Bird-man

The bird-man combs his lank, gray hair and coaxes it over his bald spot, securing his status as a local lady-killer.

He changed his window display yesterday. We lost the child-like water colours of Twin Towers and exploding jets, but gained Marilyn; white pleated skirt laughingly held by a hand that never washed dishes. There’s a plastic pink carnation taped to the side of the photo to add a festive touch. Bird-man likes his icons.

He tells me anything I want to know about the mating rituals of finches, the nervousness of peach faces, the competitiveness of minor birds.
He’s a fund of information, watching the world from his concrete front yard. Bum in deckchair. Radio on.

He leans over the front fence clutching two blue budgerigars and tells me that they are new, that they are lovers, that they kiss. “Do you want to see?” The birds duly peck at each others beaks as he leans their pretty heads close together. “They have their own song,” he announces gleefully. “Watch this”, he says and launches into a mellow rendition, swaying in time to his own waltz, a little bird in each fat fist.
“I give to you as you give to me, true love, (kiss kiss) true love.” (kiss kiss.)

“I had a girl once”, he confided to me one day. I listened politely, wondering what was going to come next. “I had a girl once”……………was all he said before letting the sentence peter out and looking wistfully away.

Camel Man

Even the cat sleeps, stretched out on the old bench,
tail curled around a basket of fading onions.
What else is there left to do in this heat but sleep?
The bone-bleaching wind drapes itself around the western wall,
licking what’s left of the tired geranium and shriveling it on the spot.
His barbed wire tongue slices like a razor blade,
striking first and asking questions later.
It’s an electrified fence in the top paddock
and there is history after history to dismantle
and she’s too tired to be polite.
Her heart holds rows of scorched bats.
Mummified mammals with fried feet,
swinging their mute protest from an unexpected obstacle.
The back door creaks as he sneaks onto the verandah,
torn fly-wire no match for the flying ants and giants Bogongs
that dart and flap and slap themselves on the nearest source of light.
The room is full of yesterday’s sex and tomorrow’s aspirations.
She feigns sleep as he stands still and b r e a t h e s –
each one waiting for the other to move first.
One slender, freckled arm peels back the thinning sheet like a promise
and he is once more allowed to slide beside her.
The tired soldier; the roaring wild thing, now a contrite child,
limp and suckling at her breast.

Whether the weather is stormy or dry
Whether the dingoes howl
Whether the heat is a wave in the sky
Whether the beasties prowl
Whether the dust gathers a curse
And blackens the world that I know
Whether the sun withers the trees
at the edge of the water hole
I will be waiting
I will be waiting
I will be waiting
For the Camel Man.

Carry the load that is destined to fall
Carry the pain in your heart
Carry the relic of earlier wars
Carry the sweet and the sharp
Carry the seed of a still summer night
And a memory of how we lay
Carry a map of the treasure you lost
And a star to point the way
You will be waiting
You will be waiting
You will be waiting
One day, Camel Man

When I was younger I lived on my dreams
I ran in a bare-foot way
Now I am older, it seems
That the skin on my feet
Is cracking and dry
And dreams give me fear
Of a Black-fella’s eye

He is the rain that can break the dry spell
He is the snake in the grass
He is the song of crickets at night
He is the brumby that pass
He is a man who’s never afraid
Of the dance of the min-min light
He is a wound here in my breast
That aches in the morning light
I wait forever, I am waiting
I wait for ever
For the Camel man.

Irises

The irises have opened.
Paper-thin petals beckon,
and as I gaze down their velvety throats
I marvel at such an elegant gift.

I have arranged them just so.
Stalks thrusting into the morning air,
lovingly held in a jug of amber glass.
Each perfect bloom humming its purple and yellow tune.

I like them more than the candle holders.
More than the T-towel with fish on it.
More than the tiny toe ring
and more than the box of courage,
though god knows I’m going to need that.
Their quiet virtue speaks and I listen,
willing them to stay alive a few days more.

The irises have opened.
I wish you could see them.
They take pride of place on my old polished table.
I have cleared the decks
for I want nothing cluttering up the space,
nothing distracting my eyes from their delicate charm.

