Don't Tell Summer I Died
Jan Sullivan
call in the gold of youth and myth,
and dive through salted tubes to find
the I pristine who changed still is
anchored by sea-bed ripples the core
essential hermit the one
implanted in pacific womb,
a shell was suited commuted daily
and summer thought that I had died
now the exo-spiral is complete
replete laid out on ocean bed,
reborn to summer flotsam-jets
tarnished, granted but animate
summer forgives gives absolute
absolution on serving tray,
for barnacled and rudiment
to take and feast wash up survive
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Anzac Cove
Jan Sullivan
As waves slide over wet wash sand. The sea.
A seagull soars its cry in silence heard,
They fought and died for this. Gallipoli.
The beach is unremarkable, to be
Attacked, defended, fought for is absurd,
As waves slide over wet wash sand. The sea.
Today we come in peace, we want to see,
To work out why, but why? They simply erred,
They fought and died for this Gallipoli.
He's Digger, Johnny, the anonymity
By which the dead have come to be referred.
As waves slide over wet wash sand. The sea.
They sailed from home, hasty, young and free,
To see the world, to end up here, interred,
They fought and died for this. Gallipoli.
We hope we're wiser, seek a guarantee
That senseless waste of life can be deterred,
As waves slide over wet wash sand. The sea,
They fought and died for this. Gallipoli.
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Unrehearsed Theatricals
Lyn Oliver
Red, red,
Red like the theatre in Melbourne;
Where he stood,
Long dark wool coat,
Pierre Cardin shirt,
So handsome, so very handsome.
Against the red.
I remember it was Shakespeare we shared.
Not Julius Caesar, I think,
But Anthony and Cleo.
Flayed to the bone passion, pain.
Red: like the theatre in Melbourne.
If only he had been a lover
I could have folded him into a chocolate box
Tied with pink ribbon,
And taken him out
Infrequently
And sighed,
Sentimental sensual stirrings...
If only he'd been merely a lover.
But he thrust much deeper inside me.
Bone of bone and blood of my blood.
Red,Red
Red like the theatre in Melbourne.
I thought this the glorious beginning.
Act I of his adulthood.
We'd share Act II and III before I bowed out,
And he would conclude the final scenes.
I took his Pierre Cardin arm, so sure, so proud, so hopeful.
But there was
After all
Only this
One moment
Act I Scene I
Forever digitized before my eyes.
He was so handsome
So very, very handsome.
Against the red, the red
The red of the theatre in Melbourne.
Red of our shared blood
Red of the wrench of parting
Red of my eyes stained
As I remember him.
Only son.
Red, red
Red like the theatre in Melbourne.
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The Music Line
Andrew Slattery
Pop invented this thing and he called it
the Lithographone- a strange contraption
with metal rods clenching pencils
and bolted to a metre-long pianola scroll,
he said it "turns yer music into pictures."
Here's how it worked: you sharpen the pencils,
crank the scroll, feed in a sheet of butcher's paper
and put on a record of cello music
(he only played strings music,
said it gives you "a clear drawline").
Then he stands back, against the shed door
and rolls a smoke. I watch the manic pencils
scrawl lines and the scroll almost tumbling
off its hinge. I go to steady it and he says,
"Just let it be." And the scroll holds.
Like a child sees a cup or a lizard in a cloud,
he watches the pencils scratch in abstract swipes,
watching through slinted eyes and the rise
of smoke, waiting for the glimpses of music
that phrase up, fire a notion in his mind, then fade out,
obsolete. The patent office said it wasn't enough
of an improvement on the gramophone to warrant
a new patent. (Or of any use to anyone).
But I've seen no better loyalty to presence-
he scurries in, mid-song, to reload with a new
sheet of paper, then stands back against the shed door.
A violin solo jolts the pencil rods, I look up and he
stands there, eyes closed. The subtle quake
of his crimped eyelids only hint that an image
has formed somewhere in the tiring mania
of his enterprise; white ears pricked like receivers
and the stringnotes etched in skitters across his face.
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