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Volume VIII - Book V

A Necklace Of Gems:

A Second Series Of Sequences On The City Of Sydney

N.K.Tointon

1995

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These poems are dedicated to:

Hany,
James,
Anthony,
Patrick,
David,
David,
Paul,
Tony,

And the Residents of this 
City of Sydney.

Index

ii	Preface In The Form Of An Essay-Commentary

1	Prologue

3	1. The Lonely Sailor On His Night Out (à Kenneth 												  Slessor)
4	2. Terraces In Paddington Authentically Restored
5	3. Feeling At Home In The Park
6	4. Surry Hills Re-Visited
7	5. Darlinghurst Road (à Kenneth Slessor)
8	6. The Rain Beating Upon This Dismal Street
9	7. This Bus Driver Keeps His Cool
10	8. Those Unpaid Fashion Models
11	9. Five Revisions On The Name Of "Captain Cook" 
							  (à Kenneth Slessor)
16	10. Sydney, Home Of A Thousand Struggling Poets
18	11. The Polling Booth
19	12. Sydney's Second Chinatown
21	13. The Funeral Service (à Kenneth Slessor)
21	14. The Human Zoo
23	15. An Aversion To The Process Of Conversion
26	16. An Autumn Romance
28	17. Mangroves Revisited (à Kenneth Slessor)
29	18. He Will Soon Give His Name To A Great Art 											   Collection
30	19. One More Sunday Afternoon (à Sylvia Plath)
32	20. The Virtual Walls Of Invisible Ghettos
39	21. The Waters Of This Harbour (à Kenneth Slessor)
40	22. The Coughing Concerto
41	23. The Sydney Aquarium
42	24. A Lone Ant Wanders Across The Landscape

43	Epilogue: Sydney Out Celebrating Itself

44	The Texts Of The Six Poems Parodied 
	`After Kenneth Slessor,'
	In Poems Nos. 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21;
	In The Same Order Of Appearance

	    	 .************#************.

A Preface In The Form Of An Essay-Commentary

Introduction

	In this essay-commentary I would like to concentrate on a number of hermeneutical points on how we might deal with the interpretation of a text, in particular a poetic text. 			To begin with I would like to discuss the general concept of a philosophy of interpretation in order to quickly defuse a number of issues that, I believe, only confuse our ability, desire and hope to critically appreciate a text that is relatively problematic hermeneutically. 
	Next, I would like to propose a set of twelve headings that might assist us in that task of critical interpretation through the adoption and adaptation of one or more of these headings.
	Then, I would like to concentrate on how the conclusion of a text is inclined, by various forms of necessity, to misread that text. In a similar fashion, as discussed in the previous book (Book IV), in my Introduction to the first series of sequences on the city of Sydney, I examined there how titles misread the text. A misreading of the text that, once appreciated as a `misreading,' allows us to then `read' that text with a greater degree of facility and at the same time allows us to at least recognize the possible extent beyond which that particular text under examination cannot be hermeneutically investigated profitably. 
	Finally, using this aspect of the text, i.e., its apparent conclusion, I shall attempt a brief commentary to demonstrate in what manner the end of each poem mis-reads its own poem and that, therein, in our appreciation of that misreading as a `mis-reading,' we can then enter into a deeper reading of that text with some degree of hermeneutic successfulness; given the possibility and ability to finesse the `ends' to which that text appears to have gone!

	In a hermeneutic project a middle path must be adopted, i.e., a path that steers clear of either an absolute, dogmatic approach to this subject of interpretation, or, a path that preaches a completely open ended relativism that allows you to interpret a text in what so ever manner a person might creatively wish to follow regardless of the individual merits of that approach or the productive fruitfulness or fruitlessness of that approach. 
	A text is never a mere text! Textual production necessitates a sense of genre, a pouring into something that has already been. In this there is the adoption of genre and the adaptation, to some degree, of the same through some form of transformation! This framework of genre being, in essence, a meta-textual aspect of the text, that part of the text that is about `how' the text is to be formed and read, created and re-created. That meta-textual aspect being either the relatively pure adoption of a genre already pre-established, e.g., that of the sonnet, or, the mixing of genre with, or without, a compensatory reaction to such adoption through the adaptive transformation or omission of certain genre characteristics. Even a piece of free verse will have certain indicators that mark it out as a piece of poetry, e.g., titles, verse-like structures, compactness, poetical-like speech rhythms, subject matter, the use of poetic themes, etc. This meta-textual aspect is essentially its conventional aspect, the presentation of certain conventions for how that `type' of text is to be both in-formed and read. In some measure the text does this for us through the manner of its presentation along with textual insertions to that effect, but, as that aspect is `about' the text it cannot completely occupy that text at the expense of its textual content. In this light a text cannot give all the "self-instructions" necessary for its own absolute reading as noted in the last verse of the Prologue. In a similar fashion a commentary cannot be purely, i.e., entirely, `on' some other text and in this regard I shall try to limit by commentarial comments in the main to the mis-readings apparently intended in a close reading of the conclusions to these poems. I do not, in this task, claim to have any greater privilege, but, in having worked closely with these texts I shall try to `argue' for what the author, albeit myself, appears to have intended. Like any other person, I too must argue on hermeneutic grounds for, firstly, the apparent direction(s) of resolutional processes, and, secondly, the repetition of facets in these resolutional processes that would seem to reinforce such a closer, or relatively closer, reading.
	A text can be neither a pure meta-text nor a pure text! The perceived relationship between the text and its apparent meta-text allows us to enter into the relational reciprocity between these two aspects of the text, an interaction that allows us to `recognize' in what manner that text and meta-text are in `conformity' with each other. The perception of conformity reinforcing the sense of an apparent intentional direction, and teleological directedness, imposed upon that text by the semblance of an author, to some degree or other, in the manufacture of its intentional deposition as a textual trace. That `trace' itself being the trace of a trace, etc., by virtue of the fact that all intentional activity leaves a trace because that activity itself is simultaneously the inscribing and the inscribed, that the inscription is in effect a text, being a text that is left after such a process whether it be a text in the classical sense, a memory, footprints along the beach, a smile, or, in this book a series of poems, etc.
	In the light of this analysis so far we might also like to add that `a text can never be completely mis-interpreted.' That appreciation of a text as a `text' in itself already allows us to engage in this very process of being able to interpret that text. To this extent, and this extent only, the relativist is correct that a text can be given any type of reading what so ever because we can never absolutely mis-read it. But a reading of a text should re-produce more value in excess than the mere input brought to that text. If your reading of a text sets up a certain reading with no more than the delivery of that invested in that reading then it is not that text that is speaking to us but the so called commentator themselves. It is in an excess discovered in the reading of a text, and its recognition as an excess, that allows us to evaluate a reading and determine its effective productivity, in turn a reflection of the successfulness of our hermeneutic engagement. On the other hand, this does not mean that an absolute reading can be obtained, or that a particular reading is the best reading that can be obtained. But, then, the person on the middle path has an overall pragmatic approach. Their interest, to this extent, is in the utility of that approach and an appreciation of the ensuing hermeneutic excess, or lack, realized therein is all that is necessary for us to come to some reasonable degree of understanding as to whether we are indeed in a process of understanding. Not that that understanding should be conceived purely in pragmatic terms of reference for it must also include other forms of valuation as re-presented by the text, e.g., aesthetical forms of value, statements of apparent fact, ethical considerations, imputation of logical subjects and descriptions of the same, and, of course, considerations of a hermeneutical flavour, etc.  
	One way we might like to put it is that it is the experience of an apparent lack of resistance to our discovery, and confirmation, of a certain degree of hermeneutic excess that gives us an indication of our being currently on the right path, not that this perspective on the text is the only valid one or that it is the best. To this extent the hermeneuticist must forever remain `open' to the phenomenal being of a text, as a textual trace, in the event that it might further reveal itself to them. Moreover, the `rich' text can never be exhausted in its analysis! Although its je ne sais quoi can be approached and appreciated it can never be reached and therein reduced and subjected to a state of closure. Ultimately, its innermost essence is essentially inexpressible, something that can only be intuited, lived out, re-performed, because its very nature cannot be directly appreciated as a `text' meta-textually. Only when the orientations of text and meta-text are suspended can this spontaneous direct engagement be realized. Then, retrospectively, such engagement itself is in need of interpretation and its consequent re-entextualization. A `rich' text defying representational compression in a one dimensional text by virtue of its open-ended interactions within and between indicated levels of meta-textuality apparently involved in its textual deposition! And of course even a `non-rich' text cannot be compressed in one dimensional meta-textual terms of reference! Only if we overlook that text and read it in provisional terms of reference that adequately ensure some degree of hermeneutic excess can we do this, albeit in those provisional naive terms of reference. But the use and usefulness of such blinkers must not blind us to the fact that we must adopt a sense of perspective(s) but that such an adoption can be critically exercised through the recognition (and transcendental suspension) of the same.
	The following headings are meant as simple guidelines to the many ways a text can be productively interpreted, an appropriate reading utilizing those facets as outlined:

	A Brief Exposition On How To Interpret A (Poetic) Text Under Twelve Headings:

1.	A recognition of overt meta-textual conventions.
2.	Delineation of textual/meta-textual use of metaphor.
3.	A psychological mapping of the text.
4.	An exhibition of those dissonant section-aspects.
5.	An exhibition of the resolution of 4.
6.	Rhetorical over-treatment of meta-text/text.
8.	Examination of how the text might misreads itself.
9.	Examination of the misreading of the misreading.
10.	Investigation of repetitive facets of text.
11.	Deconstructive analysis of textual strands.
12.	An appreciation of realized hermeneutic excess.

1.	A poem, e.g., to a certain extent must borrow from previous genre or genres in the manufacture of its text. In this regard we can view overall sins of commission and omission. E.g., a text might look like a poem, be arranged in verse, call itself a poem, be inserted into a book of poetry, etc. Moreover it might look like a particular type of poem to a certain degree, e.g., a sonnet. This overall sense of genre in its composition establishing how we might sensibly treat that text as a beginning gambit. Confirmation establishing our apparently correct attribution of genre, and, dis-confirmation establishing the non-applicability of the same with the possibility, when appropriate, of varying degrees or shades of validity in between these poles of confirmation and dis-confirmation.

2.	In the delineation of textual/meta-textual use of metaphor we note and list the apparent use of metaphor (as determined through a meta-textual examination of its apparently intended rhetoric). In the process also looking at the limits of such analogical structures and the manner they might be able to interact together. All levels of analysis being engaged when this hermeneutic excess is thought present and given some degree of confirmation.

