readithearit

SENT LETTER

Once upon a time

hand scribed letters had moment,

especially if waited for, or if

unannounced, had hearts racing

as fumbling fingers broke a seal,

or if reluctant gum was hard fast

like my maiden aunts lips,

giving nothing away until

one will had its way with the other.

Once upon a time,

the paper quality

gave off the signals, scents,

a sense of the other,

the writer,

embossing added gravity.

These days emails spill on to your screen,

egalitarian, queued by 24/7 timing,

each address as bland as the other,

and mouse clicking has all the drama

of milk delivery, as email addresses

open themselves to reveal a chosen or

a default font, with no sense of shaped

letters, idiosyncrasy of pen, wide sweeps,

an insight into the familiar hand, turn

of phrase, word choice, not spell checked.

There were days when bland type-faced

telegrams had no character of font, but

their existence and their presence, in

the hand of a uniformed messenger, was

their power to reveal issues of moment,

in trembling wavering hands.

A computer, or phone alert will never

compete with the shrill whistle of the

postie, the punctuation mark that was

the key to a thousand possibilities,

limited only by anxiety levels and

emotional barometric readings.

BIRD MAN

In the morning when the sun

emerges over the limestone cliffs

turning creamy grey green to

reflecting shards of bright rock

right down to wave breaks at

the juncture between limestone

ledges replete with seaweed and

scuttling crabs, wave interregnum,

the sunlight will reflect on the white

sea eagle, the gulls, the terns and

their busyness of flight by feathers

all twitching in the winds near the

singing rock where morning caroling

opens up the potential of the day. This

totemic bird, a man who fell from

great heights, down the granite

headlands just around the corner,

is a man who returns each day,

provides wisdom and feathers to

the Kadaicha man, who tracks lightly

across our consciousness, gives us

pointers for the next stage of our

journey, a fly past, regal sharing of

innate longitudinal witness,

a sense of going forward

with bright intentionality.

These days I see doors once closed
now slightly ajar, shadowed slits
of accessibility, possibility
asking questions of myself
why in my youth and wild exuberance
urge to take to have as if
no time to waste the modus operandi,
grab and take no prisoners
times winged chariot breathing heavily
now pause take a breath maybe
see through the gap raised arms
nymph disrobing free in privacy
no need for concern, just there to be
liberty and sense of spaciousness
being doing knowing, there’s the rub
free from the sense of interloper
free fear itself no need to knock,
entry breaks illusion and what was
is no more, the trick is to know when,
to simply enjoy the flower, ripe fruit,
cicada ex-chrysalis drying its wings
newly in the sun, without touching
without desire to feel or acquire,
for in acquisition comes knowledge
that possession is loss 
never knowing the difference 
between
illusion and reality
doors open
doors closed.

Lights on in the dog watch hours
have I fallen asleep at the wheel,
the vessel seeming to lurch and
shudder, not quite off course but
in need of a correction, a check of
the compass heading, seas getting
suddenly lumpy, the steady sliding
through the water, like a sharp knife
in oil, a sluicing sound, no sense of
resistance, not quite widdershins,
a sense of going in circles. Where is
the check list for emergencies, what
dream is it that I have just escaped
from, what disorientation is it that I
have steered in and out of; seems it
was my thoughts were disconnected
from my task, like news from afar, a
dove with an olive branch, a pigeon
with message attached to its leg, a
portent, possibility of a new reality,
these years of growing uncertainty
can make the dial sweep wildly, out
on the wide waters, just when course
setting seemed to be on automatic, a
message of import, no point in taking
this messenger by its thin neck and
giving it a quick twist, it will not change
the information, time must now be taken
to absorb slowly and quickly, grim reaper
images need to be put in perspective, in
the light of day, when obscured stars will
no longer be a problem, and the compass
direction can be timely reassessed. How 
easy it is to lose your footing, needing to 
reach for the hand rail moist from sea spray, 
for desperate reassurance lost by stealth.

Easterly winds bring no joy, only endless

dust and howling wolfish sounds in the

thrashing trees, a destination of the mind

and the soul as the truth of our existence

in this wet corner of the continent, well so

it used to be, in the way we remember how

things were. Like the plants, we have lost

our sense of rhythm and the knowledge of

there being a time and a season for each

green plant or husbanded animal, and

terms of reference for new growth and harvest,

are like dropped bags of mixed seeds, sown as they

are scrabbled back into the packets, willy-nilly,

take your chance, come what may emerge,

thrusting itself from the earth in a strange

and unfamiliar season.

Politicians deny what they see, vignerons

relocating south for climates they remember,

graziers’ paddocks being changed from stock to crops,

bleached reefs cannot be ignored as aberrations,

and any self respecting person who sniffs the

breeze like the ancient mariners, knows

                       there is a storm coming,

                     yes a fucking big one

turning one’s back will provide no shelter.

