I was too frightened to actually cry. I dared to look up toward his hooded face, way up there. From amongst the height of the tallest leaves his voice came down at me: “would you like some raisins?”

He’s going to poison me but what can I do? I am a lamb to the slaughter. I glanced toward the empty space at the edge of the clearing where the feckless Bucko had once been, and then gave myself up; allowed myself to be guided step by step around the great mound to the doorway of hessian sacks and beaten out tin cans. Into the mound; and into the cave of the inventor.

He coughed a lot and smoked incessantly. His face was a molten rubber mask of folds and lines. In the smokey light of his fireplace I could make out glitters in the mask where his eyes would surely be, and his very thick lips were pasted wide across his face and seemed wet.

We talked and talked and I ate his raisins and drank tea with him. Everything smelled and tasted of damp burned eucalyptus. I had to participate as I was his prisoner but I thawed in awe. He seemed as frail as transparent paper. He told me about the planets and how they were all in balance because they had pockets of protection and that they bumped softly against each other in a relative way. He told me that the Egyptians had built their pyramids by lifting them with little pyramids stuffed with prisms. “It breaks down the pressure of light you see” he said as long as it doesn’t escape it can lift anything. “Mirrors and prisms and angles” he said. And he told me that the great wall of china was glued together with rice flour and his ant mound in which he lived was made of rice-flour and eggs and water and ant hills crushed up and not even the strongest bulldozer could break it.

He told me that the planet earth had been originally populated by strange creatures half snake half bull and all sorts of other combinations and that the planet had been seeded by a tree which contained all of the genetic material of the world. “They are still up there” he said, “and that’s why they need worship, to stay alive”.

I walked away from the anthill, out of the clearing into the forest. It took me a long time to find the Jackass dam again and by the time I reached it Bucko was lying next to the bikes with his clothes drying on a branch and two soggy cigarettes drying on a rock. “You ok?” eyebrows up a little but careless too as if it had been expected.
“He’s crazy but he didn’t try and hurt me, and he’s got this hut full of pictures that he cut out of library books” I said.

From the great height the last blow reigned down. Six on each hand had been my serve. I gritted as hard as I could and would not cry though the last couple had cut against the bones of my fingers. I think old Mac admired me for that. He put the strap back into his wooden bureau drawer pushed me down into his chair with his big meaty paws. “Wait here for five minutes and then you can go back to class” he said, and “I hope you have learned a lesson”. His enormous frame filled the opening as he left and when he closed the door behind him it felt like the credits rolling after doc holliday had cleaned them all up at the OK corrall.

I had been hiding my bike down in the reeds next to the trotting track and each day we went back after school and tried to find the clearing again.
On the weekend we cut Sunday school and spent our collection money at Rechters café where the paraphernalia of rock and roll and cigars and billiard queues and juke box selectors in booths was akin to a rococco cathedral. Bucko shared some extra cash he had collected from milk bottles left out by householders and we beat the older kids to the best music for that glorious day. We planned to visit Mr Peterson again and take him some food.

Winter arrived suddenly and Bucko was away from school, sick. Alone I went back and, after several searches, found the clearing again. Old Mr Peterson’s coat was on his hessian sack bed, just a bedraggled mess, with a sack of bones inside. I was shocked and ran and got lost for hours. A week later I went back and found it again but empty, though the billy still hovered above the cold fireplace, and the boxes of raisins nestled amongst the tobacco tins on his shelves. The earth floor was so cold it was moist. I hauled all his things out into the clearing and set fire to them, all his papers and bedding and everything I could move. I don’t know why.

The fire got away a bit, into the forest, and I fled.

I remembered Bucko as I ran. As we had ridden back along the track from Jackass dam, he had been kicking my bike a few times to try and knock me off. We stopped and I adjusted my brakes. “where’d you get it? He asked”
“I traded it for some stamps” I said.

Now Bucko was gone and I never saw him again, and I supposed all the blame must have been mine.

DoctorShoot - Soapy Moment from a Washing Basket

Notes on the gentle art of hanging for Ryan, Barlow, Chambers, the Husseins, and others….


