AUSTRALIAN POETRY

COLLABORATION

#16

ORANGE, COBAR, BROKEN HILL

& MELBOURNE

PREVIOUS ISSUES

NEED TO KNOW…

Sponsored by:

Countrylink, ArtsNSW, Broken Hill City Council, Broken Hill Regional Writers’ Centre, Cobar Shire Council,

Central West Libraries & Words Out West

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Archived in Pandora

FEATURING

from

OVERLOAD POETRY FESTIVAL MELBOURNE

Eddy Burger, Paulie Dada, Mekhala Dass, Helen Hagemann, Ahmed Hashim, jeltje, Sjaak de Jong, Michelle Leber, Debbie Lustig,

Kimberley Mann, Tasha Joy Miller, Graham Nunn, Lewis Scott, fee sievers & Jenny Toune

from

ORANGE, COBAR & BROKEN HILL

Diana Brooks, George Cole, Kim Core, Barbara De Franceschi, Kristene Smith, Marvis Sofield,

Jasmine Vidler & Ramon Ware

¯¯¯

MELBOURNE

Eddy Burger

The people who yell from a long way away

single distant yeller: Hello.

Hello.

I am a representative of the people who yell from a long way away.

[aside] Isn’t that right?

many distant yellers: Yes.

single distant yeller: And if you think I’m yelling now, listen to this:

[yelling louder] Now I’m really yelling, but I can’t yell this loud for very long because it takes too much energy.

[aside {normal yell}] Isn’t that right?

many distant yellers: Yes.

single distant yeller: And now, the people who yell from a long way away would like to address you.

many distant yellers: We, the people who yell from a long way away, are yelling from a long way away.

single distant yeller: [aside] Thankyou.

And now, I’d like to introduce you to a representative of the people who whisper from very close by.

single close whisperer: Hello.

Hello.

I am a representative of the people who whisper from very close by.

Previous publication: appeared as AV recording on Straight From The Tank DVD, by Red Lobster, Melbourne 2006.

Paulie Dada

The Psychonaut.

He drinks of the chalice

To quench himself,

All that resides in the mind

Is in drought.

He imbibes to analyse

The actions of men.

As he empties his own libation

He plunges the depths

To fathom:

The essential questions.

Rumination and articulation

Help him to reveal

The true self.

The walls offer no riposte

And he has consumed

The only ear.

He swims in the epiphanies

That he owns.

He pontificates in the temple,

Discarding his consciousness

To the stream.

On the path to revelation

He is overloaded by wisdom.

Swallowed by the morass

He drowns in the solution.

Mekhala Dass

Helpless Witness

The moments even now pass by

Smiling sad farewells as they flitter downstream

And into the past

And though gently lamenting all the while

They mutely pull away from my naïve grasp

The clock plays on its relentless song

And the last languid cricket calls

Time has come wielding chains

And deaf to all shall not pause

For no soul can tame her

I fail for one fathomless second to persuade

The dear moments to stay

I can only witness as they wane and fade

And hope the next to be as lenient

For the ways of Time are bitter and twisted

Intent

She carries her prisoners away

Helen Hagemann

Fitzroy High School

The day after your arrival
is a high school reading.
We agree as poets it’s been a long time
between classes. Our eyes are pressed
in outward glances at closed doors,
the headmaster's office, a walk in the past.
Fear means we’ve survived school days,
a hijacked front seat, the less kind
at assembly, sports-day in F-team.
Yet here, school bags and lunch boxes
are full of tomorrow. It’s spring and everyone
is a new leaseholder in this estate. Waves
of purple-grey-cobalt assuage otherwise old red brick.
In the front office, a ceramic bowl, toilet paper

flowers, lighthearted verse; an assemblage
of nature prints as if this is an animal ready
to breakthrough from the past.

In the corridor there is friendly chatter,
boys swaying in sync, jovial song,
a guitar thrumming the air with every step.
Now we enter the sphere of year 8’s writing
prose, Year 10’s, pens on the Beats. Thank you −
Mr. Ginsberg − they hear your Howl.
Applause comes after our spill of words.
We wrestle the page in an attempt to hold them
in fierce syllables; gather enough faith
when James from Overload has them
in a rhythm of fountain pens. We uphill
shoulders, expiring breath from a ribcage
of doubt. ‘Is the struggle over to keep awake?’
‘Is poetry boring?’ Hands diminish in the count.
We pack up and go.
Unanswered questions remain.
At least, we concur, poetry has imprinted two hours
on young writers’ minds.

