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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780702250415 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | University of Queensland Press |
| Publication date: | 08/01/2012 |
| Series: | David Unaipon Award Winners Series |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 64 |
| File size: | 2 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight
By Samuel Wagan Watson
University of Queensland Press
Copyright © 2000 Samuel Wagan WatsonAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7022-5041-5
CHAPTER 1
of muse
a prelude
dropping a knife
on one's foot
is nothing, like
dropping tequilla
on one's tongue
yet
her floral dress
begged me to ...
where as the night
well,
it just stayed outside
magnesium girl
I was kissing the girl
with magnesium breath,
all over me
her burning hot magnesium
ahh to touch
the boundaries of delight
and pain
for you only hurt those you can love
when lust becomes a mercenary
for the weak hearted of humanity
the magnesium breath
inviting me to her bowl of splinters
nothing but the frozen tears of her last love
picked up in the rain
and our relationship,
a shrouded threesome,
death always being
that silent partner
oh that magnesium girl
with the strawberry hair
how my black flesh and rye once lingered
to be one with you
my magnesium girl
after 2am
I wept along with the night
two
black
hideous dimensions —
myself and 3am
releasing a crystal tide of bottled insanity
while the shadows mocked
our embrace
and from then on
I knew that forever
night
would be my mistress
back seat driver
love me
oh back seat driver
love you
into a state darkest under covers
and wilful damage of day
entice me
oh back seat driver
to the dove of peace
maybe your bulldog tomorrow?
with any luck from yesterday
save me
oh back seat driver
from the bitterness
of phobia waste
and packages of human frost
kill me
oh back seat driver
for an older audience at dawn
and with my blood taken
make a name for me
nothing else matters ...
on the river
it was a drive through the sleeping industrial giants
and thirty minutes before a flight
along Brisbane's vein of union disputes
to a secluded spot on the river's edge
with it's cold sea breezes and dead things,
we kissed
and said goodbye
discovering that we both had feelings for deserted factories
and abandoned mechanical bits
and for each other
thirty minutes before a flight
and two writers can't find the words
to ease the tearing of departure
serenaded by a blow-torch on a rusting iron hulk upon the water
grey smoke billowing from the old power station
the landscape studded with electric fences and weeds
her and I at home amongst it all
we kissed
and said goodbye
waiting for the good man
we kissed goodbye at the terminal
and upon seeing you for the last time
I felt the good man leaving,
the good man that existed in the hotel room
the good man that loved you across the table, linen and fine wines
the good man that appreciated your perfume
and ran his fingers gently through your hair
catching in his rings as for you he listened
for the laughter while resting in your breasts
I felt the good man leaving
as if I couldn't convince him that I'd changed
that you had made a difference
and that I could breathe easy in the darkenss of
early morning
I felt the good man leaving
and now
I'll be missing both of you
raindrops fall in vain
for Rebecca Edwards
raindrops fall in vain
and abuse
the kindness of my soul
I hear them landing outside,
an audience to a short-lived affair
continuum of vertigo, a song
soothing,
yet, absolute
a spiral dance to an unwelcoming ground
where they are of little regard
but slaves and remedy to dry spirits
that one can envy such courage to fall
in the open
and share their end
alone
chloe in the window box
in the darkness
it's increasingly difficult to find the corkscrew
and Chloe in the window box
with that bottle of pinot noir
or the memory of her
that left six months ago
and light no longer shining through
her window
where as a sentimental act
we clasped and watched the stormbirds
that no longer cross the shoreline
Neptune no longer taunting
peering through his transparent keyhole
no more 2am's
cut out of the darkness with a corkscrew
and as time stretches on
a distorted picture of Chloe,
an empty bottle of pinot noir
the postman's privilege
most typewriters spit out
that exact decibel
like the coughing silencer
of an assassin's weapon
or the sound of the postman's bike
through the walls of my boardinghouse room
through the walls
the postman is my assassin
blah, blah, blaaaaah, blaaaaah, blaaaaaaah
the maddest allegro to haunt me,
I dare not look out
I am a ghost of my own doing
waiting
for the knock-backs from editors
for the "we'd like to pass your work on to the
senior literary editor
before we make a decision"
for the debt collectors
and finally
the letter that says,
"please come home"
musing: the graveyard shift
for Sarah
as I enter a writers' graveyard shift
sheltered by a desk lamp
a lover is nesting within the covers
breathing softly
paper and pen on the window ledge