The roses, though flash in their silver dressing
and surrounded by baby’s breath,
can’t compete.
Their effort of wooing me is wasted.
I avert my eyes as I pass their corner of the room.
For I am a faithful lover,
and I have pledged my allegiance
to the irises.

Jacaranda Blue

This is the colour of November
I remember this shade
Played on me since childhood
A birthday hue
Jacaranda blue.

This is the colour of my first kiss
The bliss of a heart
Starting in an eight year old chest
The sweetest debut
Under jacaranda blue.

This is the colour of a slow death
Breath laboured and torn
As dawn lights my father’s face
I whisper adieu
Watched by jacaranda blue.

Okavango

You are like the miracle of the Okavango
arriving at the height of my dry season.

I soak you up,
such liquid turning me lush and green,
restoring life to what has been
a white-bone landscape.

No predator can touch me now.
The bloodstained mouths retreat.
The jackals have fed off me for the last time.

Thanks to you
I have moisture enough to quench every creature
In this Kalahari.

Pogrom

Eight orphans of war,
their Russian mothers slaughtered in the snow,
stand and stare into the future,
pinched faces frozen for posterity.
Inadequately clothed on this grey Manhattan morning,
they are pieces of driftwood,
washed up on a foreign shore
with the promise of Liberty.

Shedding My Skin

If I was a gum tree, a ghostly bush giant,
I’d cast the old coat from my trunk and my limbs.
Proudly I’d stand as the thick shreds of bark
were discarded and carelessly tossed by the wind.

Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin

If I was a snake you could watch me undress,
I would peel off my eyelids with delicate grace.
When I left behind me the sheath that confined me
I’d languidly slither into your embrace

Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin

Mother nature is full of flair
she dictates which dress to wear.
You may want to keep that coat of grey
But when she decides her seasons are ready to change,
She'll orchestrate an exchange

If I was an insect, a black prince cicada
I’d tattoo a warning with abdomen drum.
I’d sing for my lover so she could discover
the longing that filled me as I had begun

Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin
Shedding my skin

Vicki

She slurs her speech like a drunk, legacy of a hit and run.
Nine months in a coma and she’s no sleeping beauty.
She’s middle aged and Greek and boasts whiskers some teenagers would envy.
She lifts her blouse and grabs her belly with both hands, oozing spare tyre,
smooth and slug-like, uncaressed terrain and says,
“What I do about this?” searching my face for a slim woman’s answer.
I tell her ,“It doesn’t matter, it’s not important, it’s what’s inside that counts.”
She nods vigorously and pats the white flesh back into place.

Next morning she comes shuffling along the lane in shoes that don’t fit,
dragging bandaged legs and shopping she shouldn’t be expected to carry.
I open the window and call out, “hey, Vicki, what are you doing?”
She waves some weeds in stubby slow hands and makes the sign of the cross on the front of the faded dress.
Shapeless bag. Third-hand rag. Fit for nothing, fit for nobody,
especially not one so lucky to be alive.
I know she wants to find better flowers to place on the alter.
I tell her to wait there and I’ll be down.

The snails are eating my gardenias but there is one perfect bloom in a sea of browning petals and leaves reduced to lace. This I pick and take to my friend.
She is amazed, hand on heart and says, “that beautiful, that beautiful.”
Its scent is heady and thick in the morning air and I hold it to her face and say, “Smell, Vicki.”
She pulls away in horror and says, “that for Jesus! Don’t smell. Don’t smell, that for Jesus!”
I assure her that Jesus wouldn’t mind sharing it with her.
She stares at me, heathen that I am. She looks at me for a full five or six seconds, measuring my words, weighing up the implications. Then slowly she just touches her lips in a kiss and continues weaving her way down the lane.

Witch’s Broom

The patchwork landscape slips by to the clickety-click of wheels on rails.
Bare trees are filigree against the low-slung sky.
Frost hovers.
My breath is a mint puff of fog on glass.
A black-haired child brushes the goldilocks of a dolly
with china blue eyes and a tiny scarlet mouth.
She’s kissing its face and murmuring,
“You won’t forget me, will you Clara?
You’ll never forget me, will you Clara?”
This train is a witch’s broom.
And you are my destination.