MelaleucaNumber 6: December 2009 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis

Table of Contents

Bali Dreaming Gail Arkins 3Life Passes by Gail Arkins 4Sweet Seasons Suite Gail Arkins 5View from the Fourth Floor Gail Arkins 8The bag man of the Alameda Greg Lewis 9The Leavings Greg Lewis 10the bush Christopher Kelen 11idyll; or, poem with most of a line from Sorescu

Christopher Kelen 14

postcard of Elysium Christopher Kelen 15Tai Mo Shan / Big Hat Mountain Christopher Kelen 16The Imperial Lynda Hawryluk 28Sandalwood Sunset Lynda Hawryluk 29The sky is darker at night Lynda Hawryluk 30

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2009; the arrangement of this collection is copyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2009.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/>.

1

2

Bali Dreaming

The palest of green leaves

kissed by the sun

a swathe of lemongrass

sways and flows

to the shore,

a flock of green-fleeced sheep.

Overhead, palms

dapple-shade an exercise class;

the tan and lean instructor

issues orders in French:

genou! -- knees up!

All obey.

A small animal bounds,

stops; alert eyes

dart, tail quivers.

It runs up the nearest tree,

leaps from frond to frond,

which shiver and rustle.

Beautiful Bali:

island of temples, gamelan and heat,

your people laugh

with their eyes and smiles,

even though I’m far away,

my heart remains, remembers.

Gail Arkins

3

Life Passes By

Peaceful

on a park bench,

front paws

by her sleek tail,

she sits;

gentle,

green-eyed,

and stares

at a butterfly.

Her white face, a jewel,

her nose blunt, ears pricked,

alert,

in the joy

of life

and just to be.

Later

on a verandah,

we sit

together,

contemplative,

we watch life

as it passes by,

my cat and I.

Gail Arkins

4

Sweet Seasons Suite

Summer

Crickets;

strident voices

heard at dusk, shrilling; still

unseen, imagine their shadows,

hidden.

Swelter;

hot north wind gusts,

eddies of arid brown dust

swirl; dry dams, water lost - vanished

like smoke.

Swatting

swarms of bush flies

nuisance pests of summer;

season of dusty heat, thirst and

mangoes.

Autumn

Listen:

torrents of rain

team from the leaden skies.

Silence assails the senses as

leaves fall.

Colours:

russet, gold, red

vibrant autumn pageant

before winter’s frosty kiss, cold

5

as ice.

Winter

Nature retreats

into herself,

time for sleep.

In burrows and hollows

curled up balls of fur -

not a whisker moves.

Morning frost,

children crack

ice on the birdbath;

frozen fingers

cold noses and toes;

thawed later

by the fire.

Trees stand

straight as soldiers,

leaves passed to another place,

wait for the new life

that will blossom soon

in Spring.

Spring

Goodbye winter blues.

September song;

joyful notes

herald new beginnings.

Spring enfolds the earth.

6

A bud unfurls

and greets the sun

a young leaf of sparkling green

quivers in a waft of warm breeze.

Spring hugs the earth.

Time of fresh focus

fragrant perfumes fill the air

love blossoms

harvest is bountiful.

Spring embraces the earth.

New life abounds

butterflies, birds and bulbs

a fanfare of foals flourish

baby lambs leap.

Spring caresses the earth.

Gail Arkins

7

View from the Fourth Floor

Night time, bright lights announce the coming planes;

a hard right now, they change to flashing red.

I gaze, mesmerised, through the window panes

at blinking lines of lights, my eyes transfixed.

The morning dawns, the corner park’s deserted,

the larches are bare, a silent statue stands

greeting the dawn, with blank eyes and averted;

small children run to pre-school, hand in hand.

A squirrel wakes and leaps from tree to tree,

faint sounds of birdsong permeate the air,

and feelings stir of peace, tranquillity--

perfect solutions to an aching despair.

The park’s heart beats now, people all around,

the day brings life, and love and treasures abound.

Gail Arkins

8

The bag man of the Alameda

I know the bag man of the Alameda, he is always here.He is never elsewhere.He drags his bags up and down the Alameda, never straying from this street.

I heard he was from Puerto Montt, from the rich central valley, and Arica.In him, the glaciers, and the wild waves pounding the long coast.

In him, the northern desert, dry and dusty, and the flowering of his heart amid the arid land.

I see him every day outside the subway - the eternal traveller, with the Andes behind him,casting long shadows over his life.

Greg Lewis

9

The Leavings

Our pacing days galloping in to yearsturn now, and now our memories yellow,break photo frames and scratch clean surfaces.What will become of the leavings?

Years turning generations,Christmas decorations are sooner erectedand sooner taken down,tinsel dusted in the autumn cleaning.

Leaving in our wake – weight loss obsessions, shiny collectables,careers endured with holidays on the coast,and life under the regime of the heart.

Lovers, teeth and birthdays recede,and all that is left is Christmas tinselraining down somewhere,as the leavings take flight.

