Written
in Sand
The
project is a modest attempt to shine a light into the heart of the Municipality
of Waverley, Australia. A celebration of the people, the history & the
environment of one of the most vibrant parts of Sydney. A total of 16 poems
were put up in public spaces like the library, Bondi Pavilion & the dozens
of Waverley bus shelters over the 4 years.
ACCESS
was a key feature of the selection process on two fronts - we were trying to
give a chance for everyone to have a go at being included. As well, the pieces
finally chosen were picked on the basis that they should appeal to a broad
cross section of the community.
The
final 16 were chosen after receiving hundreds of contributions from those who
saw the articles in local & trade publications. Many of those chosen are
substantial figures in the Australian writing community. Some are relative
newcomers whose work shone out & demanded to be read.
WAVERLEY
COUNCIL are to be congratulated for their support.... both monetary & in
kind. They too wish to celebrate the vitality & diversity that makes the
area unique.
Contemporary
poetry is continually seeking new outlets, new ears. Many people get a cramped,
irrelevant diet of poetry in high school & promptly lock it out of their
lives. Organisations like Meuse press are devoted to
changing that.
Written in Sand is catalogued in Australian literature's data base Austlit. For writers seeking contacts we can recommend you join either the Poets Union (9818 5366) or the NSW Writers' Centre (9555 9757).
We hope you enjoy these pieces.
Carol Chandler & Les Wicks
editors
SOME LINKS
¯
restrung
early sixties january long
hot afternoons at tib's
teenage tennis club
of
north bondi where the smack
of waves down the
hill
foams out of your
ears
as you lunge at a
sand tinted
ball thwacked into
the net
- love 15, love 40 -
dumped
by a slazenger surf yet
again, with the dirt
grinding
dry as a desert under
your feet
and coating your
nostrils stinging
with heat, you sweat
into your
tight tennis dress
while the court's
boundary marks
declare their
white rulings, like
rigid seamstresses
heads of strict
boarding schools.
over there A team stars are
playing pure blond
games, their white
shorts frilly skirts
quiver with sports car
and wimbledon dreams, they stroll into
the clubroom fresh as
popcorn round
hollywood pools
you all rest in the cool of tib's
tennis club room,
coca cola streams into
your gullets from
seductive glass bottles deliciously
green, the sewer
works odour drifts in
from its tower on the
golf links just
over the road - 'perfume
bottle's full
today'- everyone explodes
- joanne
burns
¯
THE SUMMER SUMOS
The
tired metronome of half hearted waves plop!
can
barely rise to the conspiracy being discussed
by
this mob on a griddle cement platform
this
six-pack of heartily beached whales.
Man
and bench merge
to
call themselves "Doctor Bronte".
Allegedly
gathered to swim but
between
swims is
a time that
stretches
over hours even
discussion
group is
a placid deception,
a
form guide for the dogs or Italian politics their
great
brown guts attain a grace rare elsewhere.
The
Council would have to hire stand ins
if
they didn't come here
like
volunteer statuary....
they
are the beach -
their
great stomachs are institutions like
a
series of tiny Ulurus from
the gentle half of white
Australia's dreaming.
- Les Wicks
¯
Summer Ends, Tamarama
The seagulls
Flew south
Lost
Rings
Of the ear
Nipple
s
Little finger
And nose
Sink deeper
Into
The sand
No Dogs Allowed
Forlorn trumpets
Bruised hibiscus
Lonely hands sift
By unlovely rocks
The sun
Set
O
But next year
More tan
Less poetry
Another beach
A wedding ring
-
Denis Gallagher
¯
feather,
stone, bird, sand
In five concentric
circles a naked man
sits at the dry
sand's edge of Bronte Beach,
centred in prayer or
meditation,
the photocopy of a
text enclosed
in the lotus bowl of
legs, at his back
a feather, on the
outer circle's seaward arc
a stone;
straight-backed, inner eyed, he emits
a low melodic growl.
The autumn air
is cool, but a rosy
pre-dawn light swims
between suspended
shoals of cloud. Already
fishermen sing their
lines below the sea,
silhouettes catch
cartwheel waves, joggers ghost
along the promenade
and the first swimmers
are emerging from the
bogey-hole.
The copper mandala
sun slips the rim
and centre of our
world, lifts the intercessor,
arms extended,
feather in his left hand,
a stone in the right,
wings blur, a gull flies up,
a stone falls
resolving into grains of sand,
words blow across the
beach towards the sea
and high water
circles circumscribed feet.
- Brook Emery
¯
Beachcomber
My father's brother combed the beaches
early Monday mornings, supplementing
factory wages with findings of gold
watches, silver florins, diamond rings.
Now the weekend rubble's shovelled
by machine, the sand swept clean
of cans & coke bottles, lost thongs
and empty tubes of suntan cream.
I scan the shore for other remnants:
messages printed by gull's feet,
scratched by shelly-fingered waves,
brushmarks made with tangled ropes of weed,
finding in their random patterns
fragmented songs, half forgotten,
tongued by wind fluting the beach,
interpretation out of reach.
-Lyn Reeves
¯
WHALE
The full moon is
above Ben Buckler
in a wisp of cloud
The heat of the day
has subsided
into the soft &
delicate light
of early evening
Countless boards ride
the long
breaking wave
Occasional figures
clump darkly
on the cooling sand
People stand on
corners
where brushed by
gentle fumes
they speak
significantly on mobile phones
or retreat to cafe
tables to watch others
Cars rumble slowly
past
Quite close by
at sea
a whale leaps
and leaps again.