Ahmed Hashim

Mouths

Homeless mouth

Asks for a volcano

to light his cigarette .

Poet’s mouth

Said something at the stage

no one knows

where it’s gone .

Thief’s mouth

Said all

the truth …… upside down .

The truth’s mouth

Without

teeth .

Killer’s mouth

I should have done that

a long time ago .

Victim’s mouth

You should have done that

a long time ago .

Girlfriend’s mouth

Honey

until

wedding

day .

Wife’s mouth
without it

the headache tablet factories

would shut down .

Boyfriend’s mouth

Promises beautiful lies

exactly

as life does .

Husband’s mouth

Concrete wall

after sex .

Baby’s mouth

Dad

Mum

what you have done .

Orphan’s mouth

Say nothing

the truth is clear

through his eyes

like a flood .

poor mouth

Thousands of idea in my pocket

to feed

world’s hungry .

War’s mouth

I am only an idea

came out of a

leader’s head .

God’s mouth

Mankind waiting

…….

we can’t except
all that silent .

jeltje

She's going with the boys...

She's going with the boys, somewhere,

With the boys,

She's out there, somewhere, with the boys

Out there,

She's where the boys are: out there,

Somewhere, she's out there...

Picture me, with my sunglasses on:

Hi! How are you?

I'm somewhere, out there,

With my sunglasses on, the boys

Are always out there, somewhere,

Out there is somewhere,

I'm out there, somewhere at last!

We're altogether now, somewhere else,

Without a home to go to,

With the boys, with my sunglasses on,

Out here, with the boys,

We're really somewhere else!

Am I nowhere without the boys

At home, without her, somewhere

Out there without me, she's out there,

I'm here, she's there, she's out there,

Somewhere with the boys

Without a home to go to, I'm here,

I'm at home, here, without the boys,

In the home, without her.

Sjaak de Jong

Samalanglied

Kalast mara keeks rats
kella kella biram
Hakka stakka schiets beits
Stela zuips zwieram

Kalast mara keeks rats
kella kella biram
Heida zeena liege meida
Kussa dansa gloram

Kalast mara keeks rats
kella kella biram
Hiepa kada treela pada
zuipa hopsa gloram

Kalast mara keeks rats
kella kella biram
zuipa dansa zoona schranza
Russie carbonade

Kalast mara keeks rats
kella kella biram
hopsa heiss gallop pada
oerang oerang oeta

Toesta flinka heeradama
Gama langa hiha
Steta glaza hiepa kada
hessa springa basta

Fratkas klaraskeeka rata
kola kola saram
Kieza knopta snorka dama
Lippa dronka oetang

Klassa riepa snorka dama
Kela hiepa kada
Hoora knoota siepa sepa
trouwa deeka basta !!!!

Michelle Leber

LOVE−SLITHERS

You are alluvium; even the river desires you.

How many ladders? The heart wants to know.

Love confession. Fire alarm. In that order.

The mistress. A bird nest in her throat.

Tenterhook dock. The way his voice ends a poem.

Debbie Lustig

Work

No words only our breathing – two people

in a garage. Workbenched, love-bolted.

Quiet flits like wood dust. Rough surfaces

catch small sounds. My father and me,

constructing memories. He glues,

mixing resins with medical art. I carve

aluminium, butter-soft, young.

My vice holds a Chinese pictogram

with a promise of luck. I urge my fretsaw

carefully through the maze.

The tools are a language

he will teach me to speak:

screwdriver-hammer-longnosepliers

unused like spices, twinned

to the wall, shadowing themselves.

I coast on a lull, the air sawdust-spattered.

Soon, I will lose the Chinese pendant

and he will finish building a boat.

He will leave me with a brass fob-watch that

has stopped then

turn his attention to a project with no name.