Greg Lewis

The Bush

1

which is the wild out-of-order,snakes hunting

under tin left lie

garden too thick for weeds this unnaming

its chorus birds commonly bright

2

minds its business we make ours

yields to spirit its sustainingbest model from democracy dark wordless turn,

self tending, ruthless

its arcane angels knot flux

in lines of flight unto all selves

absent of law

flimsy instinct joins logic to one wish – the guiltless having of all this

3

and hearth by hearth it breathes to burn

a curlicue pens home this one tree left cut down to size

so when it's mine it is no longer

comes back in its pocket of risesthe bush is a trap

sets camouflage falls in and all it catches

bush

4

11

another sun spun, a next dicey sky

of maverick opinion, told-youinscrutable polysemy

song between the cityfoldscome clumsy in its own confiding

the bush is all unfinished businessall neighbouring and all horizon

team of madmen tied to one tunea tidemark shows where we retreat

5

blade hailing the forest,legend made fading

memorabilia: smug of stockwhip, gumleaf

this narrow harvestsets beast and grass to corner sun

gathers as a blowfly to what was meat

takes no convincing – its job to go nowhere

6

midst of limitsmost natural of histories,

gospel uncut in the woodyou can always come home

– it cures your axe,

– a waste of pages cash scrawls down the bush beside my means as such

7

pack up but where you come from's as gone as what was here

so we among all animals are party to the bush

take down each sky made out in ribs

12

a cross hangs bright above

8

leaves tracks to run a course paws takeand forward still the world is forestwe tongues a thread of it spun forthone species relieving others of hope

barks at the edge a dog at night burningthe hinge of sentience it mourns

9

beautiful old cars pass through the busheach to its picnic thanks the shade

this shallowest of burials

10

much admired the passage of ritesbecause once you were my besotteda frightened face to rouse such lovethe bush is an animal gathering homefrom its great arc unmeaning

Christopher Kelen

13

idyll; or, poem with most of a line from Sorescu

a wind shaped tree in the meadow of sleep youth after Lethe lain green in clover and death is here too in the blue of the sky cloud of a man comes floating and this the steadying rain speaks heart to heart pulse over these roofs of heaven head in the lap of the reaper

Christopher Kelen

14

postcard of Elysium

life’s a flash and then you’re ash eternity ghost floating ether aboveflames under the pot soul first into the void I do impressions like Ulysses posing as no one at allafter a whileI want to come clean but by then don’t rememberI went swimming that’s itgive me blood and I’ll tell what you wantto hear

Christopher Kelen

15

Tai Mo Shan / Big Hat Mountain

1

every night the mountain climbs over

whatever I dreamit remains

beginning up the mountain sits for the world to roar round it

‘Big Hat Mountain’ –when I get past the treeline the sun will show me what I’m not wearing

these feet before me as elsewhere mine

great volumes of the sky halt herethat the lungs might touch what makes them

past last of shade of people sparse I move mountainously

the track stands across my climbing

16

2

trees themselves climb– making, losing breath like me who bends them? who’s bent to them?

everything calls me away...look this leech! – a watch, my fur grown into garments, to hold the mountain off

head full of, eyes too, mouth full up even in this making silence I cast none of this off

paradox – this stillness sweats from me my presence in my means deferred that I belong where I’m no part and have not hide nor nesting

I take the mountain up now time has pitched its tent in methe city’s trafficking sloughs

enough blank space

17

3

smoulders into its autumn burden

someone is burning in the dry gully

...through the thickness of air a broken umbrella caught in tree forks the broken wind burnt here

far below tugs work the harbour dry the sea faced off in its cargo of sunk truths its grim old forevers as good as today

18

4

a day with the mountain – what does it mean?

the wind is like rubble piled in a silent forest where the birds have lost sway

then the forest itself bends under divinity

centuries back the mountain gets into me I must climb

the mountain can only be taken the wrong way: shrines and incense fall up its sides in the way of devotion

folk bring their birds to sing with the wildthe wind stirs up in its cornersas the sound the ear must stir from a shell Big Hat – and the city like ears sticking out

faith occults the gradientas if the mountain were to be believed

19

5

striding in the sun’s vast strokes my wrist minutely glints I bring this cast of light on the mountain to borrow an intensity

sun stands either side – can’t be found out

I pull the mountain up over my head

bears my sullen breath away the mountain confesses me I have only to come

there is something between me and it and not a form of understanding

to take up with the mountain is the hardest thing to do

eyes down at my pencil the mountain won’t grudge does not need to remember has forgotten nothing

the boredom of the mountain bigger than any of us

what is that speech below silence there?