3.	In a psychological mapping of the text we are interested in looking at what facets of the psyche seem to be involved and the extent that certain facets of the psyche appear to receive a greater degree of stress. 
	In a poem, e.g., the direct or indirect simulation of emotions is the raw ingredient out which a poem should emerge, is to emerge as a powerful structure (through the cognitive channeling, and transcendental resolution, of such energies). Through metaphor and other forms of analogy the perceptual imagery of the poem is simulated, and, in its more rarefied, abstract terms of reference opening that poem up to the dimension of the conceptual. Lastly, various types, and mixes, of judgmental value can be appreciated through a determination of the types of value that appear to be presented in and through that text, e.g., factual, logical-subjective and self-descriptive, aesthetical, ethical, pragmatical, and finally, hermeneutical.

4.	An exhibition of those dissonant section-aspects present, apparently presented in and through that text, allowing us to follow the manner in which that text can be shown to impart an understanding of that text. The textual information enshrined in a text being able to be re-covered through a re-performance of those tri-polar, dialectical moments of consonance, dissonance, and resolution; the text coming to a state of conclusion if that resolution is left in play. That conclusion being relatively satisfactory or merely that subjected to a process of termination.

5.	An exhibition of the resolutional progress of these process-moments allowing us to divide the text into `intentionally distinctive trophes' even though all such distinctions must be overlooked in the final analysis, or rather, re-constitutional synthesis.

6.	Rhetorical over-treatment of meta-text/text, Through an exaggeration of the rhetoric apparently involved in that text such facets of that text can be better focused upon and clarified to that extent that such a process of clarification reproduces a certain adequate degree of hermeneutic success through the realization of the same degree of hermeneutic excess discovered therein.

8.	Examination of how the text might misreads itself, a process of inspection realized through the recognition of a greater excess realized in an obviously different, and closer, reading of a text. `Finessing the text,' through the various creative application of textual stratagems that appear to release a relatively greater degree of hermeneutic surplus, etc.

9.	Examination of the misreading of the misreading in order to determine the relative merit of such a reading.

10.	Investigation of repetitive facets of a text and their cross-relationship in the discovery, and apparent recovery, of this relational excess re-presented by that text. Repetition reproducing a relative degree of (textual) consonance through acts of mere repetitive conformity, whilst, acts of sheer repetitive non-conformity realize a sense of relative dissonance. The resolutional interaction between these polarities of mere repetition and sheer repetition releasing a certain sense and degree of resolutional directedness tracing the apparent directedness, to some degree or other, of the original act of intentional deposition.

11.	Deconstructive analysis of textual strands, within and between strands, realizing, in effect, a greater, more closer re-reading of that text when the value released in the process stands, in some degree, in the form of an excess whose merit is appreciated meta-textually.

12.	An appreciation of realized hermeneutic excess, and a re-confirmation of the same, in a conformity with the newly perceived meta-textual state of that text, metaphorically illuminating that section of text under investigation.

	The above may sound rather intellectual and complicated. But the principle is quite simple. By what ever means a sense of excess is developed that sense of excess determines the nature and successfulness of that hermeneutic process involved.

	A Commentarial Reading Of These Poems Developed Through A Misreading Of The Misreading Of The Conclusion

	The presentation of a process of conclusion in a text mis-represents that text! In a text that is suddenly terminated that termination equally mis-represents the body of that text. Mere termination is much like that process of fading the sound in popular music because the song concerned is not able to self-engineer its own conclusion, and that this by default equally mis-represents that text. In this regard, I should add, that my convention of the `...' indicates that in the discourse of the poetic conversation more about the subject could be said but that this does not mean that that text has not been given an adequate sense of finality. Let me explain, using a number of interrelated arguments, why the conclusion of a text, what ever its form, must mis-represent that text. 
	The conclusion being the conclusion `of' that text in a sense cannot be the completely self-concluding conclusion of that text by that text. In this light we can see a tension between the text qua the body of that text, and, the `conclusion' of that text. To conclude the text must also be left in a state of resolution. But a state of resolution is the death of the text. Like, for example, as in the game of pool where, and when, the sinking of the black ball is both the direct object of the game, and, its immediate conclusion. But a text is either alive and ongoing, or, dead and terminated. How can an act of termination be that which has already been terminated. Therefore, the act of termination is, to a certain extent, that which has as yet not been terminated. These two faces of the concluding section of a text mis-representing that text. The conclusion is about the concluding of that text but cannot, itself, be the pure conclusion of that conclusion. Thence the conclusion being `about' the conclusion of that text in this light must mis-represent itself. Equally, the act of textual termination, must be different from the body of that text which in order to persist as a `text' must engage in `going beyond the ongoing resolution of textual tensions,' not in the short circuiting of this process in the now seeking the resolution of its own termination. In the following commentary let me focus primarily on this overall metatextual-textual tension put upon this aspect of the text. The engineered conclusion of a text giving a concluding commentary `on' that text and therein a twist to what otherwise might appear to have been the primary intentions of that poet as they enter into the discoursing of that poem and head it into a realm of sense and value, a poetic field of meaning and meaningfulness. On the other hand, the mere termination of a  poetic text does not allow already presented poetic tensions in that text to be satisfactorily resolved and therein allow that text to repeat, re-affirm, re-value, transform, through an act of conclusion, the realization, and fine tuning, of the direction(s) of its primary intent. 
	Attention to these features of the text as outlined above, etc, necessitates a close reading of that text. In my understanding this necessitates both a close, critical appreciation of the dialectical structures of that text as outlined meta-textually, etc., and, a set of deconstructive readings that tests, and notes, the limits of this prior critical-constructive reading of the text. The viability of pathways and processes of resolution apparently entailed in that `work of art' being comparatively delineated and evaluated, but, also qualified and opened to the non-closure of that text as `a living phenomenon in the world as constructively engaged by ourselves' through a deconstructive supplementation supplied through processes of misreading and the misreading of the same, etc.
	Let me now demonstrate this `mis-representational misreading of the conclusion' and in the process use this aspect of the text to commentate on these poems in this regard...

Prologue.	Ostensively this poem is both about this volume of poems, this necklace of gems, and, how to read texts in general. Being about these poems can it be a poem, or is it a meta-textual poem? Or, because there can be no pure text or meta-text that it must remain, therefore, as a textual poem to some degree or other? But, then what is it that constitutes a poem qua poem? 	
	In answer might we not say that a poetic text is `a richly compressed text that cannot be interpreted in provisional mono-dimensional terms of reference, that must engage the entire psyche of the human person; channelling emotional energies through metaphorical forms of dissonance given rhetorically implicit forms of resolution wherein is established, through such forms of iteration, the provisional meaning and meaningfulness of that text.'

Poem 1.	In the first poem we are told the `lonely sailor' tries to ignore the worn out spiel of prostitutes... At the end it is suggested that he is just one more statistic, one more number. That idea is then immediately undercut by the text noting his rebirth as a naught, or non-number. Then in turn this is dialectical theme is reinforced in the words one spent figure... But let us rhetorically lean on this text and ask ourselves is this `lonely sailor' merely going to bed, or, being bedded for a fee? This latter `possibility' reinforced in some of the language used throughout the poem, e.g., in the words tout, soft embrace, etc. The lonely sailor is surrounded by people, but for all that remains `lonely,' despite the non-substantial forms of company invoked in the poem. 
	The theme of the glowing darkness of the city, as a phenomenon, is attested in these poems a number of times, e.g, the painted darkness, golden glow of the night (21), faded stars (21, 24), speckled shadows (Prologue), etc. 

Poem 2.	Ultimately, this second poem is not really about Terraces In Paddington Authentically Restored but, rather, about the hermeneutic process of interpretation itself? The last verse informing us to that effect. The last two lines refining this idea further that this process should both be in the light of the nature of the text itself and in a manner that is just as bold. Therefore terraces in Paddington done out in heritage colours are not knocked as inauthentic, but should only be criticized in terms of the individual boldness of restoration achieved which in this poem is not examined! In this vein the opening is mildly satirical, with a point directed elsewhere, but not directly critical?

Poem 3.	The title is Feeling At Home In The Park. But the description of an (ideal) park is not the true center of this poem. Nor is it the way people of different ethnic backgrounds can see `echoes' of their original homeland therein, but, rather, the conflicting nature of certain emotions experienced by most inner city residents with regards to the nature of this foreign country/urban landscape. E.g., the fact that they would like to own a piece of land but more often than not have to rent, cannot individually `own' a piece of a park that they might feel at home in; have their `home' reflect the type of `home' they may have once had in their country of origin, etc., etc.

Poem 4.	Although people rush to buy these workman terraces this sentence of work, although lighter these days, remains one that is echoed... both spatially and temporally...

Poem 5.	Does the realizing and seeing of an inner beauty know no cost? Is the spiritual aspect of our human being without price, price-less, priceless, beyond price, etc? Is this high-mindedness genuine?  What does the text tell us in this regard? In a certain light the people look lost, under someother light that might not be the case..?

Poem 6.	Obviously, the bus driver appears cool, but, underneath he experiences the hot Sydney weather, life's frustrations and accidents the same way as everyone else.

Poem 7.	The expression well-deconstructed can be read at least three different ways... Despite this complexity in reading the poem is not really about so called fashionable fashion, indeed, a polemic that is quite the converse..!

Poem 8.	Only indirectly is Captain Cook alluded to... Historical `recall' being located in a region that is not quite cut off from the present... That tales need to be told, poems need to be written, etc...

Poem 9.	The theme of `art as that metaphorical food which can be digested' and still `remain to be re-digested another day' is here alluded to besides indicating what a new high style for modern poetry might mean for these current times and in what form it might be realized... Not that this poem is an attempted example of the same.!?

Poem 10.	The theme that `good politics is like housework done properly' is here alluded to and taken to the extreme...

Poem 12.	The `changing nature' of the Asian community in and around Cabramatta is, correctly, under our primary focus in this poem?

Poem 13.	A poem ostensively, albeit indirectly, in the form of an eulogy...

Poem 14.	Although described as intellectual curious people just take an enjoyment at looking at each other, especially those different from us socio-economically, etc... Out of this people take on board certain aspects they admire in other people they find different from themselves, etc...

Poem 15.	The author/poet is complaining about, and describing, the public manifestation of the process of religious conversion at work. But we might well argue just who is preaching what to whom..? Then, again, we might well ask is the author, the transcendental agency, of these texts (assuming they are authored by one person) one person or many..? And, then, there is that final comment..? This mis-reading in turn needing to be misread, etc... Can the persona of the poet be separated from the poet in a reading of the poem..?

Poem 16.	An Autumn Romance - is it an Autumn romance or a romance with Autumn? Need we settle this question with an either/or? Is it not the case that the sense of reference is ambiguous in the conclusion of this poem..? Then, in the final analysis is the poem really about Autumn, romance or an Autumn romance..?

