Balcony

Dusk. The freeway's haze; Green Australian gum trees Soak up the spectrum. Sparrows in the elms: Fans dressed for a football match Scale autumn's ladder. Australian icon: Southern Cross windmill, rusted By the passing cars. Siamese cats scan The corrugated iron Roof for a sparrow. Old kiln-works chimney, You burn the earth into walls Made of white moon bricks. Red light makes silence. A tram turns under the moon. Green light makes more noise. TV antenna picking up beams like a glass filled with week-old wine. When the rosellas fly Over my apartment block, I love the country. An art gallery. A Mercedes parked outside. I'm missing something. A gigantic moon Drowns out the traffic's tide. Hear my balcony. First published in Ginyu (Troubadour), Japan, 2004.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Before ... and ... after!

Image
I got my haircut just before leaving Australia on July 1 and, until last week, hadn't had it cut since. Okay, so it's only been four months but as you can hopefully see from the image above it was developing nicely into a Steve Winwood style, with a touch of bogan at the back. Normally I keep it pretty short however and the major question was whether I would be able to stop myself from getting it cut before returning to Australia, presumably looking a little more like Tom Hanks in Castaway . I needn't have troubled myself worrying about it. Last Thursday night I got a call from an American friend named Sean, with whom I share quite a few musical tastes, and with whom I had some great conversations that night in the suitably-named Ho Bar in Hongdae, including one where we assigned 1970s bands to colours of the rainbow. Six shots of tequila, five beers and two gin and tonics later, I asked him whether he had a pair of clippers. Answering in the affirmative, he led me ba
Read more

Tram Recovery Vehicle

Last night I was walking along Queens Parade when along came an old green tram. I think it was of the kind that they refer to nowadays as "W-Class": like the City Circle trams, only green. The tram was going very slowly, heading along Queens Parade towards Westgarth. I began to worry for the tram, due to the huge hill just the other side of the Westgarth shops. I could just picture the tram chugging all the way to the top, only to slide back down again. Then I saw a truck coming along behind the tram. Unlike the tram, the truck was all white. On its side was painted in black letters: "TRAM RECOVERY VEHICLE". My first instinct was to ask why the truck was behind the tram instead of in front, pulling it up the hill. Then I saw the huge bulldozer style front bullbar on the truck and understood: the TRV's job was to push , as well as (presumably) "catch" the tram should it lose its brakes. Kind of like a parent pushing a child on a swing. Well, not rea
Read more