20

6

breath down in rich seams older than speech

I am taking down the mountain’s portrait opinion of the place

in each lit square faces pay for the privilege of turning their backs on the mountain

a fine roof for all that has buried and built and the sun singing down therepast roots, past all dim hoards lost before measuring ever began all that the mountain is a fine roof

21

7

this going nowhere stills my bonesthe better of me got

as home yearns for me how could it not?

when I myself am pacing elsewherehow should the mountain manifest?who can see it in me?

morning slouches with the mountain noontide stands over, sun takes a set, quickens, sky of bones and insects forgetting

a mountain of words against the mountain symptom of which is self-erasure

climbing the mountain I am invisible does this get me nowhere?

stones washed raw the mountain in theory is indivisible if it leaves by the truckload truckloads are left

22

8

some divination senses me

under these weathered hands of season I make out the character for mountain

a bell sounds where the path comes stillwhich deities does the mountain guard?

faces worn with kindness uphill

in shanty sides and tricks of dwelling even this bent old joke of a mountain half erased and ready for more eyed but if the dollar bidsidle in such fraught desire I honour hoping that there’s honour in it

23

9

uphill choose one rock to sit on the mountain limbs rest two bodies together

which stills the way?

the fewer my footfallsthe more in the mountain

stood among clouds its windows thin mists

my mountain on the window hereof which the clouds are capable

24

10

dusk is a last turn wrestles the mountain

descending, picking burrs from clothes plucking ants from my fur sweat dries cold chill sets on my neck I learn I have given the mountain my scarffurther down the mountain offers a glove and then another for the same hand different, another colour I decline again

look in the morning – how the mountain still stands no hint of gloating

25

11

still life that we have ornamented catch the angles from it casts over pales by comes under a spell

nights homeI face the mountain my building casts a shadow over the mountain shows no faceI play the guitar a tune on the mountain

quavers like sparks spun the stars – such comrades dim about me

the mountain frames days buried looks on in its auspicious graves inauspicious though to look

once in a hermitfold black night of barking under your smoky blanket of breath grass curls up toesjackhammer blowtorch – these are the fauna

a postcard in the museum of what was the mountain a foolish old man grinds tiger bones

26

12

after the day’s tides lock up the mountain we all do, on all sidesthe mountain is no longer at large

ever since night upended here these bells wrung in this vindication the mountain pursues me in my darkness and in my knots of future

I kneel for the mountain until it recalls me – we have all the world’s time here

god of the mountain answer me this to be true to this place and to the earth underto be true to this air, my here and now whom must I mock? how?

Christopher Kelen

27

The Imperial

The Swords sliced the stage right openElectrifying chaos in a three-piece suitTorn t-shirts and a gaping head woundStitched shut after last nights riotThe headline act at an orgy in a canefieldOne month to the crush and time to let looseHere seasons cannot be challengedThe canecutters slow to start this yearWatching with dark eyes from the side of the stageReady to leap on overenthusiastic puntersA churning mass of tanned bodiesRumbling to the music in front of themSweat drips from the ceiling fansIn a cavernous club by the riverThe crocs cock an eye then doze againTo the sound of the Swords in mid-songA makeshift nest is all we’ve gotA swag, a tarp, some fishing line for a clotheslineWe’ll travel to the next town soon enoughConstruct another campsite on the high groundAnd work to the sounds of cicadas hummingYou sit outside now, away from this crowdEyes bright in the blackness of night Sitting on a rock soaking tired feet in the swollen creekAs I watch another Sword cutThick air with a razor sharp guitar lickThe fish left the river years agoOnce the Imperial started Friday night Punk nightAnd the backpackers came to stay

Lynda Hawryluk

Sandalwood Sunset

Grey butcherbirds scatter into the silence of a lazy still afternoonHousebound felines settle back to sleep, antagonised no moreThe last shrill peep of a honeyeaterChanges blue sky to a pinkish sheenFull green leaves of a mango tree rustle And shake from invading masked banditsBatwings stretched out against a deepening duskIt’s so quiet on Zonka’s Hill you can hear the waves lapping at Fisherman’s shoreThe screech of little blacks like fingernails on a blackboardBreaking the gloaming in twoMango tree murder spree over they head towards Wreck PointSharp silhouettes against a glimmering bay the full moon ripe and pendulous hanging over the headlanda mound of dense bushland, solid and stillthe tide bounces off the Bluff and a cool breeze blows through the Pandanuslike a sneaky possum stealing forbidden fruitdarkness settles over Cooee Bay like a mosquito net protecting usthe red glow of a coli in the window blinks in the moonlightcandles flutter dancing by themselvesa radio in the next street floats across to usas we sit and soak in this sandalwood sunset

Lynda Hawryluk

The sky is darker at night

A balmy breeze blows through palm trees

Happy in their natural environmentAnd sleepily watching faint lights flickering in the distance They might belong to a car or a house Or something you don’t want to think about

Every tree could be an abrupt ending to the journey home

And every shadow beckons you closer towards the darkA thousand eyes line the roadsideWatching and waiting for the next car to passWho knew kangaroos were voyeurs?

Driving along though endless blackness

Belying the vast and empty country; it’s out there someoneIn the car is cool and comfortableAnd gives a false sense of safetyBut it could all be over in seconds

The sky is much darker at night

Without the benefit of the reflected lightOf a humming cityscapeA different kind of city sits out there in the darkHiding behind bushes, away from the headlights of an oncoming car

Lynda Hawryluk