- I am watching an unknown blond,
secretly,
over the top of my diary -
I am watching the blond strangling the life out of
some distinctly working class jeans,
here in this ponderous dry-lino soap-valley public washhouse

-still using laundromats after 20 years –

I noted:
haven’t come very far,
although I owned a washing machine or two along the way,

and now in my distant modern laundry I watch the branches of the great
moreton bay fig
swing heavily
dangerously near me… I am looking over the photographs
I cannot bear to see,
and my paper remnants with their embroidered holes made by
cockroaches and slaters through time’s hunger for dead wood
and taking me back – my old notes -

- The blond is creating sexual tension for me, secretly -
lacy underwear spilling through fingers and out of the basket;
those cascades
those little deaths
those suggested unions of skin and fabric and skin and sweat and
shuddering unions stretching limbs and necks and craning and entwining and creating
the smell of secrecy for me as they are unfolded…

-what hairy blond arms –

I had noted next in my hungry textbook of days.
(and a sketched tattoo “Luke 15.7” with an eagle)
Hairy blond arms handling sheets into the machine they
remind me of
Cliffy Stewart who played on the wing under Barassi;
Cliffy the wingman moving across the gravel playground
like a footballer
and a poet;
Cliff the dancer who ran up against
the inevitable cliff-face of brutality-on-the-field;
about face Cliff.

My stuff has gone onto SPIN without warning
and the three machines start to shudder and whine
as though being lowered into a grave still alive.
I find that my next note reads:

-Bill White the reluctant conscript –

So this must be 1966.
The shadows of the giant fig rattle in the wind and the scraps of paper try
to move away…
but I read:
- 1966 and Harry Holt the disappearing PM has already
beaten off Artie Calwell (the last of the old unguarded guard),
and Holster-Holt has accepted the yankee manufactured
shotgun marriage to the big salary in Canberra; at the palace,
but I am living in a dingy single room in Brunswick, Melbourne;
one dingy window over a dismal sink
where a second-hand electric frypan perches in its grease,
threatening me with electrocution; -
sentenced to death by attempting to conjure up another
magnificent spread of curried mashed potato on
fried bread.

that was all I could cook;
I had no interest.

sitting on a soggy bed (ex-army folding job),
with a prickly greywool blanket
reading ‘the Monsters of the Moors’ in the half-light.
I had a fascination.
half of the light is obscured by the huge shadow of Pentridge gaol down the road.

-Ronald Ryan was here in Brunswick as a little kid.
now he’s back again –

-Working at the Melbourne Uni bookshop I sell books
to students for their education through the day
and try to flog them for myself in the evenings -
for the hunger and the fascination.
- I am a salesman and a thief -

-Valley of the Dolls
Catch 22
Crime and Punishment –

there I was trying to learn the Penguin lists off by heart
under Michael Cannon
and trying to figure out what’s happened to Ronald Ryan
under the death sentence
at night.

- The blond has left;
the basket of panties sits unguarded against
errant semen
on the floor -
I am amused by the dangerous link between
soiled underwear and electric machinery;
I think I must prefer something more physically direct
like
strong blond arms or a rope
to twist the fluid out of something.

I used to spend a lot of my time back there in Brunswick,
when the light had gored itself away to almost nothing,
poring through photographic essays of women in
French underwear, with a candle flickering for the
crucial human weakspots
and flickering myself into the sheets.
It was all secret jotting at work;
in the tea breaks
and overhearing the exciting political secrets to myself
afterwards;

-bookshop people seem to know their politics –

that was another note, although, looking back, and around,
it may be that
it’s not all on the same side of the fence.

I was hopelessly in love with Juliet however,
and
I believed her feigned suicide;
that she was secretly in love with another compometry clerk
in the National Bank, and
this led me to decide that there was no point in joining
one political party or another
since trust had to be a basis for political fellowship
and that had been executed;
at least I believed that then.
In spite of that I joined in some of the great vigil which is to come,
and I’ll tell you about that in a moment.

