Poetry
Subject matter's songs
1. The garden (Claude Monet, 1840-1926)
A labourer,
he shaped flower beds,
trained water courses
and helped the pond
assume its burden
of lily rafts and dragon flies.
Dreaming in the midday rest,
he watched them hover,
learnt their bright shimmering bond
with interval.
The garden
found metamorphosis in paint
and floats now
before distant myriad sight.
Monet walks the evening paths,
sees the day abscond,
knows cataracts of light,
the unsuccessful grafts,
hears the nightingale's song
and feels at last
the enclosed garden's deep embrace.
2. The bowl (Georges Seurat, 1859-1891)
A Sunday painter,
his arm around the world's waist,
sensing the summer's haste
and times eclectic weight
in the river's playful freight.
His eye distils
the water's mobile face
(geometry's veiled grace,)
and his hand weaves
the bright afternoon's fate
with a rainbow's ease.
mote by mate.
3. The mountain (Paul Cezanne, 1839-1906)
Cezanne pitched his tent
near that soaring eagle's mass
of high rock and random wind -
Friday's mountain - thus sealing
a life-time's covenant.
Still life's mute contradiction
sings songs of introspection
and sixty canvases subtly rent
encompass
torn colour, lightly unbind
gravity's fountain - reveal
a humble mendicant.
Nomad spring (For Magali, Little Sister of Jesus) 15 September 1981
I dwell
in a sacred place,
not yet deciphered
by the heart;
a world
formed with three voids
and found
in the high night sky,
in the land's still interior,
and the last
hidden deep in being.
And always,
the solstice nigh,
they resonate and call,
'Remember,
in the trackless intervals
the Spring comes - alone
and out of step,
forgetful of old co-incidence.'
Gently insisting
that the Resurrection
is not the private property
of this place or that race.
I live
in clapstick time,
not yet revealed
to the soul,
a song sung
by an absent star,
a silent waste
and my own singular night.
(The absence of the pole star in the Southern Hemisphere parallels the absence of fertile territory in the centre of the Australian continent.)
Three poems for three poets, 1978
1: Transky - for Breyten Breytenbach - released 1982
The words
that fill your head
once
would have filled pages.
Now, officially condensed each month to 200.
'Dear Yolande... '
and all those others that flow in Afrikaans
bound
between the covers of the night.
And you,
the first poet
in the last Germanic language,
live
the reality
of a first edition.
Why didn't you praise that seamless robe of water,
clouds and fire?
Or turn to farce: that's the way -
not these endless questions
of justice and dread.
At whose feet did you sit?
It should have been easy
to look away,
glance sidelong,
walk on the other side
and wait for someone else
to exorcise
those who live among the dead.
2. World Cup - for Adolfo Perez Esquivel, released 1980
Around the walls
The indifferent thousands watch.
The goal keeper waits
In front of the small empty cage
Hoping
To save - miraculously - again and again
While the concrete maws roar to heaven
Their short-lived despair or joy.
But you - you fill your cage
And the gaol keeper waits
for the next move
Downfield.
3: 1961 Coup d'etat - for Kim Chi Ha, released 1972
When I consider it,
that is, all things thrown in,
it's extraordinary that you've survived.
1941 was not the time to hang upon a breast.
1951 the year of the sacked general,
you hung upon a thread.
All those years
slowly
focusing their intent
to leave you
stripped
to a cry
that hangs
taut
in the calm of early morning.
Breyten Breytenbach, Afrikaaner poet, author of In Africa, even the flies are happy.
Adolf Perez Esquivel, Novel Peace Prize winner, 1981
The world Cup was held in Argentina, 1978
Kim Chi Ha, Korean poet, author of Cry of the people.
Korea is known as the land of early morning calm.
Ode to a spring roll (Ch'un chuan)
These delightful tidbits may be made with pork, chicken, shrimp, ham, veal etc. They are fine as hors d'oeuvres or as part of a dinner. The doilies may be made in advance; a supply in the deep freeze is most useful. Sprinkle corn starch between the doilies before freezing; they can be peeled off like sheets of paper from a tablet. Or the filled spring rolls may be frozen before frying. (From The art of Chinese cooking by the Benedictine Sisters of Peking, 1965, Tuttle)
With songs diurnal
and hope eternal,
the flour and water
mingle.