Poem 17.	Why is the gull introduced into this sonnet? Are the repeated words at the end of this poem its call? Then who is to take care, and take care of what..? The poem talks `about' mangroves and our changing feelings towards them, and that `aboutness' includes a new sense of ecological, spiritual direction that as an imperative must be undertaken..? Hence, ultimately, the poem is not about mangroves..! And this `fact' is established in the conclusion of this poem...

Poem 18.	Ostensively this poem is about an old man... Correctly, the poem is about its subtitle, illustrating the `meaning' of this Maltese proverb..!

Poem 19.	The `edges of the sea' is given a metaphorical meaning and this meaning is brought out in the unfolding of the poem. A poem that concludes, in some measure, where it began, but in a revolution of meaning..! Note the sense of suspension, or balance, engineered through ambiguity, implicit in the not too far lost in its love of thee... `Lost' in the senses of losing one's way, not finding one's way, not over doing this search, not being absent from the nature of this type of search, etc... `Thee' being interpreted existentially and/or theologically or religiously, etc., as being symbolic of the primacy of the relationship (in turn symbolized by the sea?)..?

Poem 20.	Twenty-four poems with a prologue and epilogue reflecting this book of poems... Each one with a twist in meaning, in its conclusion. Overall, a work that argues against the absolute existence of ghettos..? E.g., who are the true subjects of the poem in poem no. 5?

Poem 21. 	The waters of this harbour are ostensively the subject matter of this poem so what importance can we give to the concluding lines that discuss the ground beneath us..? In turn undercut by the faded stars..?

Poem 22.	Although treated humorously is the author amused..? Maybe the acoustics are so good that these additional public sounds don't matter..?

Poem 23.	The microcosmic world of the aquarium is hermeneutically understood in term of that which we are already familiar with... Is the poet really referring to the types of people and situations that can be found in the city of Sydney..?

Poem 24.	In our identification with the wee ant don't we also find ourselves in a similar existential predicament? Can we only experience and appreciate the freedom of the city by being outside it? And, if this is so, how..?

Epilogue.	Ostensively a love sonnet. But through an act of negation the private face of this city is therein, instead, alluded to.?!

`Conclusion'

	These poems, and this commentary, might be thought of, and dismissed, as merely `intellectual,' something far too cerebral to have any real value or poetic merit? Let me briefly reply to just this criticism and therein `conclude' this `preface in the form of an essay-commentary.'
	The pejorative expression intellectual has the connotation of something textual that has no roots in the real world, no emotional sense of being and nothing of the concrete here and now as experienced in our physical passage through this world. The same word can also signify that which is reflective and thoughtful.
	I reject utterly that these texts can be dismissed as purely intellectual! Admittedly, I make some strong demands on the reader, but, I see these texts as phenomenologically descriptive, simulating and centered in complex emotions that are best alluded too indirectly. And although my use of metaphor is often philosophical in its scope, and sparse, again the poems are actually grounded in my appreciation of this city of Sydney. Prose poetry, and most of these poems fall into that category, by its very nature is a more difficult medium for the public to deal with. It is also my decision to design my poems in a reflective, conceptual frame of reference. The higher a poem has its center of tensions and interest reflected in the hierarchy of our phenomenal being the less accessible such a work becomes, and, if there be any fault on my part here it is this that by choice I have chosen to operate in these more rarefied regions of the psyche, albeit with its roots also rooted in the entire psyche of being. Beyond that I can only let these texts defend themselves and hope that a few like minded persons like myself find re-created for them some of the sense of enjoyment I discovered in their act of creation regardless of any merit that might be possessed by these rather unpolished and practically worthless `gems'...

						 Noël Tointon, Sydney, 6.6.95.

A Necklace Of Gems:
A Second Series Of Sequences On The City Of Sydney

Prologue

...A city alive 
is its people,
a dead city 
is only a series
of faded monuments...

...Only a famous name, 
if remembered,
can in part 
breathe life back into 
that pile of stones,
those bricks and mortar,
these empty shells;
traces of walls 
silently resonant, 
built up with 
magnificent stories
interwoven in a tapestry 
of tales once re-told...

...Now muted pages of history
that only with much effort 
can allow a few fractured,
treasured leaves
to be prized apart,
to then spring into life
once more re-animated,
before one more audience...

...Flashes of light
upon a past 
never quite lost,
faceted jewels 
all strung together,
a necklace of gems
tentatively listed as `lost',
as found `missing in action'...

...In the faces of those 
we already know so well,
vaguely recognized
they alert us, 
with a vividness,
that we are kindred spirits
from having walked 
the same passageways
through this same storehouse 
of human experience...

...Sparkling shadows
sprinkled with 
the same reflections;
facades given form,
when seen by others,
given flesh and blood
when we get to know them,
metaphorically break bread 
with them, when, in 
our enlightened hearts,
we find re-emitted
the same delight filled 
pulses of light-heartedness...

...Stimulated within,
and rhetorically 
simulated inside 
when emulated therein,
we find ourselves engaged
in one long embrace
in this one world of life,
this living world on fire,
dancing to a desire
that moves the human frame,
breathes a force back into
that remembered name...

...Poetic images given titles
within a written work
forever left undone,
never quite finished:
deconstructed reconstructions
once more constructed 
without a perfectly transparent text 
in self-instruction..!

	 .************#************.

1. The Lonely Sailor On His Night Out (à Kenneth Slessor)

Into the glowing darkness he stumbles out
			and wanders off blinking,
on his way tries to ignore the worn out spiel
			of prostitutes; winking,
gesturing in seductive roles 
			too impossible to repeat,
beating the rain before it hits 
			this weather beaten Cross...

Walking up busy Williams Street
			just looking for a place to eat,
No matter the time the weary still look for 
			an eating house with a seat,
No need to sit beside the window
			and stare on out,
Pale reflections inside will invite
			the same questions...

The traffic lights signal green once more,
			walks without a doubt
That these dazzling cars mock 
			this unlit pedestrian, tout
A lifestyle that has its lofty branches
			in those city blocks
And its roots in those flats beyond
			this Darlinghurst...

The soft embrace of the neon glow of
			this simple cafe shocks 
Its customers into life in one more Yankee decor,
			a brilliantly lit box
Whose sole function is to fill you up 
			inside
And then eliminate you 
			when you're eaten!

What is it to be, must quickly make up his mind,
			must decide,
Is it to be a hamburger with onions
			or just some chips quickly fried? -

Into the glowing darkness then one more statistic,
			one more number...

Into the night is reborn this nought,
			one spent figure ready for bed...

2. Terraces In Paddington Authentically Restored

...To the re-created terrace doorway,
replete with a proudly singing doorbell,
espy a passing visitor waiting
to enter this fully restored mansion
re-presented in heritage colours
and ornate grilles, fancy lace curtains, and,
the very latest in old fashion tiles...

..."For sale: An Ideal Paddington Terrace
Authentically Restored'" is displayed
on the prominent sign hanging outside,
the gist of such comments stated twice more
on two more square plaques fighting for some space 
on the front of this palisaded fence;
such combat drawn out in one long auction...

...But once these things were made the way they were -
a sky blue here, a pale pink there, all left
to the elements to decay each day 
in the manner these things are want to do,
now only traces of this once wide spread
authenticity remain to denounce
all such fashionable interpretation...

...The rough complexion of this part of town
once supported a community with 
such people as old Barry the butcher, 
ankle deep in the sweet smell of sawdust,
and Mary from the dairy alongside,
two souls forever in conversation, 
in the doorway, in between customers...

...Now such premises are replaced by those
international delicatessens,
boutiques, art galleries and coffee shops;
old Barry is now buried and Mary 
has just retired from her swift promotion 
to the manager of the check-out counter
at her not so local supermarket...

...In restoration do we really want 
to return to the rough and ready ways
of yesterdays, can the truthful spirits 
of authenticity discover and
distil, drink an essential essence still 
pregnant in the very fabric of old
that leaves us with a vision just as bold.?!

3. Feeling At Home In The Park

...Once a flat space on a piece of paper,
then little more than a poverty stricken plot 
set in grass worn away beneath the remains 
of one left over tree planted purely by accident;
seeded in the droppings of some starving bird...

...But now, to the joy of this inner city suburb,
this corner park has been given
a make-over, a veritable invagination in value,
an enrichment in text and texture,
as proudly sign-posted by the local council...

...A brick wall was built to discreetly screen 
the intersection, rounded mounds of soil 
have hollowed out a central grassy space, 
enough for a small dog to play safely if watched 
with care, fascinating pieces of furniture 
for children have been built over a sand pit 
to soften those inevitable falls, solid seats 
made vandal proof, at least for the moment, 
and all around an enticing wall of plants seclude 
this small grove from the longing gaze
of pedestrians without that time to spend
some time in this haven of peacefulness...

...In one corner they have prominently planted 
a Chinese plum tree for its blossom, 
on the mounds some rocks and tussock from
New Zealand mixed in with some native
plants from South America, from Africa
an array of miniature proteas line the street,
beneath the fence some English flowers,
self-seeding and growing wild; surmounted
by a designer jasmine forever green and scented,
some pepperminted eucalypts already looking proud 
and dignified stand with a few water gums
wrapped up in a flaking, papery bark
dotted and striated in a rainbow of hues
and tones that mirror the original landscape...

...Now the people from this suburb can find 
themselves feeling at home in this park, 
in its shade find some evocative part 
that reminds them of where they once came from,
where they once had their roots, and,
at the same time rediscover the nature 
of this wonderful land to which they 
now walk upon, have come to looking for
a small patch they might call their own...

4. Surry Hills Re-Visited

...He was `born here,' he told me,
with a resonant trace of nostalgia,
`a time long ago,' he said,
`when this original suburb
was a Celtic slum imported
from the old world...'

...The pub where we now drank
was quite elegant and modern,
painted out in tones of darkness
with nooks and crannies
for those who want to chat
and be chatted up, 
now no more the local
than the trendy coffee shop 
situated opposite...

...First, there was Paddy 
who went out drinking 
four nights a week, I was told,
coming home rolling drunk
and left to sleep on the porch,
let in at daybreak 
by his old fashioned wife 
who didn't care too much
for his traditional ways...

...Then, for entertainment,
there was Doreen and Cheryl,
two tireless banshees
always at each other throats 
in a donnybrook of 
classic proportions, 
tearing each other's dress
into a thousand shreds 
to the cheers and jeers
of their betting menfolk 
and drinking friends 
watching from the windows 
of their corner pub, and, 
along the street, from
nearly every open doorway...

...And then there were 
those gentlemen who went 
to strange parties
with token females
and a few feminine friends in suits
who congregated in darkened corners
of the backyard to sample
forbidden pleasures, 
for honest folk in those days 
lived at home until
that day they too got married...