- I am a protester -

First let me tell you about Juliet;
she used to wear French underwear;
the stuff that has lace around the thighs
and is slightly loose to allow the loving passage of garters,
and the fabric of which
absorbs yet smears depending upon the fluid it concedes contact with,
receives, pulses with and rejects, ultimately;

I used to live on curried mashed potato and
my love of Juliet’s sex;
of course that wasn’t all but it’s all I remember.
Morning noon and night it was
curried mashed potato.
I used to tear at her stocking tops
and bite her thighs in desperation
and reckless risks of a pregnancy that never happened;
(thankful, cruel, dimwitted, hungry – I must make a note of these words)

- I am a risk taker -

I make a note of these words:
-Ronald Ryan was a Catholic altar boy –

There is no coincidence, not there;
Such as being in Brunswick as a child and ending up back there, except perhaps
That father Brosnan was Catholic,
And
Ryan made his break from ‘the go’, same spot
where Kevin Joiner had been gunned down years before;
I wonder if Joiner was armed
And if his killer had a necksnapping end.

the state ripped Ryan from Brunswick and now
the state has brought him back.

the police called Ryan ‘the homing pigeon’
because he loves his family,
that’s how they caught him;
steel-bar irony perhaps more than
the co-incidence of blood.

Why has the pile of dirty underwear
been left on the floor in front of me?
I used to wash all of my clothes in the shower
behind a gritty fungus stained curtain of privacy
back then.

I think the prospect of all those Sharpies and Rockers
Knifing each other out at Elwood beach
made me want to keep my clothes washed;
what if I got mistaken for one and was picked up
with a bag of deals for the Uni bookshop on me;
I might end up somewhere awful;
go directly to ‘the go’ do not collect $200
do not get caught. Catch 22 I was learning
was the American psyche’s dirty washing, and Ronald Ryan,
for me
was top hat landing on Mayfair, and General Dreedle owned the hotels.

-Ronald Reagan has just been named Governer of California –
another note, this one marked ‘humorous’ for some future joke.

I have a couple more marked coincidence
that I would like to read to you but
bear in mind that I have never been clear on the distinction
between wicked coincidence and
an irony (assuming there is a difference).
Anyhow
while I wait for the blond to come back and
start sorting the basket of underwear
I’ll list you a couple and call them ‘coincidence’:

1) Ron Barassi went from Melbourne to Carlton and took them from bottom to premiership (near bottom anyway).
Then he went to North Melbourne and did the same for them.
At last he went home to his precious Melbourne club and failed.

2) William White’s father attended his son’s conscientious objection
army trial (after William had been force-goose-marched to
the cliff-face by the army) wearing his returned serviceman decorations.

3) Ronald Ryan was sentenced to hang on 31 January 1967.
31 January is the date of celebration for St John of Bosco
who founded the Silesian Order which taught Ryan his schooling.

4) Harold Holt imported Air Vice Marshall Ky
(the American-made puppet dictator of South Vietnam)
for a propaganda tour.
While Ky was here the two were photographed in a navy craft
cruising the beach at Portsea, the very spot
from which Harry scuba-dived his disappearance from history.

The big blond and the woman who takes the role
in my imagination
of his lover,
and most probably the occupant of that underwear
from time to time,
come into the laundromat.

They commence an argument over the basket, ignoring me and
I am especially embarrassed because
my spinning cycle has ended and I have to get between them
to take my stuff to the dryer. I think about
the great vigil and how we celebrated
at the bookshop
the morning the reprieve came through at the eleventh hour,
nine hours before post time, rope time, neck tie for Ronald.
They step apart and let me through.

I was depressed by the news that Juliet meant,
when she said she never wanted to see me again,
that in fact
she couldn’t stand the gangly fleshless awkward and finally
embarrassing
sight of me.
my only compensations that morning had been
that I didn’t have a mirror in the flat
and that Peter Hudson was going to play for Hawthorn.

when I arrived at work there was champagne
laid out over the anti-hanging edition of Farrago. There
was so much excitement around, and so little work,
that I was able to pilfer ‘The Idiot’ and ‘The Trial’
without anyone, I thought, noticing.
there were sick jokes that Dorothy would marry Ronald again
since the man with whom she had subsequently united
had died of a heart attack.