In those days of stolen crisp apples
pressed in young mouths, not yet
able to form the words thievery,
rapscallion, trespass, we lay back
on green grass looking skywards,
knowing sweetness mixed with
sourness was a new sensation,
unaware of its grip on our way
of thinking, its enduring presence,
we were too young to see the dress
swirling in the distance as more than
the presence of a girl, the rising hem
as nothing more than legs, breezes
having their way, her tresses flowing
likewise, as one of those things
coming from just being there, us/we
without an agenda, any sense of
anything, except days stretching out
into each other, without darkness or
bitter winds, with teeth that bit, rough
tongues that cut, put us in our place.

In the parks, the old men

rake the stones in the gardens

around the nodding koi ponds

becoming haiku in the still water,

hiding under green canopy shade

of wide leafed water lilies, sedate

in suspension, concentric circles

in water, in the raked stones,

parallel neatness that seemed

to echo his thought patterns,

as he circled the core of his

thoughts, of his being,

his mind drifting back to

the compounds in the jungle,

bamboo stakes and fences,

military order,

instilling Bushido thinking

into the white faces of weak

men who allowed themselves

to be prisoners, blood red but

bloodless, these allied soldiers

who grinned and gave

smart answers from skin and

bone angularity, even when

coming out of ten days in the

hot steaming confinement in

cages for silly mindless birds

of men. Laconic he later learned

helped to congeal blood, harden

skin, will. These were missing

pieces in the garden of his mind,

his questions of propriety, and

vague memories that somehow

were connected and disconnected.

He envied the old men who sat

and meditated in the deep shade

of the city gardens, asked himself

questions of dissembling, the neat

starched, folded garments sliding

from the Geisha girl, a willingness

and submission about which his

thoughts frightened him, threatened

his probity, asked him to pick up

the pieces of the jigsaw that had

spilled itself on the table before

him, once more looking for

the patterns, missing pieces, this way

and that, upturned, a disorientation

of well known patterns. Neat girls

of the sisterhood already united in

their downcast smiles, their stuttering

steps. Vacuous life between

innumerable tea ceremonies where

somehow all of the pieces were in place.

Something woke in me last night,

visited my youthful pursuits, with

a younger partner who seemed more

than familiar, who was familiar. Was

it the candlelight and the cold bottle of

sparkling burgundy, that cast aside shadows,

brought to the fore, no time for foreplay

these days, a curious late adolescent couple,

a walk across a bridge, in the big city,

holding hands, cradling the future

only fifty-nine years ago.

In a word it cannot be said, sharp
barbed and cutting edged, a way
in through the narrow wound when
blood eases and amoeba-like mind
gathers around, locks in meanings, it
could have various forms of nuance,
selected in search of a sentence, or
a metaphor, or a simple simile maybe,
even an iambic pentameter or tap
dancing trochee, a problem these days,
words escape, me will not come when
bidden, even when the image is clear
letters will not stand to attention when
sergeant major voice is invoked, still
not on parade, blacking boots, putting
ear plugs in, chatting slang wise, to keep
outsiders on the outside, only those who

know the inner workings, stream of – what
was it again – consciousness, like waking
again in the same day, sentence not yet
complete, in need of an extra breath to
get the last gasp out, what do the French

say, dejas vous, help me please,
to organise these words, to make more
sense mouthing at me as if I am deaf,
when dead it is I am to the world, it
having forgotten it had left me out here
on the blank page, waiting to be brought
back into the warmth, why won’t they
come and take me in, draw the curtains,

close off the final sentence’s clause,
leaving me once more in darkness, peace.

Images of rows of seats on the footpath,
chattering people looking out to others in
their promenading finery through steam
of rich coffee, clouds of white smoke, clever
words and sophistry exhaled en passant,

sweet lingering sugar on the tongue from
crisp croissants, and the hovering, hanging
on to the taste of the morning, smart cold
cheeks, crossed swords of clever arguments,
and the question of whether to eventually
descend into the Metro at 12 Abbesses, to
surface at a point of interest somewhere else
in the City, or to ascend the steps to Dali’s
Musee, and to mingle in the crowds at Mont
St Michel, touristico painters, purveyors of images
unreal, looking out over Montmartre, its grey
leaden rooftops, clustered ridge top chimneys,
like those people on the footpaths already at
their third Absinthe, a world now becoming of
their making, wondering why they have not yet
met Eliot or Joyce, or Hemingway hard at it, his
pen already out of ink, blunt pencil in need of his
trusted pocket knife, what would they have made
of the burnt hulk of Notre Dame, sickly wood smells
still in the air, these modern custodians sucking for
breath in a plague of their own making, now out of
control, better not to think on it, just have another
of the green stuff and let time creep on regardless.