third floor
overlooking the river,
dark wet stretching leather
red buoys flicker
on/off
signal thoughts to the writer
on graveyard shift
looking for inspiration
in poorly lit boats shuttling past
the crew all strangers to me
as I am almost a stranger to the person in my
bed
promises made as solid as the murkiness before
us
where sharks hide amongst it all
vicious, devouring, still-life anecdotes
the ideal machine of consequence
and still, still
with all this darkness
no inspiration
a day of sweet caressing,
the best of my thoughts
whispers in the linen
across her body
into her eyes
chases away the dark creations
filled with something that felt like love a long, long time ago
hands left shaking
unable to paint,
a dark portrait of self
new farm is closed
the ex-muse is on her way home for good
to the walls of stale inspiration
her little boy in tow
while a lone figure of the shadows he has cast
stands in the doorway of an upstairs balcony,
waiting
rain falls of this morning
cleanses the streets of the valley
water upon arduous attempts to dream
this rain is his last witness
as the car is packed
typewriter and clothes await the still room
across town
yet, his smell will linger for some time in the halls
and it has been quiet
and there will be nothing good to come
of his presence here
and there is no love poem preserve,
goodbye magnesium girl
the debate has faded
with the feelings of eternity
drowned in the misguidings of gringos and
dingos
the typewriter waits, a patient mistress
he says goodbye finally to the emptiness
darkness ever and always faithful
but in the surrendering there is solace
and the last parody in this passing is conducted
he locks the door and hangs a sign out-front
NEW FARM IS CLOSED
meandering
white stucco dreaming
sprinkled in the happy dark of my mind
is early childhood and black humour
white stucco dreaming
and a black labrador
an orange and black panel-van
called the 'black banana'
with twenty blackfellas hanging out the back
blasting through the white stucco umbilical
of a working class tribe
front yards studded with old black tyres
that became mutant swans overnight
attacked with a cane knife and a bad white
paint job
white stucco dreaming
and snakes that morphed into nylon hoses at the terror
of Mum's scorn
snakes whose cool venom we sprayed onto the white stucco,
temporarily blushing it pink
amid an atmosphere of Saturday morning grass cuttings
and flirtatious melodies of ice-cream trucks
that echoed through little black minds
and sent the labrador insane
chocolate hand prints like dreamtime fraud
laid across white stucco
and mud cakes on the camp stove
that just made Dad see black
no tree safe from tree house sprawl
and the police cars that crawled up and down the back streets,
peering into our white stucco cocoon
wishing they were with us
the crooked men
my Dad straightened out the crooked men
in the old laundry shed
above the fishing gear and jars of nuts and bolts
where on a rack
their naked, twisted forms did hang
from the neck
body hair like pine-needles
restrained by welded g-clamps
and steel-trap teeth
hydraulic arms and pullies
and a shiny drip-tray on the floor
to catch the expelled, blackened hate
sometimes eight sometimes ten
the crooked men
with faces like prunes
tattoos and scars
and tongues that could no longer work
but engulfed by obscenities
as they leaked night and day
in that old laundry shed
and they were not grateful
or ungrateful
the crooked men
nor were they in debt to my father
and his amazing rack
in these days when their hate
would trickle through my backyard haven
drowning the smells of Saturday afternoon
and freshly cut grass
and the yap of the labrador
and innocence lost
to the crooked men
falling mother sky
on the returning of the rain
and her crystal dot-paintings that blanket the wetland
singing for her children
with the gentle stipple
she called out once,
and paused in the unanswering,
she screamed down twice
harmonising with thunder
and still
no Turrubul
the animals panicked amongst themselves
as the clouds swirled and fumbled
while the land had not an interpretation
for their acts of madness
so the rain cried onto the wetland
for Turrubul
her vein
until the night birds joined her
as the little spirits all scattered
searching the darkness
and the cycles left unattended
by Turrubul law,
the elements left
insane
brown water looting
hardly stopping to think
that adults can hurt you
we'd wander the mudflats alone —
brown water looting
make-shift fishing poles
and mosquito song
for hours and hours
wandering
away from our parents
away,
looking for where the feral pigs slept
or where swamp wallabies crash through
and us, never thinking
about the kids who don't make it home
kids who were just like' us,
innocent explorers
brown water looting
with no shoes, no money
no fear
just the eternity of the mudflat
the sun never setting
jetty nights
it was an arm that stretched over the mud and
sharks
from under the song of the swaying pines in the
darkness,
the night water fondles the pylons
as mullet dance in the cold blackness afraid of