But
then
hell broke out once more:
Hobart was being burned to the ground,
Holt was off fiddling in New Zeakland with Holyoake,
the South Africans had banned D’Olivera on the basis
of his skin colour and were giving our cricketers a thrashing to boot,
our young men were getting blasted to pieces in Phuc Tuoy,
the pieces of Grissom, White, and Chaffey were
disintegrating in space alongside the Apollo debris,
and the affidavits of Ryan’s new-evidence-witnesses were
discarded.
what’s more I was freaked out by
eviction from my cupboard
and the finality of
Juliet’s rejection of me:
she took
a lesbian lover and I knew conclusively
as I slunk home from my dissolving bookshop job
with another stolen title hidden in my coat
that I had caused myself to be stripped
of any power
in any direction.

-I have had my head in the dryer –

that is another note
explaining to my future self just why
that woman with her basket of wet underwear
is giving me such a strange look.
I put some more money in the dryer
to finish the sheets and pyjamas.
She puts her stuff into the dryer next to me
and
I can smell her skin in the dry powdery dust and
through the hungry dampness of wet fabric
and
we watch it begin to tumble and mix
in freedom.

I sat outside the Carlton cemetery reading the paper
on the hot morning of 3 February 1967
when Ryan got his neck snapped by the rope;
it was like a hot summer day back in Bendigo
when he was on one side of the fence
inside
studying for his matriculation
which he got
and I was on the other side
studying for my matriculation
which I got,
though we were years apart in getting them.
He loved his sisters
I loved mine.

I know who arrested Ronald Ryan:
Inspector Ray Kelly;
like one Irishman arrests another for the murder of
George Henry Hodgson (an Englishman?)

I wrote a letter to Juliet about
the chance that Ryan would hang in spite of three sworn statements
and one unsworn statement,
which may have merited some attention.

- I am a person who likes letters -

The letter I wrote was about the rush to judgement
but I did not send it so great was my own guilt.

instead I sent a letter to Michael Cannon concerning
Sydney and the rum trade in heroin;
still singing the same song…
and confessed to stealing books from his shop and
congratulated him on his excellent historical works…

if only
if only I could understand if it means anything
that hanging warrants are signed, it seems, on Thursdays
in Malaysia
which is the same day on which Picasso used to sign
his works.
I’m sure it means nothing.

My fetish for lacy underwear survived but I gave up
stealing books.
I gave up Brunswick and Carlton but I still love Melbourne
because I go there every now and then if I have a chance
like the pigeon that I am,
always hoping for a glimpse of Juliet’s thigh in a dream,
or the sound of the gallows finally burning down,
or maybe another Jonny Famechon
or a Peter Hudson…

I don’t know if Michael Cannon ever got my letter,
Or if the blond and his lover are going to split up
over the washing, because
my basket is full of warm dry clothes and cotton sheets
like a Bendigo summer day in your face and
the smell of the free wattle and the dry clay earth
as it rushes promises at you.

I leave the laundromat and scurry to the car
with my dogs

and search my memory for Ronald Ryan’s words
which he penned to his mother
after learning of his destiny as determined by
the State Executive Council:
- I was able to accept it with equanimity
my concern was for its effects on you –

- thus spake Zarathustra, secretly
and Ronald Ryan privately -

-I am cooking dinner tonight –

another note to myself from some years later and
the Irish in me ensures there will be potatoes
somewhere in the menu.

- by the time I have eaten –
the later note continues
- Barlow and Chambers will have been hung in a foreign land
down the spout for drugs -

The car won’t start in the rain and so that gives me time
to contemplate
the Penguin Book of Australian Short Stories
for laundromat reading in case I’m stuck
(with nobody interesting to watch)

The first story still niggles me’
with its essay on the Australian colonial hanging psyche.
I wonder whose graves they would spit on…. Barlow and Chambers,
or Ryan…
perhaps Barlow and Chambers knew too much
or else just a couple of convicts getting it
in the neck.

