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| ISBN-13: | 9781876756956 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Spinifex Press |
| Publication date: | 04/01/2012 |
| Pages: | 95 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.30(d) |
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The Abbotsford Mysteries
By Patricia Sykes
Spinifex Press Pty Ltd
Copyright © 2011 Patricia SykesAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-876756-95-6
CHAPTER 1
Rosarium
They seem to have died ... their going from us
(Wisdom 3: 1-9)
Death's dream kingdom
As sudden as that. A breath taken. Then not.
Then steps. A travel. To place the orphans.
In the capital. Melbourne. New city of
displacement. Poor kids, you poor kids.
Her voice all echo. All the-sun-has-set.
In her wake, trails of earth. Droppings from
her torn roots. Goodbye her final scent:
septicaemic stillbirth, caramelised orange
skins. Her womb and the oven now cold as
tombs. Only a fool would worship death's
dream kingdom. Surely only a fool. Her
death is no dream. She will not awaken.
Mutter song
You're going and that's that! to live
among holy pictures statues rosary beads
with the blue virgin whose son's heart
is not flesh but icon shining out of his
ribcage like a still-life a red apple
not for the eating but ever ripe as if
immortality lives there the riddle of
sacred pulse forever stopped but never
dead it's not fair a child crying
(she'll be trouble that one) her outrage
for the human loss just buried in the
earth's dark box life goes on
heart-torn heart-heavy heart-scared
Onus
Thirteen a tricky number thirteen months
between oldest, second oldest seven years
between second oldest and next a God
number the tick day of rest creation
complete though not perfect five other
siblings dying at birth, or near to thirteen
months more between third daughter and last
(did she plan it, the thirteens? lucky, unlucky
the odd always odd) the onus on ten and
nine to mother two and one because in
there a precinct of words ending in shun
separashun isolashun aliena shun
it wasn't encouraged to be close to your
sisters prayer, blackboard, job, ahead
of the two in cots their infancy fluent in
the heart's dumb loss the hands in
the nursery were as the touch of wood
ten, nine, two, one hold hold as one
There will be a girl who
The vertigo of fright has no hidey-hole
we are fear girls now grief daughters
(we cannot gainsay) we fear the high
walls we fear the iron window bars
should we fear the shepherded girls?
come out come out wherever you are
there will be a girl who daydreams
about owning her own orchestra
there will be a girl who wins sixpence
for dancing the best of all the orphans
in front of the Queen! at the MCG!
there will be a girl who waits and waits
on Visiting Sundays for a father who does
not come (he choofed off chug chug) but
he always appears in November for the
Melbourne Cup (yeah!) and there will
be a girl who fights another girl, one of
them white (me) the other one black (her)
because they want a scrap and each other will
do so they punch and flail and hit and miss
and leave it at that though the black girl
will fight on for rights hers indigenous
and it will all come true all of it true
This viper her tongue
Saying what it wants to say stinging
where it wants to sting all that language
of love and gentleness I had a perception
of incredible hypocrisy tongue whose two
birthdays will grow to years inside the walls
whose sister, oldest, a pale migraine girl, will
escape duty in the sewing room and slip away
to the attic to roll among the clothes up there
as if empty frocks provide hours of warm touch
a bliss of the kindest not substitute but real
like the cloth she remembers as a second skin
the one that tore itself open in birthing her, that
warmth, that one, whose dead life is the pale girl's
make-believe a small girl's joy whose game
is more a rule not to torture her with hope
Providence
All for thee my Lord O my Jesus all for thee
a grandmother of belief, firm beseecher of
providence, its divine care and ministration
grandmother whose faith blesses faith's
transformations her granddaughters in
proof child brides in white white frocksveils-socks
their white missals ashine with
imitation mother-of-pearl girls in a tremble
of grace-pride-goodness the sacred host
dissolving on their tongues (as it is meant
to) promised now for life let no man
put asunder capable now of sin-guiltdoubt
grandmother whose luscious treats
will arrive as reprieve laced with prayer
some of the convent food so awful it
would turn the stomach of a picture book
grandmother who had her own hotline to the
Mother Superior then turnabout the Mother
Superior in retirement (still a mad poet at 93)
beseeching the grandmother's grown orphans
for God's sake come visit! there's nothing
to do here but play cards with old women
Panic bell
O that bell that panic that every Sunday
that chime that toll that ding-a-dong time's up
that command that bidding that nowhere (no
place) to hide O time-to-go time-to time-o
her home her hold a workaday of long hours
too long and no-one to mind her the Europe
of family too poor too far O damn oh hell
her nightmares pitched to the sound of bells
for years the five o'clock summons a cannon
in her ears a judder in her nerves (it is hard
to forget) O yes unless (until) every bell dies
How will you know who you are
If you are unremembered, anonymous
a twerp, an alibi, a refugee, an etcetera
Mother-of-Names wanted me to change
my name because there were too many
Marys Mary still, Mary always, Mary
in a time of no names so the Jewish
girls could be infiltrated among us kept
hidden their numbers tattooed on their
skins ours tattooed on our clothes, in
our chants twenty-two, who are you?
