Sharon Olds finished her speech
a tiny peice of spittle clung
to the collar of a man in the front row
she winced a little.
Sue did a mental count in her head
who wasn't there
Lewis.
Phoebe.
everybody else was bright
pen to paper
smiling
ready to go home.
She side glanced her partner
nodding off in the chair
next to her.
Anthony lawrence stuck his hand in the air
one final question.
He knew his would be a good one to go out on
he knew this kind of thing
Olds would a appreciate a good question
unlike that woman who said the thing about the Tampon tax.
What was her point exactly?
Everybody was clapping
good job
congratulations
how exciting
Phoebe's wrists were sore
from where the handcuffs cut in.
She thought about it one more time.
What was her story?
How would she structure it exactly,
face to face?
Who would be the narrator?
Would it be a short story, or a poem? Fiction
or non-fiction?
The grey door before her clicked
and opened. The festival had come
to an end.
She let her story begin.
Writerinactionphoebe
Wednesday, 5 August 2015
Monday, 27 July 2015
VI
As the La Trobe students gathered
and mulled about out the front
of the cafe, their cigarettes
slowly polluting the morning air
Lewi's body was turned,
a piece of bark flicked
from his cheek
by a sergeant in a shirt
that pulled too tightly under his armpits.
The sound of the full body zip
crisp
shuddered over the brown river.
A female constable turned her face away
and thought of her son
and tried not to think about
the onyx coloured bruises
ornate upon the unbroken skin
of the neck.
Probably drug related
they all thought, because it made them feel safe
and far away
he probably deserved it
if it was drug related.
Someone turned a La Trobe student ID
over in their plastic gloved
hands
Lewis White Bundoora
he's from Melbourne
"shit shit shit"
lift the body bag into the ambulance
"I do not want to make that phone call."
and mulled about out the front
of the cafe, their cigarettes
slowly polluting the morning air
Lewi's body was turned,
a piece of bark flicked
from his cheek
by a sergeant in a shirt
that pulled too tightly under his armpits.
The sound of the full body zip
crisp
shuddered over the brown river.
A female constable turned her face away
and thought of her son
and tried not to think about
the onyx coloured bruises
ornate upon the unbroken skin
of the neck.
Probably drug related
they all thought, because it made them feel safe
and far away
he probably deserved it
if it was drug related.
Someone turned a La Trobe student ID
over in their plastic gloved
hands
Lewis White Bundoora
he's from Melbourne
"shit shit shit"
lift the body bag into the ambulance
"I do not want to make that phone call."
V
Annie is a King Charles Cavaliar,
with with a soft brown nose. She trots in front of him,
every now and again, glancing back,
her tongue out.
It must be about 6.30pm, just before the sun has fully set. When everything is harder to see, sometimes harder to understand.
Martin thinks while he walks, lets his mind wander. He once said to his wife,
"I'd be insane if I didn't go on my walks." She had rolled her eyes,
crossed her legs, and
changed the channel on the TV.
"I have long legs, good for walking," Martin thought.
His wife was short.
He walks along the brown banks,
tufts of green beginning to emerge,
"Summer can't be that far off," he thinks,
gumtrees splay their khaki green leaves on one side of him,
the river on the other.
Annie is off the lead. Her tail wags, her nose sniffs the ground,
"As if following an invisible map," Martin thinks.
Annie stops by a tree, it's silver bark in the half light catches Martin off guard,
"How Beautiful."
His eyes fall to where Annie sniffs at his feet.
She has something in her mouth.
"That looks like a finger," he thinks.
...
Thursday, 23 July 2015
IV
That night I had
Sharon Olds poem “Sex without Love” in my head
Although I couldn’t
think of anyway with words
To express
myself as cleanly as Olds
I felt there
was something comforting
About looking
down at my naked belly
As I slipped
into the bath
And imagining
a baby in there
That has come
from love.
Perhaps I thought,
I can only
express myself physically
When it comes
to certain feelings
Words aren’t enough
for me
Unlike these
Writers at the Festival.
Will sat
opposite me
Tiny islands
of bubbles formed
In the hot
water between us
I took a swig
of champagne from the skinny glass
On the edge
of the tub
It was cheap
I smiled at
him
He didn’t smile
back
He was
feeling bad.
A loud knock
At the hotel
room door
We were
silent
I didn’t look
at Will
It came again
Will hauled
himself up
Dried himself
quickly
Rapped a
towel around his waist
I prayed to God that would not be the last time I saw those hips
“Coming”
Will shut the
bathroom door
Muffled
voices slipped under it
They were
deep and persistent
I stood up,
water trickled down my pale body
Tiny translucent
snakes
Will opened
the door just enough so that his face showed between
The cracks
“It’s the Police.”
Monday, 20 July 2015
III
I sit
awkwardly
On a black
leather couch
The authors
are talking to us.