Kimberley Mann

Monday

I see

the butcher

switch on the flouro in his

red & silver room,

the baker

open the door for the smell

to be released

the fruit & veg man

push up his roller door

& stretch

On the bus

a woman wiggles off her wedding

ring & smiles

as she stares out of the window

Tasha Joy Miller

Fernweh

He yearns to be free

He desires

To get out his boots

Tie the laces tight

Wrap wool scarf

Around thick neck

Step surely out the gate

And into the night

He knows not where he goes

Only that he must

Move through the extensive world

And travel

He aches in his chest

He feels, but he knows not what he feels

There is a word

He thinks

It hovers above him

Just out of reach

With the toe of his boot

He scuffs the dirt…

Graham Nunn

Ocean Hearted

the house you live in
is built on tidal plain and farmer's field
flat as the world before civilisation

the land you walk is
below sea level, all oyster shell and mangrove root
patient fingers of wood holding their breath

you fix the horizon's shape
in your mind, its shimmering possibility
held between seagull and midday

the hot sting of sun on your neck
like a blade lifting skin
you're all blonde hair and blisters

you stop and clouds swim
like mullet into your pupil
for a moment you wonder why you are here

you left the house and walked towards the water
eyes shut, pulling away from shore
you heard the call

it sounded like ocean
you hear it now
swim harder, it says, swim harder

first published in Remark (USA)

Lewis Scott

NOVEMBER 4, 2008 – THIS DAY IN HISTORY

I thought of family I had never met

I thought of family graves I had never knelt by or prayed over

I thought of family jumping into the Atlantic Ocean, sensing an even greater death at the end of the slave ship’s journey

I thought of “the door of no return” in the slave forts of Ghana

I thought of Little Rock Baptist Church, whose seed began under a pine tree and whose walls reverberate with the voices of call and response

I thought of Billie Holiday’s tree of Strange Fruit

I thought of Dr. King’s death in exchange for

“I have a dream”

I thought of the escaped slave Harriet Tubman: “you run with me or you die here”

I thought of cotton fields, with bent Black backs hauling sacks full of dreams

I thought of my father’s father and his father, who swallowed the word “boy” all their lives and saw the world through red eyes

I thought of my mother’s mother and her mother, whose washboard hands knew the dirt of humankind

I thought of the cutting knives in the word “nigger” when Black backs stood unbent

I thought of the hushed voices in the slave cabins: “you just keep on living, freedom goin’ come”

I thought of dead bones holding on to that belief

I thought of Black fingers quilting our stories

I thought of the Negro National Anthem,

“Lift Every Voice and Sing”

I thought of Black music creating our sounds of piercing defiance

I thought of family who woke this day, dressed in the skin of Barack Hussein Obama

I heard this morning the slave song:

“you run until you find freedom”

fee sievers

Audrey

She enters the room all frills

And cheap lace in a rush

Of excitement and flurry of hair

Air catching her skirt

Long before she arrives

The smell of mischief seeps

Through walls as he waits for

Her to makes her appearance

The click of her heels on hard

Wood floors give her away

Every time but she feigns

Surprise at his surprise

To see her in the doorway

Every Friday night without fail

Same wine same smile

Same tick of the clock

Ah… Friday nights

The kids sleep at Grandmas

Audrey takes off all her hats

And finds herself again

¯

Jenny Toune

I think

about you with her think

through nights tumbled over flesh

whipped by this persistent affliction

think with my guts

churning some bizarre fantasy and

fantasise about not

thinking

think shallow pernicious

rumblings fed by misguided platitudes from friends

and lovers

how long will

/ are you still

/ it won't last

so I run with sex and anarchy - we're

looking for faith

but can only find disbelief

mounting fear

we try to cut in

but it's a cold party - fear

an icy lay

I watch anarchy and stoned love flirting

with consummation - but they can't

keep it up

and nor could you - my love

my thinking is marred by my thoughts

I think

¯¯¯

BROKEN HILL

COBAR

ORANGE

Diana Brooks

When love is like a fish

How difficult

the uneasy rub of egos.

I looked for her in the crowd, but

she vanished

like a fish

swimming along

the bottom of a pond.

Background of indigo and black.

The full moon in the car park;

powerlines

intersect and divide it,

connect and catch it.

My mind the moon,

caught in wires.

How difficult the uneasy

rub of moods and egos.

It's easy not to flow: to push

at the wrong moment,

Mis-collide the spurs of meeting.

George Cole

Thackaringa Breezes

As you meander through the ghostly Silver Town’s remains,

With its crumbling walls, pot holed roads and stunted trees.

Waterless bores, low grade ore, piled beside deserted claims,

With a lonely hotel door still open, with shingle swinging in the breeze.

Stately churches no longer preach and pray in holy hope.

As they play host to a master class from the Eastern suburbs,

Armed with brushes, pallets and oils, to create a kaleidoscope,

Of baker’s and butcher’s and shanty town pubs.