...But the Italians,
and then their cousins the Greeks,
and a multitude of Maltese,
moved in to give this place
an overdose of character,
followed by those Asians
from countries the rest
could only attempt to guess...

...Each in their turn moving on
when they felt they were 
starting to make it 
in this wonderful country, 
womenfolk still trundling out
piece work for the fashion houses
in the factories nearby
or finding employment in
that resurrected phenomenon 
of the coffee house
sprinkled along the 
many main streets that 
rip these blocks apart...

...And having left, 
other folk now rush to buy 
these inner city residences
with pot plants on their balconies
and a plantation of bamboo 
out the back,
with discrete blinds 
and polished wooden floors
where poor workmen once trod
those short, interspersed hours 
of darkness before and after 
six long days of daily toil
served within each sweated week,
spent footsteps spelt out
in one elongated sentence
mirrored, and left, echoing...

5. Darlinghurst Road (à Kenneth Slessor)

Women rouged in red, green youth hinting bed,
Innocence truly lost when bought and paid,
Icy death floating past the walking dead;
You see the sinner, I see God's grandeur.

Ghostly vans circle the block handing out 
Free advice with free cups of warm coffee,
Or, the promise of a place for the night;
You see the sinner, I see God's grandeur.

Smells of junk food keeping the drunks alert,
pangs of hunger relieved in nearby bins,
washed down with a sweet sherry for dessert;
You see the sinner, I see God's grandeur.

Under these street lights people looking lost,
Pacing towards the Cross or Oxford Street,
With an inner beauty that knows no cost;
You see the sinner, I see God's grandeur...

6. The Rain Beating Upon This Dismal Street

The rain beating upon this dismal street
echoes much the same where ever the town,
the swish of cars and the spray of buses
speeding in one long hiss tightly pulled back,
like the taut reins held on the biting bits
of teams of unbridled-bridled horses, 
inward spitting, stamping their shuffling feet.
Today, for those few moments when I shut 
my eyes such sounds, in open reverie,
remind me of times long ago, trigger
the sights and smells of a faraway place
that once for me was called simply "my home."
Do winter's rains for other migrant souls 
provoke an uninvited nostalgia 
for distant lands from whence they once travelled
even though their new hearts be now firmly 
transplanted in pleasantly foreign soils 
that no longer seem so strange and alien?
Can this fleeing mistress serve two masters
of the flesh, press forward in a service 
that sees through extraction a sweet justice
that stamps on thee one true integrity 
without a stain, although faulted and flawed, 
that gives in due recompense, paid in kind,
a full account without that dreaded loss 
of an honourable, honest profit?
But why heed this desire to choose our fate,
best let real choice itself alone assert 
what advantageous and harmonious path 
must be chosen through this conflict of claims,
this thicket filled with lanes and dead-end streets?!
Many friends can we share in this moist world
washed well in the sadness of human tears,
that we be like slow witted snails lumbered 
with a hundred shells, each a former home; 
with some fractured and some still left intact, 
propelled to go forward, built to move on,
without ever forgetting, in mem'ry,
like an eternal diamond resplendent,
the debris of a thousand bright faces
still carried so firmly upon our back -
this vision of others found reflected 
ten thousand times when inwardly sited!

7. This Bus Driver Keeps His Cool

This bus driver keeps his cool,
the weather is hot and sticky.
Passengers are cranky,
too ready to complain out loud.
One screams `sex'al harassment,'
but not one soul will believe her.
A paranoid backpacker
just stares at now suspicious folk. 
Another talks to voices
talking to him through the window.
Two teenage, drug-crazed addicts
half-sleep it off on the back seat.
Does this person ever bathe,
this sweat-washed lady of the street?
The drunk needn't pay having
pissed his money at the bus stop.
This dame, in polyester,
closely plans her next shopping spree.
That businessman, in silk tie,
buys just the financial pages.
Retired sportsman, by proxy,
slowly runs through the sport's section.
Is he just an old bookie,
or a fully employed gambler?
Some school students study form,
knowingly seated near the back.
Three delinquent boys practice
calligraphy with pink texters.
That nat'ral blond with walkman,
in time, repaints her face once more.
Those New Australian ladies
loudly think its too hot to talk.
The not too old pensioner
wants a seat, but no one budges.
One courting couple can't stop,
should be getting married real soon.
Night-life is just too much for 
that young fellow who falls asleep.
There, that ultimate yuppy;
has two mobiles, but no chauffeur.
Do I hear an urgent page,
just the wife wanting cigarettes...

Bus comes to a sudden stop: -
Crash! Bang! As three bumped cars pile up..!

The bus backs out to the side,
on cue ev'ryone rushes off.
No police witnesses here,
only an empty bus, and him...

This bus driver keeps his cool,
despite traffic in human souls,
and despite this trade in fools,
this bus driver maintains his cool;
or so it prop'rly seems,
for he's one real professional,
correctly, in truth, one pro,
one actor on permanent show..!

8. Those Unpaid Fashion Models

Here upon the street
in this part of town,
looking worst for wear,
the fashionable walk,
those labels tacked on
for public display...

Here's some blue `Levis'
looking mighty sad,
there's a sweet `Dior,'
the latest in chic,
but where is good taste
in this posing crowd..?

That unique statement
is so rarely seen,
just an endless file
of fickle fashion 
on parade, models,
unpaid, yet for hire..!

Better recycled,
Re-bought through op shops,
discover that feel
for timeless fashion,
and those famous names
well-deconstructed..!

9. Five Revisions On The Name Of "Captain Cook" (à K.S.)
						    (Early Unrevised Version)
				I

Captain Cook was an admirable man,
as old books on history 
would have us believe,
but now the fate of all souls
is rewritten in economics
and the causal consequences
of their remembered name.
He was a harbinger of Western destiny,
virtual transplanter of modern culture,
his richly detailed reports 
of this apparently poverty 
stricken foreign landscape
still brought the bringing 
of modern ways and diseases 
from a so called `Old World' 
drawn out and painted, notated
on walls of rock of an age
in comparison much younger...

Master navigator in sailing
was this Captain Cook,
who like some mystic Druid
could read the chameleon sea,
interpret this well-written text,
revealed from cover to cover,
whose experiences of these shores
wrote a chapter that sent 
one Captain Phillips
to invest in this land 
with a dumped and discarded deposit
of a motley crew of convicts,
the true seed of this new nation to be, 
grafted incontinently on this 
not yet contented continent...

				II

...And parts of the land now became
an English garden, flowering 
convict men and women,
souls transported in prisons 
made more mobile and outward going,
souls not wanted but now desired,
filled with conviction,
desiring their post-penal salvation.
They worked hard, these white slaves,
on this sandy soil, in times 
of drought and bounty, produce 
that later harvested a reprieve 
in the form of land and stock
written out on a piece of paper,
plotted out in some strange,
arcane, wise person's notation;
so bizarre and too crazy
to read, if that they could,
under the heat of one hot sun,
without blinking...

There to greet them, eventually,
in this fiction of an empty land,
overcoming a near-fatal trepidation,
charitable natives took pity on this ark 
of non-endangered, uncouth specimens.
All around aboriginals conversed,
swapping names, learnt to speak 
in fluent Pidgin English to each other;
to say "hello," "mate," and "dear,"
and find other words, more useful words, 
like "how much," "thank you," "kind sir," 
and not to speak when their women folk 
did a walkabout down town 
and only returned before 
the same waking sun saw
a misplaced white-faced shame 
in not learning the arts and graces 
of how races might intermix more properly,
with some style, and with some sanity...

The hallowed bush was burnt and slashed 
and not allowed to return,
a portent of the killing fields
yet to come, with veiled names 
like "Deadmans Gully," "Blackmans Pass,"
and settlements called "Blacktown."
In silvery ships upon the sea 
they came to stand and stare,
to look for water, to dig,
to poke thunderous sticks at kangaroos
and drably feathered emus,
flighty birds too careless for words,
who would quite thoughtlessly 
wander far too close.
Its ironical, and sadly symbolic,
that these Emu Plains,
once thick with stock,
have now only remnant flocks
locked up behind the barb-wired fences
enclosing neglected military preserves,
presenting a moving target
only during those occasional culls.
Well-planned this settlement seemed,
supplied well, soon to be re-supplied, 
but desperate to re-learn the ways 
of this ancient, flattened land, 
torched by fire and sun,
that these civilized folk befriended
these awkward visitors who quite forgot
to move on and leave and come back
an appropriate number of years 
some time down the track
as a bush etiquette would normally have it.
Today, we find ourselves 
in the same boat, in similar straits.
Across the waters of this Botany Bay 
shiny, silvery jets scream in to land, 
and then, with an even greater shrillness, 
take their leave defying all gravity.
But, perhaps times are changing
and these folk will be well treated
and we, in turn, might be left alone,
without spilling our blood
upon this same, renamed landscape...

				III

Two runways crossed this vacated mouth
east-and-west and north-and-south,
and around the edge the mill pond lay
pushing past the shifted sands of this swollen bay...

To this pair they've added a third path
running northward with a thund'rous laugh,
filling in those environmental plans
to be filled in when the port expands...

Now politicians showed their concerning care
by discerning how many souls would hear,
would have to bear this aerial rumbling
equal to the good folk on the ground grumbling...

And the answer they estimated 
when all houses were calculated
was just eighty thousand northward
and a hundred and ten eastward...

So these three runways now again become two,
running north-and-south with a city view,
so tourists can quickly go sight-seeing
and businessmen can do their down-town shopping...

				IV

Now why must sporting men and boys 
mess around in small boats and craft
yet when ashore look for bigger toys
like fast cars with a deeper draught..?

Simulating salty seamen,
from a swaggering yesteryear,
they ride the harbour driven
like sheeted ghost in plastic gear...

Smell the breeze upon the bay
sometimes tinged with kerosene
that good Cook, if here, would up weigh
with anchor and soon leave this sad scene...

Botany Bay, if truth be said,
is not that very botanical,
more like a shallow sewer with lead
and chemicals more petrochemical...

But some mangroves still remain
and one long beach trapped in a park
that if Captain Cook came again
he'd find no wildlife except after dark...

				V

That profligate, proliferated 
name "Captain Cook" has signed
the geographical landscape that frames
this part of the world Down-Under,
and `lest we forget' a common coin 
of the realm that has also launched 
the face of a thousand pubs; 
and how many struggling students 
have walked under that swinging lintel,
have come to drink the good health
of their teachers, and their friends,
their loved ones and their kith and kin,
and wished the world all the success 
it needs to stay as one, to survive 
all those wars, all those trials
and tribulations, those nuclear tests, 
meet that day it must move on to pass 
that ultimate, final exam..?