Shaun
Watson
¯
RUST
Things corrode here, by
the sea
Everything touched by the
salt air melts
We melt together
The sea welds our bodies
I swallow salt water
Salt falls from your eyes
We watch the weather
together
Our fingers in the air
We listen to the wind and
squint at the sky
Under the cliff, water
bubbles
Thick as lava, thick as a
whisper, thick as blood
We rust together and
slowly flake apart
Red brown flecks drop drily from our soldered hearts
Elaine Morel
¯
BONDI
The hot light
clarifies...
What's bitumen?
A grey plume
fluttering like an
eyelid
to the horizon:
white line,
anvil of silver -
who cares?
In cars or on foot
we are climbing
the silken sides of a
parachute of blue;
it'll never come down
while this wind
holds...
Salty, murmurous,
interminable -
the booming prayer of
the sea:
you've forgotten the
words,
I've forgotten the
words,
but our bodies,
meeting the water,
recall syllables,
breathe deep at the
edge
of singing along...
-
Kerry Leves
¯
SERIES TWO
Developments at Bondi
Beyond the rotunda
nubile she stood
a slender figurehead
looking out to sea
flimsy draperies
clinging in the breeze.
For the photographer
late afternoon light
was just right.
For the model
the chill of early evening
induced a latent sensuality.
As a mother
I was stunned
by the beauty of this child
sailing towards womanhood
while standing
still
on a rock
by the sea.
Ann Davis
Ann’s latest book is Moths & Camels (kellyryan press, 2001)
¯
oxford st. softly the sun eases warmth through the petals of my pores and the hollow wind scores a symphony in hair. oxford st. bristles with shadows, buses collide with the air. by the church, six benches against the fence wait, like primed canvas waits for a painting. i
cross the road. sit down. become the first stroke. take out a smoke and search for a match, scratch at my ear, then pat a tune on my knees and wait for the nearsighted old men with their sneezes and wheezes to gather like dust… shelton lea
¯
EARTH'S EIDERDOWN
Omo-white
frills welcome
Jersey-cream sand-seam
asphalt bound at outer edge
cosseting spray the finest filling
upon which to quilt
sea and sky together
eggshell-highlighted clouds
softly lining navy-grey ocean
fluctuating like Thai silk to icy aqua
appliquéd to surface
dark angular strokes
Lowry figures transported
animated to ride
crests and curls of this coverlet.
C. Ann Hobson
¯
LACED WITH FOAM
a haiku-senryu series
sunrise casts
a long Koori shadow
Mckenzie's
Point
Bondi Beach
the seagulls listen
in many languages
on reaching Bronte Beach
sky
all the way down to the sea
wipeout!
the sea tugs
on her leg rope
cemetery,
St Thomas & Trafalgar
faces on the street
Festival of the Winds
the sea eagle soars above
a dragon kite
Sculpture by the Sea
a rogue wave undermines
the dolphin
Eastgate
Mall
an old man parked
on each bench
Waverley dawn
two dolphins hang
in a grey wave
Tamarama
my tinnitus drowns
in breaking waves
dawn monochrome:
surfer
with raised arms
Ben Buckler sunrise
the pacific ocean curves
back around me
City to Surf
a baby's stroller swamped
in a sea of legs
southerly buster
wind shows its shape
in lace curtains
john bird
¯
MAUSOLEUMS
Clustered together
like black marble bathing sheds -
as if the occupants
had just gone for a dip
and would shortly be back,
their limbs cooled,
dressing themselves slowly for lunch,
still a little sand
between their toes.
Mike Ladd
¯
WRITTEN IN SAND
He lived for the beach.
Down each morning and each afternoon
every day was framed - a beginning and an end.
He sniffed the winds and marked the tides
as the sea slopped and sucked his toes.
He never went away. Why would he want to leave this?
he'd say
and off he'd go, down for a surf or a swim
to come back with sand in his hair
and the sea in his eyes.
One morning he didn't come home.
I went down where the sea humped and heaved,
restless under its shivering skin,
at the base of the hill.
We waited, the seagulls and I
footprints in wet sand, our backs to the wind.
Shadows darting out of reach
as the sea's spume lacquered my eyes.
Perhaps he paddled out so far he
caught a wave
onto the other side of the world.
Prue Mackay
¯
STRINGS ATTACHED
Dad bought a kite for them
and on the beach
he showed them how, in turn,
the hold a string in each hand,
his hand on each of theirs,
and in control he played.
The kite swirled high in air
with strings attached;
restrained in loops
of figure eight it swooped,
dependent on the tethered end.
They, tiring of this hand-held fun,
returned to sand and spade -
unharnessed, made a castle.
He, with kite, played on.
Quendryth Young
¯
FROM THE HEADLAND
I climbed those stairs to Immortality & flung
your ashes upon the rocks below. The wind
whipped those shades into poems, cracked
their spines, sent them sailing on salt water
dreams, a place where sharks tore them into
shreds with sonnet sized teeth, leaving left
-over lines & half-eaten letters for gathering
litter
wary gulls.
Then, from the headland, I watched
their wings shifting the surface of my wingless
desire,
& when I fell, it was as a stone, & it carried
no weight.
richard hillman
from Weightless in Sydney
This concludes the second & final series of Written in Sand. Over four years we’ve
seen a range of work from talented
local new poets to some of Australia’s
best known. A range of voices & perspectives. Graphic design by Michael
White. Edited by Carol Chandler & Les Wicks for Meuse Press. Sponsored by
WAVERLEY COUNCIL.
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