Beside the skeletal wall of German Charlie’s store,

There’s an ancient eerie gaol, with rusting broken locks,

Tumbledown sandstone blocks, and iron clad doors,

With rusted cuffs, and fractured wooden stocks.

A hempen rope with a grisly hangman’s knot,

Dangling from the stained and bloodied gibbet crop.

The gaping trapdoor the convict’s sorry lot,

Before the dreaded final six-foot drop.

A sagging stable roof, with doors ajar, on twisted hinge,

Iron horseshoes, curled and bent, with rusty nails still lay

Besides a blacksmith bellows, blackened, cracked and singed.

With ghostly remounts, saddled and cinched, ready for the fray.

If you listen to the lonely winds gently sighing,

Floating through the ghost gums with golden wattle weeping.

When you leave this ghostly town of broken buildings lying,

You’ll hear the whisper of the Thackaringa breezes softly begging.

“Please come back again.”

Kim Core

Hate's Harvest's Habits

And he had the hide to say
we will
instead of
he will

decide
who will come into our
country

and we
the original boat people
kicked out and/or on the run
since time begun

and this world in this age
a motherless ship
with only the promise of talent in the
killing field

the curtain's drawn
O tear the veil in two
there's always a feast to feed
a few hungry few

and still the hunger
to see anything

to see a something
he never will

the only cross we cannot bear
is the one we cannot give up

we were made in His image
He made Himself in ours

teaching us how to belong

the first Master of Rhetoric
was the Serpent
in the Garden

he not only did it so well
he got away with it

Barbara De Franceschi

Shadow Dancers

black on liquid white

movement in a sliding scale

sensuality/ obscure invitation

projections seen on the other side

entertain sleeping-pill feet

out for a good time

a climb

onto chairs

a slither

down a pole

safe from the gropers

the hot breaths

hormones hidden in a silhouette

gyrating into barroom poses

a working class wife

transvestite Chiquita

if tits are hard and bellies flat

they shoot the drifts

twist in suspenders

pleat inside themselves

to burn out their skint neighbourhoods

forget fat men picking their teeth

the moon that licks bare arse at midnight

and the stew

every day

for dinner

from “Strands” (Island, 2009)

Kristene Smith

Life’s Struggle

I sit here alone

and survey with disgust,

My life time’s work

now turned to dust.

It seems all evils

took their spite

on this weakened land,

leaving me in this plight.

Mice and locusts

ravaged the fields,

Then the rains failed to come

– my fate was sealed.

Temperatures rose, then searing heat

saw bushfires next engulf the land.

All that stood within their paths

now lie black – a lifeless brand.

Once it seemed

that Mother Nature and I

could work as a team.

The truth I see is far from that dream.

Marvis Sofield

I am a sea creature

connections learned

under the weight of ocean

mirrored in the depth of sky

taught to swim

in salt water.

In my youth

the surfer boys

liked the black eyed

slink of me

thick seaweed hair

drew them on.

In my fluid world

there was only

camouflage

and enticement

nothing languid

about the chase.

They thought me prey.

I let them.

I rise on dry land now

stamped by red dust

shake ropes of air

that whip my gritty skin.

Under the weight of

other’s country

I pull myself to

my skull

a muddied widow’s cap

out here.

Again I stand

to swim.

Jasmine Vidler

A night out? No problem

Climb over eskies

feel for a bus seat

within a dark cabin polite introductions to all

we move into Highway traffic

pull in a friend’s head from an open window

singing begins

“What do you do with a drunken sailor?”

no one, no one knows all the words

a token lap of the main

on the way to a performance

we find a long driveway to a farm, silence

lights glowing from distant city streets, luminous

sentinel trees grant us brief sanctuary, peace

one bloke pees, then another

finally arrive at the hall for country musical

eat, drink, laugh, sing, talk, gossip

the heckling begins; a heave; smell of vomit

others red with embarrassment

“Nah, there’s no problem officer”

“What do you do with a drunken sailor?”

take him home, the night is over

Ramon Ware

Drive for Life

This is a true story. I have tried to write it as it was told to me by the man himself. Only the names have been changed.

At 60 something, Ben who had been on an invalid pension for a few years, was sitting in his favourite lounge chair enjoying the antics of two of his special little girls. It was Sunday afternoon, time to relax and enjoy the grandchildren.