- through the rain on the car windows I secretly watch
the blond and the lover
load their washing into their small asian car –

my final notes from that day describe
their final act…
- her white legs with little hairs that
seemed to stand erect against the static charge of the laundromat,
her long fingers twirling the end of a plait into the
curl of her melting collarbone,
his thick tattooed arms that touch her briefly…. -
and they were suddenly gone with their scents and
their rustling hands of arousal and their innocently offered exchange
for my diary…..

and they’re gone

- like Cliffy Stewart; just a constructed memory
without right or wrong,
or truth,
but most certainly a reality to someone else,
with right and wrong imposed –

and so
I crumple the notes back into the
elegant scented envelope from my old amnesty cellmate,
with the photographs of Hussein and his brother;
head and body separated like washing spilled on a
dirty floor…
I hear the laughter of my children behind me
reflecting life out of the misty rain
like wet leaves on the great fig tree
and
they do not need to see this letter and its crumbling
foolish hopes
so
I light my fire and determine not to reply this time.

If football and life have a fight
Re: which is our godgiven right?
Take shankly’s advice
(Which I consider quite nice):
keep shooting and turn out the light

On Boticelli's Venus and Mars
for File at http://pseudstuff.blogspot.com/

brad in tolouse
said venus was but a smile away
and mars
barred and needing company
came too close

but then
in that special moment of angry weakness
was enfolded
and one onto another and
they fought
in the flood of celestial pleasure
drowning all the deathway to it's
momentary cherabin-piped
explosion

and where they gave in

and where they drowned in her
flooded tapestry, and,
only the drying paint of memory remains....

or so brad boticelli would have had it....
had he been around
in tolouse that day....

I keep the painting to remind me anyway,
and use it for
occasional display....

diy relationships for file at http://pseudstuff.blogspot.com/

"dont call me i'll call you"
she said with a sneer
and I knew as i tapped out
my message with cheer
(the sort derived from superiority one gets
knowing one's best skills are not listed on the net)

"my dear lets not force it" I said
"for we both know your failure
to fix what is broken
(inter alia my heart - and the staler
relationship we now disenjoy... and my cd stacker your axe to deploy)
will all bring you undone someday"
AND i SENT IT. knowing she would drown
in her see through nightie....
signed brad. and now through the mail your flighty

anticipated recanting from eye fluids crocodile river released
overstated underwhelming and no love words unleashed
but i know that she loves me as the rain makes her paler
she wants me she needs me
she's drowning....
that little brad nailer

Goldfinch for Zeph at http://pseudstuff.blogspot.com/
and for Geoff DeMain painter extraordinaire:

the miners finch
wild canary
never a single flinch
nor note of song

believes in destiny as much
as those whose dynamite replaces
hammer and tap and stretches against the natural grain

for one more chance to signify
all clear
at the beginning and end of the mortal chain,
or waiting forever against the supervisor's wall,

or in an abandoned lunchroom
midst the gritty wrappers of last week's fare
for one more chance at least
to prove
the worth of her captivity

here it quivers
is blood
through the earth it's courses

and out through a gash to the sea
there forces
like a tree

one arm in the sky and
one in deep flesh
the water

calendar of sources

Constriction – This Sporting Leaf
A ditty by Doctorshoot to be recited out loud after several scotches and in the style of the brilliant John Cooper-Clarke

Constriction visits my chest perhaps because these cigarettes have
tarnished me burnished me vanquished me banished me from
the field of sports
ravaged me savage tar nicotar push me out throw me down
cough me off slough me off gasp me out rasp me out
lasting out inbetween fags like the stub of a man
highlunged man who once ran so / ran so /
ran the lengths with a burst
finishing burst finishing first lost that thirst now I’ve cursed
my veins my heart my head my hopes and give cancer a chance….
and the lungs bellow lungs bellow bellows
bellow out just below the next smoke next moment
next moment next moment bellows my lungs
could be the one – cough! cough! – could be the one
I’m sorry to say
here is your last sentence, cough your way through it….