The bean sprouts,
the bamboo shoots,
and mushrooms.
Make a little batter;
Swish it round and round.
Leave it on the heat.
Sing a little chatter.
Soy sauce infernal,
onion maternal,
sauté and strip to
tingle.
The chopped leek,
the sherry neat,
ginger-lea.
Make a little chatter;
Swish it round and round.
Fold sides in and roll.
Sing a little batter.
In oil paternal,
all things vernal,
re-heat and fry our
jingle.
the meat dredged,
the shrimp shelled,
salt's last pinch.
Sing a little natter;
Swish it round and round.
Moisten edge and seal.
Sing a little flatter.
Notes from a journal, 1987
Buenos Aires National Museum
In Buenos Aires, on April Fool's Day
I met two images of the Virgin -
both fluent in Old French - a long way
from Orleans and Langue d'Oc.
From the time of early calendars
they had journeyed forth
and now keep each other company,
wait in exile, where new worlds meet.
The younger, a playful Gothic girl
delighting in the accomplished deed,
rests spontaneously, her crown being heavy,
balancing the child in freedom's nest.
Her friend, an older, wiser Romanesque mother,
with candid gaze and careful hands
restrains the forward line of her charge,
mindful of the acrid season's tick tock.
Cafe song, Antofagusta, Chile
Irregular verbs
used carelessly
and without
a second thirst,
sometimes,
in songs
or shouts
or curses,
maintain a life
(with applause)
and drown, briefly,
dominant nouns.
Vicuna, the birthplace of Gabriela Mistral
It's the entrance to the song
that's hard to find,
that hidden space in the beat
where each song's end begins.
And bells! They never ring
for the birth of poets in obscure villages;
the strophes of time sound for great events
and the day's routine.
But listen and listen again.
Now the air is charged when a new voice chants
the ancient and the unforeseen.
It's the singer's entrance, often spare,
that masters place,
probes the emptiness in the heart
and is lost in anger's din.
Mapuche silver
Please forgive a poor student,
a beginner in the history of reservations,
someone, puzzled at the odd relatio
between dignity and imagination,
someone who seeks to understand a death -
that of Mapuche Silver.
For a hundred years
the alchemy of turning money
into spectacular ornament
was theirs,
and then,
quite suddenly,
on a day like any other -
lost.
Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957) was born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga of humble parents in the valley of Elqui in Northern Chile which accounts, as she once said, for her interest in rural education and the agrarian problem. She was self-educated from the age of eleven and began teaching at the age of fifteen.
She was the first Nobel Laureate for literature in Latin America (1945.) She wrote some of the most beautiful cradle songs and children's verse in the Spanish language, although she never had a child of her own.
The Mapuche, the indigenous American people of Argentina and Chile, were almost totally destroyed in Argentina (0.6% of the population) and represent 6% of the Chilean population. Originally known by the Spanish name Araucanos, that is, the people who occupied the Arauco, they prefer the name Mapuche by which they traditionally refer to themselves. (Mapu = tierra (earth)) As with all the Indian peoples of the Americas, the Mapuche were finally confined to reservations and no treaties were honoured. Good relationships were terminated. With respect to the Mapuche, the vitality and strength of institutions have been so great that they have permitted these people together with their language and religion to survive to the present day.
The craft of hammered silver died when the people were placed in reservations and poverty forced them, in times of need, to sell their wonderful jewellery. Today there are no Mapuche silversmiths.
Soles, Old City, Jerusalem (The twentieth anniversary of the Occupied Territories, 1987)
Sitting in the boot repairer's shop
near the VII'th Station
small goods, coffee, and a basket of cucumbers,
embroidered gowns and shawls,
vine leaves and brass,
tea sellers.
Armalite rifles wearing soldiers,
movie cameras bearing heads,
children bearing parents.