That the winds took thee that be true,
but within such confines he steered
a much further, wider course, 
his was an expert hand,
a leader of locked up men 
that must live and sleep together,
a band of salt-washed actors 
that must dance together,
stand together, and die together
if that too could not be avoided.
Long, stormy, impassioned days 
of toil lashed by winds of command
punctuated with becalmed days 
of a motionless sea-sickness
dividing an equatorial passage
completely outpaced by the calls
of circling gulls gliding,
gliding slowly past...

...The sight of land for 
a long distance seaman is always
a much treasured sight,
the promise of dry land, 
fresh water, better food,
the sight of feminine company,
the site of masculine company,
the challenge of different
ways and means in perceiving 
this world, this wonderfully 
wretched world in the grips 
of a gregarious desire 
that inspires persons
to watch each other 
`carefully watching each other,' 
`cautiously out watching,
watching each other...'

Old sailors love to spin a yarn,
partake that bacci soaked in rum,
have you pull up one more chair 
and in a thinly musical, 
counter-tenor voice 
recount dramatic actions 
played out upon the high seas,
embroider a tale oft retold and sung
with a few too many ornaments 
here and there, some re-added, 
others suddenly dropped,
carefully tailored and fine tuned
to re-focus the attention 
of their concurring, purring audience;
have they heard all this before 
he secretly asks himself;
always re-worked with 
a hidden moral re-interpreted, 
in the repetition never the same, 
somewhat re-newed each time?
In this there be no difference 
for them more fancy historians,
censoring each new re-creation,
them be but professional tellers of tales,
who from the same moth-eaten facts
can re-weave a different texture
each new generation, year by year,
even in the mere re-reading 
of their own texts..!

Cook did not live to settle down,
clubbed to death by angry natives
this time too quick to be 
all shot one by one, his blood 
washing the white coral sands 
on that tide swept beach swept clean
in that passing passage of fickle time
that laughs at man's folly 
in that wish to outlive fate, 
to outlive that beach out there,
that division in time
left to beach us all.
Only the soul-name of each, 
individual person can never die, 
never be completely forgotten,
fading footsteps never quite forgiven,
left as traces re-told in tales,
animated images left stranded 
on and along the distant, eternal shoreline, 
like crowded crowd scenes pointed out
within a moving picture 
within a moving picture
somewhere in the background,
somewhere out there 
in the mists of time,
in the stories of others
not always too kind
to them when re-called
who, in reply, can 
never quite answer...

10. Sydney, Home Of A Thousand Struggling Poets

Sydney, home of a thousand struggling poets,
and a few you'ld wish to strangle,
and the many others who straggle along 
before the skilfully inspired few 
burning like a candle before the sun.
No matter, straddling these flickering
luminaries the odd comet also flashes past
in those few, brief micro-seconds of incandescence,
like the dropping of new pennies upon
the clamorous pavement, once a common sight.
Now performance poets strut upon the stage
with their sixpence worth of delightful sound
and wit in a pint sized package of brilliance;
while the even more brilliant slave away on 
the printed page of neglected sentiment...

Should a high style return imitators
would re-present it without gifts of eloquence,
that in despair one might well ask, currently,
"what spirited manner perfectly reflects 
that deeper humanity that must reside beneath 
this instantaneous push button simulation 
that passes through repeated replication
in this disseminated age of the facsimile..?"

May be tall towers in shiny blue glass
with a tinted sheen that catches the eye
for the first few moments each day you still
notice those post-modernist re-creations..?

May be a series of fractured, shattered structures, 
poetic sequences in search of a home, a place 
to unwind and, hopefully, mend; small spaces
whose gaps better reflect the human condition..?

May be a stream of consciousness uncontained
in its every twist and turn, tumbling over obstacles,
racing beyond itself in a glistening slippage,
leaking from its dark, eerie, bottomless foundations..?

Or may be a few tight, ironic texts woven in a cord
with the harmony of a world not in harmony
with itself, a few taut segments that teach us,
through subtle repetition, what cannot be repeated.?!

May be one day real soon that voice will speak,
infiltrate a prose whose inner purpose is poetic,
manufacture a compilation of texts that, 
although held high, still cannot be found 
that elevated that a drunken moon cannot 
be profoundly reflected in those spoonfuls 
of commercial ink; bitter-sweat medicinal, 
crystal-amber-like, translucent, liquid distillations 
that set out to lighten and lift, re-focus the source, 
as if that could be done with or without 
the very best ingredients, proffers spicy comments 
upon the skill of past menus, transforms the coarse,
re-produces a novel dish in nouvelle cuisine, 
a well-rounded plate signed by its author whose absence 
only whets the palette for further stimulation, 
a signatory surface that delights in substance,
such trifles that make for a grand dessert whose 
simulated beauty simply re-asserts itself on being 
tasted, and eaten, and digested one more time..!

11. The Polling Booth

Paper, paper everywhere
and not a sole drop 
to drink forgetfulness;
each migrant piece accounted for,
ledgers lined, votes dropped,
recognized mistakes just in time
carefully retracted 
for a repeated second go.
Bewildering decisions to make,
ticks becoming numbers,
numbers becoming ticks
in a tribal dance of yes and no;
long queues insisting you wait,
await your turn to tell them
what the pollies in
expensive pre-polls already know..!

Now, crisp banknotes 
are replaced by stiffer plastic,
or binary bits of information
on a superhighway to 
a materialist's heaven
or the financial hells 
of the more deserving,
why not electronic voting;
or better still virtually meet
those politicians themselves 
through the attractive net
of an interactive television...

Imagine a touch sensitive 
parliament outfitted
in a suit sporting buttons
to impress us, that press upon us 
to press them, a house of
massaged egos in tuneful harmony
with the non-fiddling fiddler - 
an involved population behind 
an array of everyday monitors,
balancing the budget
in an open, ongoing auction
that continually reflects 
the equalling of all 
input and demand, if only 
the honourable members 
could arise to such an occasion,
invite us in, rather than
merely spending more money
on our voting for their return..!

Money, money everywhere
and the public purse did shrink,
paper money everywhere
drowning in a flood of red ink..!

12. Sydney's Second Chinatown

Not before too long Sydney's second Chinatown,
on the distant, dusty, built-up plains 
at Cabramatta, will be much the larger.
Mushrooming food-halls have already met
the influx of an increasing demand,
on the ground building plans are taking root,
in the air a hint of profitable speculation,
signs in half a dozen languages, in translation,
greet thee, and give me a taste of the Orient,
and for the New-Australian-Asians
a touch less of that exotic Occident...

A melange of international wares compete -
pots and pans, bowls and woks
mixed in with the finest hand-painted 
porcelain imitating, on closer inspection, 
renascent imperial aspirations 
from a cleanly white-washed 
and freshly re-presented past;
a commercial, corporate sense of self-esteem
rekindled with a renewed flourish...

In this compartment sized department store
observe the latest in Australian fashions,
redirected from both Europe and America
via those companies situated in Singapore 
and those absentee, industrious, industrial 
landlords with an address somewhere 
in Hong Kong, and further afield.
Blaringly-painted techno-tonal signs 
immediately ask your sub-conscious directly
"Would you like to buy a buoyant silk shirt 
for 20 dollars, or a brilliant dress for ten,
or a tie for five in the brightest colours?"
only outdone by that blushing Indonesian;
here poorly printed in a non-traditional batik, 
alas, sadly in a style that one might be forgiven 
for thinking was already half-forgotten.
Such thoughts thankfully put to shame,
and put to rest, by that better row 
of Balinese shirts swinging nonchalantly 
in the doorway breeze and looking terribly 
misplaced on our non-tropical beaches,
waiting for tourists on our more daring,
fluorescently-redesigned and signed, 
slick stretches and curves 
of a blond wind-swept surf...

Seeking a place to eat is a minefield 
for those culturally challenged, 
a pursuit that needs to be undertaken 
with some sense of commitment 
and insight into your own modus operandi.
All around on display is a bewildering array 
of seemingly imprecise, gastronomic 
concoctions and more recognizable treats;
some vividly photographed, others simulated 
in a colourful, tasteless wax 
or more honestly presented in a buffet window
with more modest pretensions and proportions.
But its not just what to choose but rather where?!
In harmony with the nature of one's pocket book, 
of course, and one's more traditional 
sensibilities as sought after 
in one's own sensitive aesthetics
for across the way you might be forced 
to see the same meat being chopped 
by that friendly butcher, his stock swaying 
on the hook, thankfully already killed,
or the incongruity of a tailor trying
to measure an already amply clothed customer, 
or the fishmonger on the other side
desperately trying to recycle the ice 
over their too longly self-advertised fish.
Without being careful you can see, and inhale,
all this while you dine, let it overlay
and weaken the banqueting experience
as you try to partake a simple soup,
and manoeuvre your chop sticks,
and drink a weak green tea and finish 
with a red bean cake with a heavenly recipe
portentously imprinted on its encasement...

Under siege in the Chinese New Year you feel
a thousand crackers and fireworks explode,
suddenly go off in bouts of repetitive repetition,
from every corner they flaunt their taunting 
of the over-written laws of this state
that demand the banning of all such 
physically dangerous decadence.
On this international scene made local
this conspicuous dissipation of wealth 
is again the sign of a wealth that must have been,
an expenditure that must keep 
ones' nerves on edge for all concerned
as you exit from the malls and food-halls, 
each with its own ethnic gangs of youths 
in floppy shirts, plain or floral,
and tight blue or black jeans with, or without,
the twisting of a near obligatory baseball cap;
all these exuberant souls out celebrating, 
out competing with the other merry bands of boys 
in this noisy, once yearly, all week affair;
with this deeper theme being quietly unannounced -
that there be this quite becoming, 
timeless, coming of age 
publicly expressed once more,
through this explosive fashion 
now again all the rage
in this `a community of communities'
establishing a common intersection
on these out of place streets 
finding a new sense of direction...

13. The Funeral Service (à Kenneth Slessor)

Sadly and quietly inside we go,
Into that same funeral house once more,
The casket already sealed, with reverence wheeled,
Leaving though a different door.

A well intentioned eulogy was read,
Deceased pictured like some cartooned superman,
But all too human, for all heroes far too common,
Their life's divided in half whilst in their prime.

Only yesterday, sometime last week,
I said good-bye, his cheeks glowing red,
Sunburnt whilst upon the beach, now beyond the reach
Of a kiss between friends when one is dead.

Often joked he "would be late for his own funeral,"
Told the director great uncle Michael
Was not yet here and was `late,' and that we should wait
At least for a few moments, as a matter of principle.

This fashion for cremation is like a double death,
How can one visit that grave when there be none,
Yet in reverie finding ourselves talking, and laughing,
With the dancing vision of such an absent one..?

Sydney, 95.