But then

Maybe my chest is constricted because of
the motor cars passing me charging me rushing me battering one
battery down on another one battering rams splattering rams
motor car rotor car crossing kids tossing kids splitting lids
splatter bids bleeping and blasting and smogging and fogging me
petrol in money out stifling rifling stacking and jamming and
rushing the green orange screech at the red with their
stress factor mess factor hell bent let hell loose and
lined faces twitching from white line line fever or
is it
hard artery fever or is it the
galloping gear-change accelerator factor clutching me?
my – cough – cough – chest….

But look

Why should I care
when the trees are endangered and cut down and burned up and
woodchipped and cardboarded threeplied and hardboarded
cleared off and burned off and cast off and….
they don’t have chests to constrict but they die so
why worry why care
if I work enough hours and build enough towers
they say I can be an Australian millionaire…. like
Langhang in a plane or reefbuster Joh making cash by the bucketfull
flash flesh the skilletfull
millions you’re laughing and double it twice
and
in Switzerland clinics for cancer are nice…
Footnotes:
1. “Langhang in a plane” refers to the late Lang Hangcock spotting red mountains which he determined to be iron ore and later staked it out and founded the Iron Ore mining industry in Australia
2. “Reefbuster Joh” refers to the late premier of Queensland who when asked about his plans to mine the great barrier reef is reputed to have said: “don’t you worry about that, it’s only coral and there’s plenty more”

When sorry seems to be the hardest word

Draped across a sheepskin
Bea lies in front of her crackling heat and reveals
Only the tiniest fragment of her stolen youth and enquires
In response to the question asked:
“So do you hate them for it?”

“Only for the touches on my skin
That lingered with pleasure, and a kindness that steals
Your chance for despising all the rest” He says and expires
Back into the leather sofa tasked with
Trying to let them off for it.

“but for what?” she asks again
Searching out the point. “I saw my grandmothers heels shot
From horseback like that wounded knee….so?” He tires
Knowing he has exposed at last
His own prerequisite.

Anyhow the crumpled photo slips within
Repossessed letters, then not received, now readied for the fire. It feels
Like some escape with scrawling on the boarding house spires
And across the smiling face in ghastly
White: ‘I forgive you’ unmerited and unfit.

Big game fishing more than sport really - DoctorShoot

I balance, supple at the knees as instructed, and curl the 13 foot thrownet across my right shoulder. Balancing in the prow of the dinghy I take up most of the white knotted fabric in my left hand, with the last ten weights clustered in my right, like a Russian bride engulfed in a giant sagging heavy wet veil. I coil to the left ready to cast.

As I look back across my right shoulder waiting for the flickering colours of yellowbellies coming to the bread crumbs I spot a leg sticking out of the distant opposite bank. The leg of a cow discarded by a sated crocodile. An old withered leg poking out of the mud with a bit of dried skin hanging limply off it. In the oppressive wet season heat it is lit oddly by a spotlight of sun shafting through a hole in the clouds. Not a breath of wind.

A crack of thunder brings old William Ezekial to mind. His bellowing laugh across the concrete floor of my office. His skin so black it is blue and grinning like a movie star he wants to know if I can buy a barge. From King Ash Bay to Bing Bong he is Yunyuwa, with more than thirty words for dugong and fifty ways to cook a turtle alive. He sits beside a map of the outstations for whom I am trying to find sustainable avenues of economic survival. An area as big as Wales with islands, estuaries, mangroves, mountains, plains and hidden canyons, and marked with red dots for the 27 outstations.

Can I organise the buyout of the local barramundi man for half a million? I want to laugh back, with him, but he is too far ahead of me, too old, too smart, and too embedded in an ocean of culture in which my little European colonial vision is humbled. I cannot see that far but promise I will try. I am his net.

A yellow flash and I swing into my cast. A great circle floats from my arms and settles gently into the swollen highway of ancient trade that is the Macarthur River. My circle disappears into the deep water. Smooth washed pebbles and casuarina forests watch me from the bank as I step one pace sideways in the boat to balance against my cast. Or try to at least. I can hear the sea eagle laughing from above as I topple sideways, leg caught in the netline.

