HOPE

The billboard at St. John’s in Glebe

exhibits two cadaveric upturned hands

holding Scrabble letters –

H and O right, P and E left –

background washed

in Prussian venous blood.

What’s the score for

the single mum this morning

reading the board as two kids hang on

to her en route to preschool?

No double letter square for her:

the dream dried up

a year ago

when he left the game.

Why offer what you cannot give

she wonders?  She crosses the street:

much better this jacaranda

she thinks, free of letters  

and promises but generous

in its carpet of lilac sacrifice.

PENINSULA

On this leeward beach

serrated coast

we’ve been cast ashore.

‘Enjoy the last of summer,’ 

they said, as they sailed for home.

Old people –

crinkled smiles,

chatter of the deaf,

500 hens in a cage,

the occasional strutting male,

rooster of the brood.

‘Tomorrow night’s the raffle,’

one grandma croaks,

shrugging off impending death

raising trivial sums

for wives of drought-wracked farmers

in the hinterland.

‘Do you make or write or paint?’ I ask.

‘No.  We’re resting,’ I am told.

Does anyone escape?

TRAVELLING TO THE EDGE

Each night each day

I visit places and see faces

long dead and engage

in complex conversations.

The terrain is variable –

it can be on the beach with my dad

or in large and indeterminate buildings:

dreams can include travel on foot

missing plane connections

that are ill-defined

unpreparedness for examinations

or public presentations, arrest

for unintentional gaps in my performance.

Scenes are drawn from memories

stored over seventy years,

encounters and fabrications

that may signal incipient dementia,

losses that chase through my brain –

children running lost in a maze –

and then into open deserts

dark and devoid of sound

beyond which no-one knows.

What does it mean to die in one’s sleep?

LAMENTATION

Inspired by my experiences at AMPCo 

Jesus!

The sleazes

I’ve met

or had to work with,

have thought of as my friends

been done over by,

exploited, gossiped about,

taken to the cleaners –

you’d think I’d learn

but I don’t.

Or won’t:

probably from a cranky gene

or excessive toilet training

or too much trust and love

in an indulgent childhood

too much soft soap –

too much rope.

I’m a dope

to let it happen.

Sleaze is slippery –

oily fish,

eel, frog or slug  –

gets away

with it every day.