14. The Human Zoo

It so happens that the busy zoo these days
is more like a gigantic human maze
where the original inhabitants wonder,
while the two-legged animals wander,
just who is it that comes and goes 
						 and who stays.

On the other side of the hill,
in leafy harbourside Balmoral,
let us take a lengthy stroll
along that long street patrolled
by security guards who while
away the hours where the millionaires 
have their fashionable mile...

Every second house is watched,
the gates are intercommed,
the walls are well built,
the windows adjusted
so that poor folk are prevented
from seeing in and finding
just more ordinary folk inside...

What style, what substance is seen?
Red bricks and concrete with a marble sheen,
some pillars from Tuscany faked and green
with age, a hint of the Venetian,
or one more mock Spanish scene
complete with a lift above the cliff
and a tennis court suitably screened...

O what can one with a million bucks buy?
These days not very much, I sigh,
around here you'ld be lucky to spy
a quarter acre of blue sky
crowded out by a dozen small trees, why
you might even arrive at a place with a drive
and a house not too inspired...

And on a Sunday the strollers look in
upon the rich nervous as sin
bunkered up or on vacation,
all mortals with more money to spend
merely go up market, even 
in the lands of the aboriginal 
				there's artistic murals
and flower boxes with geranium...

So as we good folk wander around this city,
that goes by that well-educated name of "Sydney"
it is impossible to know just who
is watched and who watches whom in this zoo
awash with such intellectually driven 
							curiosity...

15. An Aversion To The Process Of Conversion

1. ...Recently, I have acquired an avid aversion 
to the public process of conversion
when everyday it seems you are pestered by 
sellers of religion in one form or another -
waiting for you at the bus-stop, on the bus,
around the corner, on the street, knocking 
constantly on your door, and even by telephone.
But you have to laugh these people have themselves 
condemned from their very own mouth, 
lean a little on their texts and the true center 
of their religious preoccupations,
the whirling vortex of a series 
of interconnecting blindspots,
is unveiled for all to see, except, that is,
more often than not, for that very person 
themselves, alas, an open-secret
about the nature of the human condition
"that it be others first who can see more clearly
into the emotional and motivational fabric
of our essential, humanitarian constitution,"
and, "its they who help us, initially, to revel 
in the inner glory of its revealed nakedness..?"

2. ...We are from the Church of the Latter Day Saints
and we would like to tell you about God's plan
for your own personal happiness and salvation...
...Thank you... said the Asian male looking tired
after a long day's hard work as a machine operator,
...But I'm very busy these days and quite tired...
...We could visit you in your own home and preach
this wonderful message about God's work 
and what he has planned for you on earth and in heaven...
...No thank you, I'm very busy, my wife and I have 
three small children and a baby daughter to look after...
...That's no problem, we're been taught how 
to hold babies, to look after children, change nappies,
its all part of our theological training...

3. ...Your religion teaches timeless truths, does it not..?
...Yes, it sure does...
...As a black fellow you'ld quite happily 
have me these days in your inner sanctum..?
...That we sure would...
...Your religion teaches that homosexuality is wrong,
does it not..?
...It sure does, its quite contrary 
to the many mysterious ways of the Lord...
...You'ld not married you two..?
...Not yet..!
...Doesn't your religion originally preach
that you can have more than one wife, 
and you blokes don't even have one..?
...Our church has changed its mind on that point...
...O well I guess there's no room for me yet,
maybe in ten years time you will conveniently 
change your minds again on those last two issues, 
you see I now just score only one out of three,
in truth I have two understanding husbands - 
Tom and Dick, Oh..! and then there is 
good old Harry too, unfortunately recently deceased,
(when I visit my memories of them Apple Isles),
and of course not forgetting Adam and Steve,
and countless Mattthews, Marks, Lukes and Johns,
and poor Stephen too stoned for words,
and one Paul magically married to one Simple Simon,
and one very frisky Joseph only too happy 
to have children by proxy... now don't you laugh
and don't you frown for I might be, 
or I might not be, only half-joking..!?

4. ...Could you tell me, please, 
when I'm about to get to Cleveland Street..?
...No! Its the same stop you got off yesterday at,
if you care to cast your memory back that far.
Why don't you just announce yourself,
state your true intentions, and let me say,
`I am not interested,' and that way
not end up wasting each others' time.
I wish you a pleasant and, hopefully, 
a more productive day...

5. ...Do you believe in God..?
...I was raised a Catholic...
(although the fact that I am currently
a radical, re-constructed Marxist, feminist, 
lesbian agnostic is just, of course,
neither here nor there?)...

6. ...Would you like to sit a personality test..?
...No thank you, from the look of you, young man,
I think you should re-sit yours,
those shoes are in need of a good polish
and there's no point wearing a clean shirt 
if you are going to wear those dirty blue jeans 
that look like they're never been washed...

7. ...I am very concerned about 
your spiritual welfare...
...Well you needn't be, thank you..!
...Without accepting the love of God
your sins will have you bound for hell...
...Sorry, I don't believe in sin
and I certainly don't believe in hell..!
...Oh..!
...As a matter of fact I am concerned
about your social welfare,
with an arrogant attitude like yours
you will make few converts
and find even fewer friends
and that I find very, very sad;
would you like to talk about it..?

8.		"This is life
		in all its mystery,
		to solve we strive
		in vain or victory."

...Today, O Lord, we have new recruits
to be taught the teaching of the wonders 
of thy ways, new servants of the Lord 
to fight for the ways of Truth, thy Truth 
O Lord, thy soldiers, O Lord, to bring 
thy peace to this land of Australia, 
this great country already blessed 
by Him, our most merciful God...

...Let us now praise the Lord in song and dance,
let us clap our hands and stomp our feet 
in the name of Lord Jesus, let us pray
that the blessed gift of tongues 
might descend upon some members 
of this congregation whom you might decide 
to bless, O Lord, just one more sign 
of thy presence here among us, O Lord... 

...and the mouths of the children opened
with silent amazement as mummy and daddy, 
as elder brother or great aunt, 
started speaking in a rush of sounds 
without, at the same time,
saying anything that made much sense, 
started uttering texts that seemed 
to say nothing more than the very sounds 
of their utterance, utterances understood 
only by the conversing echoes bouncing off 
the four, sombre timbered walls of this 
highly polished, brightly lit meeting house 
reanimated in the emotions and 
the unscripted drama of this service 
unleashed on cue one more time...

...like the bubbling babble of budgies 
lodged in separate cages of the flesh 
to sing, to voice an admiration 
of the mire of this floating world 
locked up on this stage of desire,
lit by the scum of some illusory oil slick 
that only seems to be on perpetual fire.!?

		No matter in time		
		all victory is vain,
		an actor's mime
		transcending this plane.

9. ...The sign on the side of the van
was altered to read JESUS SCARES,
now, we might well ask,
just who is preaching what to whom..?	

10. ...And God made them man and woman
and after their own natures 
they were instructed
that they should praise him
through their work and prayer..!
...I'm a trans-sexual and now a woman...
...Sir, that is against the will of God...
...Am I still eligible to enter your church then..?
...That is a difficult question to answer...
...Well, I could wear my long mackintosh overcoat
and bring my amputated member in its glass jar 
filled with preservatives and place it
on my lap for all to see, 
would that be more acceptable..!?

11. ...Last year was a good year for our church,
we made a profit much better than all the years before,
attendance was down a little though, 
but you see its not bums on pews but wallets,
open ones and fat ones at that,
and financial success is a sign from God
that our church is on the right path to salvation...

12. ...Its so sad that one or two apples
should be seen to spoil the bushel;
a few locusts are not noticed
but a plague cannot be avoided
for Sydney these days is swarming
with such door to door salesmen
selling insurance with an assurance
not worth the paper its written on,
which makes this inoculated mission field
a tough nut to crack, thank goodness,
thank the Lord..!

16. An Autumn Romance

...Walking along the misty, breeze-swept avenues
thick with the falling petals of cherry blossoms
I see a younger friend approaching spotted,
papered with such fragile tissues accreted.
We greet each other - mention the passing beauty
of this simulation of a pale pink Winter scene,
note that before long the leaves will follow suit
after the falling of the sun-swollen fruit;
tentatively pluck these invitations to a dance
from the clothing of each other with a joyful
tenderness that lets us nervously recognize
a longing for a deeper friendship needing time,
not yet quite ready to be embarked upon...

...Although I am fond of the bush,
especially the dark, wet, green 
mist swept vegetation 
on the mountains and in the valleys 
of a virginal New Zealand,
and I have come to understand 
the plains and plateaus thick
with the light olive-grey
of Australian Eucalypts 
with their crackle of leaves 
and dry twigs underfoot,
and find myself emotionally embraced
by the drenched, emerald foliage 
of the mysterious primeval rainforest, 
yet in the chambers of my heart
there is one large room still reserved
for the rapid shedding of those Autumn leaves,
that denudation of imported deciduous trees,
that peak celebration of the Fall,
those sudden tonalities of the rainbow
that signal the dismal greys of one more 
long Winter of broken trees and branches
soon to entrench itself upon 
the suburban gardens of this 
mountainous villagescape...

...like the flashing of fireworks for a week or two
the leaves limply hang before falling one by one
to the bosom of the waiting ground, a floral carpet 
oriental in its weave and texture, its patterns,
its collective arabesques in slow motion gathering
these thinly grafted baubles and gems of pure colour.
A pregnant palette ready-made for the weekend painters,
an inspiration for the depressed worker unemployed
or those school-boys toiling on their way to school, 
those students leaving their college, such fading tokens 
now slightly crushed underfoot, a royal pavement 
laid out in regal style slightly jaded, a shimmering
soft surface damply inlaid with shiny agate, a remnant
ticker-tape parade of colourful confetti outfitted
for the passage of some prince about to see six months 
of deeper sleep having tasted that apple of desires 
still unmet, to be released in the virtues 
of that time near the awakening of the Spring...

...Drifts of thin snow fall and collect 
upon the naked landscape in all its paleness, 
flickering under the jewelled lights of starry candles, 
the visage of the face of a rounded moon-shape figure 
comes and goes to finally disappear beneath 
the blanketing darkness of the cloud enshrouded night.
Mists of vapour rise above these glossy white sheets
whilst beneath, in the warmth of an inner glow,
I think of our walking arm and arm through 
those muffled leaves, now content to lie there,
that night sweet inertia and incontinent storms
kept them from returning too quickly towards 
the bleak vista of a windswept home...

...But this year in the city with a tempered sadness 
I watch again the falling of those autumnal leaves,
for me the year ends here in a blaze of finery
that hopefully will let me live out one more year
to see again this promise of the eternal return
of the seasons in all their individual glory.
If only we had the eyes that can see more deeply,
find what lives beneath this outer show, 
this display that barely mirrors that inner soul
still sleeping, slumbering below a surface 
of our padded bedding just barely skin deep,
give or take a few misplaced hairs still struggling
to grow on the rougher face of this living landscape...