This is drinks.
I am supposed
to be sucking up to them
Trying to get
something
Good out of
them
To write
about
I am no good
at it.
I try to
guess their partners
Their age
Their weight
Why they have
those shoes.
I am no good
at it.
So I clutch
my champagne
And stare
into the tiny golden bubbles
And look
around the room for Lewis
He’s still nowhere
to be seen
That bastard.
I check my
phone, there is a message from Will
“Have you
seen Lewis?”
Peter
Goldsworthy stands
Leaning
against a wall, one hand in his pocket
He is talking
to some students
Listening to
them
I am jealous
He looks like
a plank of wood
He nods at
them as they speak
I am jealous
A fucking
intelligent plank of wood.
My bag
vibrates again
I reply
“No.”
…
I’m sitting
in the front row
Alexis Wright
and Tom Keneally
Are but
metres away
Their wet
mouths
Echo over the
microphones
Lewis is
nowhere to be seen
I imagine his
head on a soft pillow somewhere.
Tom Keneally
strokes his stout beard,
I’m not sure
if it’s the right word
But it looks
almost concrete -
The way it
juts outwards
Like a cliff’s
edge.
How many
people have fallen over it
I wonder.
I call Lewis
No answer.
Friday, 17 July 2015
II
The grand
hotel overlooks
A deep blue
pool
Surrounded by
novelty palm trees
Everything seems
a waste
In winter
But it’s not
raining here
And the sun
is beginning to fill the morning sky
I’m too
excited to sleep.
…
We play pool
Under the Jim
Beam posters
Pints in
hands
At the
Sandbar.
Lewi leans
over, his eye to the table
He hits the
purple ball
Into the left
hand side pocket
I groan.
On the TV
above us
A football
game
From the
eighties finishes again
Men in small
shorts jump together
Slapping each
other on the back
“Did you see
Sharon Olds?” he asks me.
I nod.
I had been
leaning over a table of books
cradling her Father in my hands
when I had
seen her over my shoulder
standing next
to me.
I had in a
purely surprised manner
Gasped out
loud - it was unreturned
I thought for
a moment
Of the small grey
lady before me
And that
perhaps she was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen
And would
ever see
Then maybe I thought,
I am being
too romantic for this world
“Is staying
with Brain okay?” I asked Lewis
“Yeah it’s
fine.” He replied, his Adam’s apple
Rising and
falling with the
Gulp of a
beer.
“Who lets university
students come and stay with them for the Writers Festival,” I thought,
“Only sickos.”
Will and I run
up and down
The golden
sand dunes
Gaining momentum
Laughing
And I feel
like for a moment I know what it would have been like to be a child with him
In another
world
He could have
been my brother.
The Mildura
desert
Spreads out
before us
No one is
around
Except for
the birds that hang
And glide on
the wind above us.
Pieces of
torn off cardboard
Flutter on
the sand
At our feet.
I am reminded
of Anthony Lawrence’s talk
He said the
constants in his work
Were landscape
and weather.
The sand has
wrapped around and engulfed the trunk of the giant Mallee tree.
We climb in
its limbs
Anthony Lawrence
said poetry was about
Finding something
Extraordinary
in the common place,
I feel like
we have done that.
What strikes
me the most about the Poets
At the
Festival
Is that they
are cloaked right now
In the glow
Like a
sequined cape of celebrity
But when they
peel it back
They are
still black inside
Lawrence said
his default soundtrack
Was melancholy
And that
reminds me so much of the poets I know
And the poets
I see
These are
multifaceted people
Shining in
the dusk
We see them
at their best – before they go to sleep.
On the drive
back we pull over
Will steals
some oranges from a heavily laden tree
On the side
of the road
Mildura is
famous for oranges.
I
I
squeeze off the tram and run
Across
drizzly Johnston Street
The
lights of the cars blurred
By
the rain.
Press the
buzzer at Will’s apartment
Meet him on
the stairs
A grey
plastic bag in each of his hands
Hummus, carrots,
chocolate.
Lewis’s face
over his left shoulder
Blonde curly
hair
With a
dreadlock at the back
I don’t think
he knows about.
He pulls a
concerned face
Backs into
the hallway
The phone to
his ear
“If it’s too
late I won’t come tonight.”
Will packs
the car
Lewis gets
in, after me
He is shaking
his head
“I hope he’s
not a creep.” I whisper
And actually
hope
For a moment I
feel like Marylou
Sitting in
the back
In the middle
Between the
two.
We “cheers”
long blacks
Brought under
the green fluorescent lights
Oil changes colour
on the pavement
Like a chameleon
Long red
spaghetti lines of traffic
Spread out
before us
On the
Tullermarine freeway
And then the
Calder.
452 km to
Mildura.
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