Ben stiffened as a searing pain ripped through his chest. Pain was no stranger to Ben but this was no ordinary pain. He called urgently to his daughter,

mother of the little girls and also a nurse,

"Jill, come with me, quickly! to the hospital."

"I'll just grab my shoes," Jill answered. Hauling himself to his feet Ben shuffled through the door and out to the car. After crawling into the driver's seat he backed his car out onto the street. Jill was still in the house. Ben felt that his time was running out so he took off without her. The hospital was 5 kms away and driving along he could feel the sides of the road closing in. At the half way mark the two sides met and everything went black. The hospital was still two and a half kilometres away!

Ben gradually became aware of muffled, unfamiliar background noises. He opened his eyes to see the ceiling and walls of a strange room. A stranger smiled at him from alongside the bed.

"Welcome back," the man said. "You've had us all worried. You have been asleep for a week. How do you feel?"

"Where am I?" Ben asked and who are you?"

"You're in the Royal Adelaide Hospital and this is an intensive care unit," said the man. "I'm John Newton, your surgeon. You've been through a fairly severe ordeal. We were not sure we could save you but you've managed to beat the odds. We, that is you and I, have lots to talk about but that can wait 'til tomorrow. Rest is more important." He quickly left the room and a nurse appeared on the other side of the bed.

"Hello Mr Martin," she said with a friendly smile. "I'm Nurse Wilson, one of the team who has been looking after you for the past week.”

"Have I really been here a week?" Ben asked the nurse.

"Yes," she replied. "What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't know, it's all very hazy. I'll have to work on it."

"Good idea but don't work too hard," she said. "Right now you need all

the rest you can get. It will come back as your strength returns. If you need me just press this button," she said, handing him the remote call button before moving out of sight.

"Good morning Ben." Ben moved his face towards the sound. It was the surgeon as he came in next day. "How are you feeling today?"

"Well...all right I suppose," answered Ben. "But I feel like I've been run over by a train."

"Sounds like you're coming on fine," said Mr Newton. "Now tell me how did you get to the hospital?" Ben looked puzzled.

"This hospital?" He asked. "I don't know."

"No no, the Broken Hill hospital," Mr Newton corrected himself.

"I don't know that either," said Ben. "I can remember driving as far as the Westside School, that's about half way, then the sides of the road closed in and I blacked out. That's all I remember."

"You remember driving the car?"

"Yes," answered Ben. "But only as far as I said."

"Well I'll tell you what I know," said Mr Newton. He then related the events as he had been informed, leading to the admission of Ben to RAH (Royal Adelaide Hospital). He told Ben how Sister McInnes of the Broken Hill Hospital had just exited the main door en route to the Kiosk when she noticed a car driving in an erratic manner as it entered the hospital grounds. She stood anchored to the spot as the car approached the main entrance swerving from side to side, with the driver slumped over the steering wheel either drunk or unconscious! The car mounted the kerb and stopped just before hitting the hospital wall.

The driver switched off the engine, opened the door and fell out into the waiting arms of Sister McInnes who had quickly sized up the situation and raced to help. She had broken his fall but was powerless to move him. He was no light weight with a heavily muscled body, particularly arms and shoulders, from a life

time of hard manual labour. The problem was resolved almost immediately by a nurse. She was on her way back from the Kiosk and only a few metres away when the car stopped, so quickly ran to assist. The two women dragged the unconscious man up the few steps and through the door into the foyer. Sister McInnes stayed with the patient keeping him alive while the nurse ran for help. By the time Ben's wife and family arrived in Jill’s car, he was safely hooked up to a life support system in Intensive Care but had not regained consciousness.

Later that night, when the Doctor on duty was satisfied his condition had stabilised, Ben was transferred to Adelaide by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

At RAH, after a quick check, he was rushed into theatre for emergency open heart surgery.

Mr Newton continued, "Your heart had a large tear in the outer wall and blood was pouring into your chest cavity. There is no way you could have driven a car 5 kms. You should've been dead long before reaching the hospital!"

"Is this heaven?" Ben asked.

"Not quite," replied Mr Newton. “But we do try.”

"In that case I must have a guardian angel," said Ben.

"Yes," Mr Newton agreed. "Maybe several!"

¯¯¯

This edition is a selection of work arising from a tour of western NSW

plus guest spots at Broken Hill Poetry Festival & Overload Poetry festival.