17. Mangroves Revisited (à Kenneth Slessor)

Seen shooting straight upward mud splattered tree stems
Emerge from the tidal mangrove margin...
How many greying widows with frayed hems
Seem to stand here upside down, and half grin?
From the board-walk... leaning, my reflection
Dimly superimposes itself lightly
On the murky gloom under inspection;
Like the bush this scene too was thought unsightly.

Now revisited these living waters,
When probed, find a new meaning - a gull flies
Low through the dark, umbrella sheltered air...
Thus 'tis the fashion these swamps are seen 
							through deeper eyes,
List'ning to nature survival's taught us
To think again, to "take care... take care... 
							      take care..."

18. He Will Soon Give His Name To A Great Art Collection

"Like sweet pastries in the mouth of a donkey"
						   (A Maltese Proverb)

...A tall, thin, Polish man with silver hair,
with a face polished and framed sweetly in 
a light gold complexion, in an outfit
well worn yet dignified with old world charm.
This man, like those many thousand others, 
came here after The Last Great War to take 
up residence as a Sydneysider, 
a place where he has always stayed, renting
the same one room flatette from some church trust.
Slightly stooped his was a prominent nose
surrounded by the well engraved shadings 
of a slight moustache and beard forever 
neatly trimmed - shiny and damp like a wet 
painter's brush when exposed to the heated 
harshness of the Australian plein air.
He arrived on these fair shores with no more 
than his grand-father's fiddle, his father's
smart navy-blue naval cap, and his late
brother's quaintly fashioned black three piece suit
with some English lessons under his belt
taken on board on his immigrant ship.
For thirty odd years he quietly worked
as a registry clerk near the Domain
and each lunchtime would take his sandwiches 
into the park and have them all quickly 
eaten before entering those Grecian 
portals of the Art Gallery, therein
admiring for some fifty minutes those
many fav'rite paintings he loved so well.
When he retired, this same habit he would
continue, visiting the many rooms 
of this local salon and so well known
he became that as a devotee of 
the arts no one had the heart to deny 
this poor, shuffling old man free admission 
one more time to those exhibitions that see 
themselves being found is such hallowed halls.
This longing soul would forever promise
to himself that he too would one day own 
a wonderful collection of paintings 
lovingly put together in a style 
that would bear his exquisite signature.
But then he would opine, "not yet, not yet,"
for I must save all my pennies and make 
some more money playing that stock market.
Which he did each day and doing well made 
a grand fortune that never ever left 
the ledger lines of the books written up
by his very grateful broker; each day
telephoned in the morning and ev'ning
and who paid this person's taxes by cheque,
a hard lesson soon learnt when the tax-man 
threatened time spent in jail for dues not met.
And so the years rolled on and in that game 
of chance fate crept up on him in the form 
of the confusion of a cerebral 
accident, having to be dragged from that 
decrepit room whose dry dust bit that space 
between the teeth, and whose unsightly mess
and smell horrified the sitting members 
on the oversight committee in charge
of property belonging to this church,
only once visited by this faithful, 
hard working soul with dreams never realized.
Now, alas, in the indeterminate 
limbo of a realm halfway between life 
and death he waits out his time in the still 
emptiness of a busy hospital 
day-room set up for the desperately 
psychiatric who cannot be released 
into the confines of more expensive 
boarding houses once lived in like his own.
But fate has a twist for on his demise
his will has his entire fortune headed
towards that very same Art Gallery
he denied the cost of his admission
with the strictest instructions to buy up 
up and coming Australian artists;
with a simple plaque on the lower rim 
of each carefully selected painting 
to mention in brief words the eternal
legacy of his ever grateful name...

19. One More Sunday Afternoon (à Sylvia Plath)

Don't think me too callous or too refined,
most of us are still barbarians at heart...

Interfacing on a fine Sunday afternoon
with nature along the edges of the sea...

On the tide-line the veneer of wreckage swept up
has been swept away by council workers...

Then the Esplanade has its turn before the eating houses 
start the day with their anaemic, plastic tables...

Now the trade in human traffic has begun in earnest,
vending the traces of a tropical dream...

Under the morton bay fig trees they arrive 
in varying degrees of undress or dressing up...

Some hoping to be seen, others hoping not to be seen -
still hiding from the routines of the working week...

Here's what I see... the blinking breakers roll on 
in a blinding spray freshly inlaid with cut diamonds...

Twinkling, giving themselves away, dissolving back 
into those emerald and sapphire waves winking...

Beneath a pencil thin eyebrow drawn out across the sea,
forever half-smiling in the eternal elegance...

Of the heated day, the foaming surf is star-dusted 
with the frosty glint of frothy pearls...

Such treasures lost upon the beach in an unnoticed nonchalance, gifts cast before thee and thine..!

But I waste my time, the sun is already sinking
drowning in a last wave good-bye, falling beneath...

The domestic suburban skyline, never too far away,
painted by one grinning moon now left suspended...

Hanging in the leafless elm trees planted higher up
this once completely bush-clad hill... 

What sanity is there in this pointless parody, 
this personification of those supine beaches... 

Joining hands with those rivers that fall 
from those flat mountains in the sky..?

Those magical moments in our souls when we must confess
to this fact that the ebb and flow of tides...

Are still coursing through those pulsing passageways 
of our blood, giving lie to disembodied spirits...

Yet equally straining the truth that we be mere meat
uselessly hanging around on some butcher's hook...

Just waiting to face that final, heavy handed chop dispatched remorselessly in the letters of a sealed fate...

In a frozen text already sent, spelt out, 
as if engraved in some already written book...

Of cold-hearted pages set in rock, like concrete 
moulded tombstones themselves interred in time...

Don't think me too callous or too refined,
most of us still need to interface the edges of that sea...

Find the natural in nature and that nature
in a culture not too far lost in its love of thee..!

20. The Virtual Walls Of Invisible Ghettos

	"Be your self first before 
	you become something new,
	never loose your roots
	by re-transforming them,
	the latest vats of wine 
	can only be poured
	into branded bottles
	of the same design..."
	
1. A short, beaming, 
not too elderly Chinese man, 
seated in a small restaurant,
is just about to pour 
his first cup of green tea.
His head is as round
as this plain white teapot
and just as smooth and shiny...

His is that greatest of treasures-
in the meeting and matching 
of simple desires
in that waiting cup 
now held just before him,
now watched in that 
same fraction of time 
by those two sets of eyes...

And now the world 
of the third person
can join us in this
re-sacralization of the moment
perfectly enacted and lost
in a world of fact,
at the same time drunk,
in a world of value...

Two faces poured 
from the same mould
through the same spout
back into that
mere cup of green tea,
still waiting there, 
a lingering taste of a trace
that defies both you and me..!

2. Miscellaneous Slavic peoples
congregate in the park to play chess
all day long, throughout the year...
In perfecting these skills they become
good at everything else...
Now whose turn is it to take 
the white pieces and who is left 
with the black..?

3. A Maltese husband and wife
are arguing on the bus 
right up near the front,
translated word for word
by a friend seated 
beside me down the back... 
about just who first
told their neighbours 
in the next street 
what they weren't 
suppose to know;
such ado, so much fuss,
these sounds of fury
on this public bus...

4. For a second time that week
The white Kiwi, in a serious tone,
couldn't resist telling 
his Maori workmate,
just over from New Zealand,
"that he didn't have much time 
for New-Australians..."
Unfortunately in this 
he was not alone...

5. In their lunchtime break
two young Old-Australians,
in working overalls, 
are seen drinking coffee 
with all the graces 
and expectations 
of the local Italians...

6. You can tell the difference 
between first generation 
and second generation migrants 
for the former once tried to look like 
Australians and failed, and, 
the latter try to look like 
they have just come from 
the country of their relatives 
and more often than not succeed, 
until you hear visitors from 
their country of choice
start to talk to them, alas, 
especially the young guys
who, in frustration, 
know how to swear more fluently 
in their `native' tongue,
in this still `distant' voice...

7. There are even ghettos 
for the homeless
like Gilligan's Island 
in the middle of Taylor's 
odd-shaped Square
with its raised palmed trees
flapping in the morning sun
surrounded by those waves 
of traffic here,
'tis a better place to be
at that time of the day
than all those dingy doorways
forever baptized by 
that lingering, yeasty sweet smell 
of a stale, spilt piss,
that in the sands of time, 
freshly flavours this 
eating and drinking suburb 
for as long as a living soul 
could tell, or so it seems,
alas...

8. And in those suburbs 
bisected by Oxford Street
the straight antics 
of courting couples 
holding hands 
look decidedly odd 
and out of place
regardless of how
and who they embrace...

9. No pure Anglo-Irish suburbs are left,
not even the odd ghetto or two,
only in the old sections of the cemeteries,
financially out of fashion,
do the lists of names read 
like an `original' who's who...

10. Soon, only the wealthy Aboriginal 
will be left to move into Redfern...
But then will they want to
surrounded by all those 
fashion conscious yuppies 
who follow those glossy magazines 
in self-advertised good taste,
with no boundaries between 
the commercial and the editorial,
being totally dependent on using 
these enlightened cultural commentaries 
to help them make up 
their own minds and decide 
as to which module,
which package or ensemble 
should go where, and when..?

11. How can you say this suburb is a ghetto
when next door to each other lives in a row
a Lebanese Christian, a devout Moslem and a Jew;
all in therapy seeing the same therapist, who, 
just doesn't know what to do..?

12. On the poor side of this same street 
there is a Salvation Army, a St Vincent de Paul 
and an Anglican Opportunity shop -
at least the cast off clothing of the saved
can be reprieved by the socially condemned...

13. A group of academics
"finessing the text"
are in a heated argument,
a dialogue of intensive disagreement,
as to who is to have 
their authorial signature
as first of the rank
in the publishing
of their collective criticisms
as yet still undecided...

14. The taxi drivers 
at the Airport
at first give you
a Third World impression,
until you realize 
they all have degrees, 
or are currently 
sitting their exams,
or would like to have one
and insist that their children
at least could get themselves 
a better education
on their behalf...

15. Recently, a colony of nudists
have laid themselves open
to the charges of indecency
when they now stand 
in front of each other 
on their customary beach...

16. Who says people 
cannot intercommunicate 
when they watch tv 
or read a book...
On a Winter's day 
in the Public Library
in the corner 
where the free newspapers 
were being read 
one old man's cough 
started an avalanche 
like a rasping, 
gasping chorus 
of randy frogs 
seated around an icy pond,
unfortunately, 
completely frozen over 
for quite some time now,
for, at that moment,
so it seemed...