nothing
we too, walk against our curfew
we see the eyes under the jetty,
phosphorescence and ectoplasm
under the death of the floorboards
looking up from the muddy grave
stealing a glance at the clear cover of stars
a fishing boat drones somewhere out there on
the water
and in the distance a buoy flashes red lights and
green
and you suddenly feel the loneliness out there
that's where you can escape to
the smell of mashed potatoes and chops hang in
the air
drags our attention back to the shoreline
cottages
Ray Martin chatters somewhere in the glow of sixty watt lighting
we turn and face the clatter of dead wood
our lifeline home
and leave our jetty,
leave away the mystical squawks of curlew in
the swamp
that eerie bleakness we came to love,
this innocence we behold
that we had nothing to fear but our parents'
scorn
carefree
you'd never forget the pelicans
because it was their home too
and that occasional one who'd try and swallow
your baited hook
while we cast out into an endless mould of
brown and blue skin
sometimes catching our line in its enormous and
clumsy wingspan
floating around the jetty constantly boasting
that huge gullet
so close to the pylons covered in poison oyster shells
that waited for the bare flesh within our gait,
inviting our bare flesh to dance
Mum worried that we'd get sick from eating
them
Dad saying the sewage from the caravan park
would sometimes flow near where we fished
and that the oysters bathed in it too
little buckets of a few bream
silver catch of a meal
and the persistent cats at our ankles
lapping up the smell
running up past the shop
a front window necropolis of stonefish in
vegemite jars
suspended in a vault of clear alcoholic brine
still deadly in death
and us in bare feet all the time
three kids in stonefish ... infested mud
playing russian roulette —
one good pair of running shoes between us
the mosquito room
a melody on the edge
of monotone madness
rampant
unstoppable
uncompromising
in the mosquito room
it knows not an end
out of respect for the thunder
it does not pause
for the seductive summer rains,
millions of black, micro-winged demons
playing violins at break-neck speed
zipping through the air
malicious
flirtatious
at home
in the mosquito room
mudflat
dried up and cracked
remnants
of prehistoric reptile scales
huge and menacing,
a chocolate flesh
that twists along the shores of the wetland
— but waiting for the veil of the incoming tide
is the monster
content when cold and hungry for
the mass that rolls with the current
it never sleeps
deadman's mouth harp
walking along a bitumen shoulder
'round the witching hour
it comes through the darkness
an unwelcome companion
that levels the grass and foliage,
a whistle
like a crystal spear
cuts the stillness into fine pieces
a maiden carried in the wind
sultry, yet hollow,
a tune from a deadman's mouth harp
a cry that follows the night
chilled and evil
it echoes the little spirits in the breeze
black lips and diamond teeth
it strays beyond the ebony cover of sky
spat out of a deadman's mouth harp,
played over and over
a monotone symphony
from the tired beast
of damned and lonely eternity
it starts
it starts
from the darkness of mangrove dreaming
unable to surrender to time,
later stalked in death,
the stoic's domain is the open marshland
under a red sky looming
where the arthritic bones refuse to bend
broken in the blatant malice of the elements,
and even then
its dignity is only served
by the chilling shrieks of stormbirds
astride crumbling limbs
whose space is a waiting graveyard
and valuable a wooden tear
where no mercy spills from the thousands
of lush, green enveloping peers,
so laden with life
so unsparing
that no two trees help one another
amid the birth and dying cycle of this wetland
if only it could speak
and touch human ears
someone may then appreciate
the frozen insanity
that accompanies
the greying presence
of a decaying mangrove tree
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Of Muse, Meandering and Midnight by Samuel Wagan Watson. Copyright © 2000 Samuel Wagan Watson. Excerpted by permission of University of Queensland Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Contents
Title Page,OF MUSE, MEANDERING AND MIDNIGHT,
1: of muse,
a prelude,
magnesium girl,
after 2am,
back seat driver,
on the river,
waiting for the good man,
raindrops fall in vain,
chloe in the window box,
the postman's privilege,
musing: the graveyard shift,
new farm is closed,
2: meandering,
white stucco dreaming,
the crooked men,
falling mother sky,
brown water looting,
jetty nights,
carefree,
the mosquito room,
mudflat,
deadman's mouth harp,
it starts,
a verse for the cheated,
1986,
the fatal garden,
radio thick blood,
3: and midnight ...,
midnight's boxer,
surgery music,
a bent neck black and flustered feather mallee,
the gloom swans,
a black bird of my mind,
fly-fishing in woolloongabba,
shout-me-a-wine requiem,
crust,
the writer's suitcase,
midnight's plague,
labelled,
for the wake and skeleton dance,
the dingo lounge,
valley man,
cheap white-goods at the dreamtime sale,
Copyright,