One assumes that floating to the top is easy but in the silty murk river which hungrily enfolds me all is a half light of wet gloom. I am suspended in the silt. My shorts have come off and I have to work out which way is up. I free my leg and pull on the rope as water forces into my nostrils. The end of the rope passes by me coming down. At least I have discovered the way up.

“We don’t fish” William had told me, “we just live and enjoy. You blokes fish. Sometimes the fish come after us. It’s like a game.”

Something brushes my leg as I leap from the water back into the boat. How did I do that? I check my leg and it still has all it’s flesh intact. The thrownet is gone forever or at least until a big dry when it’s picked out of the riverstones downstream and comes alive in safer hands.

My companion in the boat is an eight year old girl I have been minding. She reads a book and sucks her thumb through pink pre-raphelite lips. She looks up and smiles and goes back to the book. Not my game really, fishing for sport. Best get back and see about that barge.

The Home Advantage.
“Like you they suspect idiosyncrasy of witchcraft. Above all, don't get out
too easily,….” from The Aboriginal Cricketer - Les Murray

Contact from Rhino. He only writes letters and is the only person I know who quotes Les Murray. His weightlifter hands played classical guitar for fifteen years but refuse emails, so my news is slow. Rhino is at the annual Imparja Cup, a national indigenous cricket tournament in Alice Springs. Rhino has connections in New South Wales cricket and is jealous that Rod Marsh is “here stealing my future stars”. Signed: “as ever Rhino COP”.

We still exchange letters every year.

I once spent time with Rhino cramped into a university four-wheel-drive during a three week trip from Adelaide to Fregon community for the 1981 aboriginal football carnival.
He had folded his bulk amongst the swags and water bottles and, as we clattered and cramped north into the desert, he recited, through owl glasses, the form for twenty-three community teams we would witness playing in the dust over three days.

We slept on dewy cold earth under star carpets, and woke from primordeal crying dreams, each dawn a little further inland, and deeper amongst camp-fires crackling about eagles and giant goannas.

Before cutting into Pitjantjatjara lands from the highway we stopped into a roadhouse. Last pies and iced coffees. Rhino and I had last beers. Immediately below a battered, two gallon pewter mug, a bar-sign read:
“peacekeeper - if you haven’t had the vote for 18 years f..k off”

Fourteen years earlier a Commonwealth of Australia Constitution amendment granted indigenous australians citizenship. Since our trip to the carnival was partly a celebration of that emancipation, Rhino made the obvious enquiry.

“Keeps blackefellers out. Can’t hold their grog and anyone who doesn’t agree can f..k off too” came the considered reply. The dents in the pewter cup clearly showed that non-compliants were methodically dealt with. Our red, gold, and black armbands made us candidates.
The giant cup stayed on it’s wooden slab. We edged out into the gushing heat. In the shade of a Moreton Bay fig, like refugees, we agreed to always stay in touch.

The football carnival was won by home side Fregon per tradition. Fregon timekeepers kept the grand final going over four hours until their side at last hit the lead and the siren blared it’s conclusion over the mayhem of dancing and music. Fregon had won the carnival cup. We had been a hidden yet intrusive part. My Pitjantjatjara language skills advanced a little, and my understanding of indigenous carnivals and the meaning of reconciliation improved slightly.

Rhino doesn’t tell me who won the Imparja Cup, but adds a PS: he’s “off the grog and going to the Caribbean World Cup”. He fancies the home side at 15/1.
Out of my jealous window giant pines tower clear from sub-tropical rainforest canopies weaving negative blue shapes of mystery; cup after cup of peace across an unending horizon.

WATER THE FISH

shattering like an egg over pebbles, the split
between your flashing colours and your hiding makes me
plunder my trove of tools; (jewels I have known before I quit
my yolk and left these rapid waters), and now, there grabbing my old net with all its holes, I see
unmended reasons why I failed before and will again. I knit
in furious hope this moment will not pass, and pause: my plea,
my heart, my lust all curl like weights into a hopeless cutting grit
and the net goes hard against this wind; I cast for you. alas. the water swirls to free
last traces of the glittering spume where for an instant your face in white and yellow sworls was writ
and now the memory too is gone
back into some distant and misunderstood, and fathomless sea