17. On the bus I enjoy finding
today's newspaper, unfortunately,
these days, its more likely 
to be printed in Greek or Chinese
or Arabic, or even worse, a text
I find completely indecipherable
like some rag discussing 
the musical subtleties to be found 
in the world of rock, jazz or jive,
or some other aural form with a beat,
which in its cultural content
is promoted for its viable 
commercial profit, which,
when treated in this light,
are all equally seen as sound...

18. All people are gregarious,
even motorists too,
which is the main reason for 
Sydney's ever recurrent traffic jams;
which explains why you see 
these poor immobile folk
listening to each others' 
thumping discos 
and keeping in touch 
through that necessary luxury 
of their friendly mobile,
trying very hard to look 
ever so inconspicuous
as they shout to be heard
over all this traffic...

19. The old people are deaf
and the young people these days too,
which explains why neither side 
wants to talk, unless 
one or both parties
want something from the other...

20. Even the prostitutes 
have their ghetto,
which is where 
they find customers,
which on further reflection 
is practically everywhere 
in this city of Sydney;
if you care to read
the Personal columns
in the local suburban 
newspapers...

21. The little people
are having their convention today,
they really are,
you don't believe me,
why a whole bus-load 
of school children
went past dressed in green,
looking like elves, 
screeching like banshees,
on their way to a picnic;
although their now 
near speechless teacher
seemed better able 
to play that part...

22. On the internet
there can be no ghettos,
only different addresses
for the hackers and hawkers,
for the techno-hypers and hookers,
the lonely hearts and no hopers,
the trendy teeny-bopping hoppers 
and those up and coming 
ancient yuppies
coming in from the cold
over a long cup of coffee
from a famous place 
called simply "Cyberia"
out there in cyber-space
which very soon could be 
just around the corner...

23. Eastwood has just gone Korean
while Marrickville remains Greek,
and good old Fairfield 
has an indeterminate Asian flavour,
then one day soon the Nepean 
might go Indian and sacred
which would be nice for a change
if they gave it a good spring clean
before Summer turns it
into a green curry creek
with a nice algae on the side
for the lean and mean
who just don't want to dine out,
I like their food, he said,
I really do, but I don't like 
them living here, you see,
so I used to buy their food imported,
in the supermarket, already frozen,
until I discovered it was cheaper, 
and much, much more pleasant, 
to be present in their restaurant
and treated with a barrage of smiles
like a right royal pheasant
about to be plucked and popped 
into the stew on top of their printed menu
that should be given five gold stars, 
I said, in the latest Gastronomic Revue,
so the waiter tipped the management
and the shark fin came in free
with a complementary bottle of white wine
of an exceptionally good vintage
from the cellar of the hotel next door, 
so, I shouldn't really complain, 
it's just simply, to tell you the truth,
that I cannot dine there again
because the magazine I am suppose 
to work for gave the opposition
over the road a rave write up instead
and said no one else could compare 
with the excellence of their `fine fare,'
touted for many miles around, unless, 
being gifted, they went home 
and did the cooking from bed 
upside down with the manual opened
at page sixty-nine in the section titled
"nouvelle cuisine for the culinary dead,"
but finding the recipe that way
just too difficult to read
took to reading what a recent flier said
and ordered from Prasad's Restaurant,
no more than five distant suburbs away,
those cold curries and those hot salads,
with a free drink of choice;
a service conducted en masse 
for those curious couch potatoes,
better bred, who prefer to experiment
with door to door food wheeled in
for those up and coming souls
just dying to be overfed...

24. Egyptian and Indian, 
Greek and Italian,
Chinese and Vietnamese, 
African and Polynesian,
dark person or pale
they all look alike 
when standing outside 
the department store 
of David Jones downtown
just after they have 
opened their doors to 
their Post-Christmas sale...

	"There are no ghettos
	except for their illusion
	in the world of mind,	
	ideas have no province
	only a capital town
	for a psychic center,	
	countries may have borders
	and cities fortress walls,
	across these divisions
	throughout all time	
	the true citizen 
	can always enter..."

21. The Waters Of This Harbour (à Kenneth Slessor)

The waters of this harbour in the day
still preserve a nat'ral tone with green trees,
rocky shorelined peninsulas encrusted
with buildings like limpets with windows for fleas,
surrounded in vegetation entrusted
to conserve what beauty is left in	play.
The vision of this townscape is here grasped
in a jewelled opalescence mirrored 
in the sapphire blueness of a sky furrowed
by thin rows of clouds sailing in silver clasped...

But by the painted darkness of the night
nature becomes undone and re-crafted made
in the image of the more modern person
with one hundred thousand dimpled lamps inlaid
with di'monds, em'ralds, rubies... some flashing on
and off in the golden glow of such a light.
Alas, this fleeting show must pass away,
the ground beneath us can not be divested
of truth, like those faded stars invested
there with pointed meanings that words waylay...

22. The Coughing Concerto

The acoustics in the Concert Hall
in the Opera House are good,
too good, alas, for from
the month of May to the near springtime
of September, or there abouts,
all performances take on
an increasing audience participation
as winter colds take their toll
like bells ringing in the hours 
in some ancient town, each
to the others calling, and echoing...

Along with all this coughing,
digitally enhanced, there is the tapping
of feet and the rapping of fingers
strumming out the beat on the rests
between the chairs, augmented by
the overlapping wheezing of chests
punctuated in sniffs and nervous bursts
in the softer sections of this score,
smothered in its louder parts
by the avalanche of desperate throats
also seeking to massage tickles
only temporally assuaged 
in the release of this awaited moment,
and all around in sympathy
is orchestrated the screeching
scratching of bored spectators
with keys in their pockets
and beeping watches on the hour
and those odd pages accidentally unsilenced 
instead of their softly ringing mobiles...

But no matter, the ferries on the harbour
glide between the intermission,
and the lights create a fairy wonderland,
re-creating the magic of that moment,
and its nice to meet friends 
you haven't seen, thankfully, 
a little sooner, and a good nature prevails
as the audience resumes their seats
in this their performance of the year,
loudly clapped by one and all,
performed with incidental music,
in a complicated concerto 
to be played out tonight 
in this very public Concert Hall...

23. The Sydney Aquarium (à Kenneth Slessor)

With walls for windows with worlds to be seen
awash with waves that ripple with bubbles,
with the silently swaying swish of seaweeds,
a microcosmic vision of the macrocosm is revealed 
through the invisible glass of this expansive aquarium...

And there in the corner between the clapping hands
of a thousand fingered plant hides the more nervous sort,
while all around the more gregarious frolic in front
of friends and well dined foes just pausing between meals,
while the more relaxed take snacks with more edible 											   nibbles...

There fancy has taken a walk on the wild side 
with an unbelievable fashion, with knobs and nick-knacks
and pulsating protruberances in a rainbow of colours
while the more tasteful lurk in crevices hopefully unseen,
unnoticed by the riffraff looking so terribly obscene...

That fish looks inquisitive, that fish looks so mean,
that anemone looks delightful, that coral looks spiteful,
that kelp looks such a mess, that watery tree so green,
that shark looks so peaceful, is it asleep or wakeful?
that thing looks like a rock, while that slimy worm 
								   wears a frock...

Am I awake or am I in a dream, or is this merely 
the same fantastic theme in variation that helps me 
to see what, otherwise, would pass all understanding:
here I see pride, there a sea horse I would like to ride,
here a vision of pleasure, there a shell I would like 
									to treasure...

Nothing too new, nothing too old; now I marvel
how my perceptive imagination can never be too bold
because that creature looks like my next-door neighbour,
and that wriggling thing looks like my lover last night
while that ghastly, tired hangover looks like me alright...

And can you trust a yellow bellied sea-snake 
that never keeps still, or a slug snugly ensconced
in a mobile shell for a home, or that wandering parasite
taking a cruise on the side of a fish, or that flat-footed
sole slithering along the bottom up to its gills in mud..?

Now I ask you, please tell me, I pray, what do you see
as I see you laughing to yourselves, pointing, gesticulating
in front of that oddly shaped jellyfish dancing a jig,
making rude comments about that octopus mating a squid,
or, fighting over the same corner like two boxers 
									in a ring..?

Is it true with walls for windows with worlds to be seen
awash with waves that ripple with bubbles,
with the silently swaying swish of seaweeds,
that a microcosmic vision of the macrocosm is soon revealed 
through the invisible glass of this expansive aquarium..?

24. A Lone Ant Wanders Across The Landscape

A lone ant wanders 
across the landscape,
past rocks and trees,
through the streets with houses,
over still waters, and then,
aspiring to higher things,
now climbs those steeply 
rising hills, to move on up 
into those billowing 
ghostly, pale pink clouds
until, finding 
the bordered edges
of this gilded frame,
now disappears in this flat,
painfully detailed, water painted 
image of a world 
hanging here before me,
on view, on this blank,
white washed wall...

Will this poor ant 
escape this world 
in which he had 
such perfect freedom,
such confinement 
not appreciated 
until that successful departure,
perhaps through that 
same small pin-prick of a hole
through which he was 
to enter..?

Making my escape 
I take my leave
in those distant 
blue mountains
with their flattened 
sub-alpine tops.
Looking down
three million faces 
of Sydneysiders merge
into a crinkled skin,
a grey lichen-like growth
pricked by tall towers,
focused by that beacon 
of a Centerpoint
for a few more minutes
just illuminated 
in the setting sun,
surrounded in space
by the passing passage 
of winking planes, 
looking like fire-flies,
on their way to and fro,
from that central airport.
Before long the city turns
into a phosphorescent omelette,
a magic mushroom glowing
in the darkness of 
the now tempered night...

Up there the ten thousand stars
twinkle more successfully,
and in that cool wintry coldness
one cannot help thinking
is the freedom of such a city 
better appreciated,
only, when one can 
completely leave it..?

	    .************#************.

Epilogue: Sydney Out Celebrating Itself

	How oft of late my love has grown so strong
for this urban-town with such a manly name,
how oft hath this look of love fed this flame
of my sweet, heaven sent, earthly vision,
those deep thoughts packaged in desires that long
to find with unexpected flair that fame
that so undeservedly will take this name,
that heartfelt essence, now beating in this song.
	Now booms the cannons from this harboured port
and banging loud fleeting fireworks light the sky,
well marshalled music with a throbbing bass
joins forces in a chorus laser taught
to keep time with images before the eye	
that, alas, only praise this more public face.

	    .************#************.

The Texts Of The Six Poems 
Parodied `After Kenneth Slessor,'
In Poems Nos. 1, 5, 9, 13, 17, 21;
In The Same Order Of Appearance

(Respectively, Metempsychosis; William Street; Five Visions of Captain Cook; Beach Burial; Mangroves; Waters.)