A trinity of hands,
the kites of life
and monks.
Blue tapestry schist,
Judean brown,
manna white,
mosque red.
West bank black,
Gaza crimson,
Israeli green,
summer straw,
donkey grey.
Composed for the invitation to the exhibition: The stained-glass summer of '91: First Iraq War
Just a brief chanson
about the summer,
the stained-glass
summer - now gone.
A few images from
the summer (vitraux
de '91) - just a few
pour vous from
the stained glass
sound, not many, pas
beaucoup, a few to
rue, but in for a
penny, in for a
pound.
Five boats from Cambodia
When we sailed
beneath the southern night,
the children were quiet
our voices low.
And time was becalmed
with each morning's flight.
Our hopes were planks
in freedom's boat.
Fire is the same
in every place
like wind, like rain,
and yet we came
in each a trace
of Cambodia's pain.
But we never reckoned,
didn't take the soundings right,
forgot the dove's flight
at each landfall's show.
Our boat was named,
then burnt, a bureaucrat's delight.
Beagle sank and so did we,
nameless, in Port Hedland
and Villawood.
Fire is the same
in every place
like wind, like sand,
and makes its aim
each and every face -
a fist - nobody's hand.
Each year that passed
beneath our southern night,
we watched the children's plight -
not here - not now.
And still we stayed
faithful to life, with
new births, new fight.
For this voyage is yours,
no longer ours.
Fire is the same
in every place
like wind, like stars
and still we claim
a human grace
behind Australian bars.
Refugee program
There have to be some perks
to brighten each day's
overpaid, indulgent grisaille;
some expense account jaunt
to far flung haunt
where the set design is different
and the chefs serve ratatouille.
As for us, opinion's clercs
- who lighten burdens
with some incredible trouvailles -
we sift, the elementally gaunt
ending hope's enduring taunt.
Remember - the world's bright sun will set
if we neglect the night's entrailles.
grisaille: greyness
ratatouille: stew
trouvailles: lucky finds
clerc: 'faire un pas de clerc' - to make a blunder
Transaktionen
On the frontier, infrequent festivals,
with general and private forays,
break the patterns of duty,
the relentless bump and grind,
and leave mementoes, anecdotes,
souvenir rinds.
I used to attend these autumn lays,
an intellectual mote
among myriad mirrors,
I recall the animated lions,
striped carnivores,
the elegantly vertebraed,
Guignol, Divas in Amazonia.
At the frontier, the long intervals
are filled with reports and balance sheets,
shaping the direction of policy -
the distillation of margins,
the relentless need in the void,
reservations for old cosmogonies.
I look forward to retirement,
a different pension -
and a solitary first night.
Amelia Bedelia: Four verses
1
Age and rim ram gears
mire the mare's rage
and extract
image from mirage.
2
Of all the birds
now known to man,
peahen and cassowary,
but one has words
and skies to scan
the flightful visionary.
3
Bird shit
obedient to gravity
drops
straight and true
to earth.
while branches, hey, hey,
curve and weave, and this way, that,
to some deeply hidden mirth.
4
Dressed in green and grey
in the old season's new slouch fedoras,
equipped with the canes of authority,
we listened be-mused
to the heart of rhyme
and heard - surprise!
the mid-century-night's destructive static.
Hooray!
As they laid the lads in linen,
those who'd lately left the prison,
I said, 'Let's make our own mosaic
and find an urn for Ern.'
Hooray!
'Though it's a long way from the mallee
in this green and dreadful valley,
we must try him on for size
now he's left us by demise.'
Hooray! Hooree!
(Ern = Ern Malley)
Willy-willy
To my dear nephew 'A'
I bequeath my entire collection of seat-belts.
To my charming niece, 'C'
a great big box of Chili.
To my sister 'E'
from my enormous store of moments
a few melts.
To my brother 'D'
for whom there is nothing but affection
a letter, postmarked Dili.
To all my sons and daughters
equal shares and subscriptions
to parliamentary cares and inscriptions.
And to ease the pain
of my lovely widow
endless lessons
in the art of judo.