in a time of disguise in a time of
forgetting remember your name
remember your rhyme remember
how and how to find yourself
Gamble
O parent of the rod and the threat (if
you don't behave you are going back!)
are you the same infectious laugh
who teaches me to sing in harmony
and how to use mind-reading tricks
to spot the ace lurking up your sleeve
O parent are you the thin-lipped scowl
that parks us outside the walls our
suitcases expectant letting us sweat
and tremble until you relent (I used to
think the convent was where the unloveable
kids went) this third time we might
call your bluff take our cases and
walk never fully to come back
Creed
I believe I believe in Skipping Girl Vinegar my
guardian dear ever this night be at my side, to light
and guard, to guard and guide my Angel-of-Neon
my skipping rope wings her factory rooftop my
heaven (my destiny-heaven) seek and ye shall find
I believe in my feet flying again like hers smiling,
highing, never a stumble, never a skip missed by
day by night soaring higher than death, higher than
the exile that follows death (the shutting behind
walls for the good of) I believe in the day that will
come I believe in the rope that is wings I believe
in the beckoning light I believe in my feet on the
road in skippety-skip beats yes yes my freed feet
Gloria
How many roses make a family?
The garden a split trinity snip
snip as if secateurs are busy
against cross-contamination
St Josephs for the orphans
St Marys for the medley girls
Sacred Heart for the waywards
we never associated, we had our
home they had theirs yet Gloria
Gloria our perfume is everywhere
The Luminous
It's not how long I was there It's been part of my life
Rose, roses, rosary
Beginning with a great idea
Rose Virginie saying come
the roses that were dying
beginning to open in a loop of
hands, a prayer-string of nuns
who birth daughters uniquely
'we the mothers, you the child
whether your age is three or
ninety-three it is the system'
a replica, down the centuries,
of holy family, a faith ideal
a myste among the mysteries
the bewildered foetal ones
listening for the heart sound
the source the nuns compressed
like petals between
lay and religious, diocese and
state, the multiple birthings,
and their own vocation
it was unnatural it made
them frustrated made them
our morning and evening star
torn between God's red force
and the Virgin's blue peace
between the life of spirit and the
practicals of governance, bidden
and held among thorns of the fold
Miasmata
Birrarung, river of mists and shadows
drifts of white in a dark hover
as if breath here grew inconsolable
this was the Abbotsford property
the name of which has now become
so celebrated
big praise for the trouble-girls gifted by
the poor, the dead, the drunk, the mad
keep your eyes down or you'll become like them
like the women gifted by fear or fault
some desperate enough to gift themselves
or like the nuns, offering themselves
by relative choice, the sweet debris
of drenched lives, drowning or afloat
the river as red aorta believe
how the wanderings of water
stress the imprisoned pulse
I became afraid for my own heart
believe the river when it says amen
Coils
As if women are rivers
as if they must be kept
from deviating like this Yarra
river from which a severe loop
was eliminated, always someone
searching its banks
for a daughter they once misplaced
though the only fontanelles now
are history's, river grasses, weeds
pigeons roosting the bridge mess the signs
but old tracks know their own
footprints first the Kulin women's
food and infants on their backs
their naked feet gripping the rocks
against the water's rush
upstream, downstream, their scent
all over it, then our own, convent
women and kids strung together
like a rosary, like a chain
against flood, debris, drought
ave, ave, like a faith in a river
The door
It used to seem so big
as it loomed, opened, shut,
a doom approaching dead weight,
the way a tomb shuts off all light
the numb entry worse in the day
worst at night, instantly captive
to the door's metal plate, its scrape
and slide, its scrutinising eyes
no exit visa to the outside
nothing but a strange new
cacophony of beds, baths,
tables, chairs, so many voices
tossing among storms, girl
now subject to alien rules
and whatever dark fears enter
if she opens too wide
true partnership can only be achieved
by separate and whole beings
someone here speaking as Gebo,
the rune, of the spirit
which is internal and resists
I wasn't going to let them break me
Iambic pentameter
I watch myself how I use my voice how
much I give away rebellion weighs
against obedience prayer against fantasy
rote against the thrill of words that lately arrive
It was hearing a girl recite Ode to a Cabbage
that made me want to write verse myself
I hide my poems like hoarded love
the taste of secrecy is delicious (Nun-
the-Big-Irish gives the girl curry
when she catches her kissing my cheek)
now Mother-of-the-Blackboard
proving with chalk that poetry has feet
If a thing is not prayer why must it be sacrilege?
We are children of rhythm as well as of God
I am learning body worship from a girl who
walks beautifully where else but here
could I rejoice such things? Father,
are you listening? I'm your little exile no more
You would not know me I am metric now
My feet are my own how you will miss me
Each phantom ache an amputee
In the whisper trenches
counting parents, siblings
the way you audit fingers and toes
like confetti you're all scattered everywhere
the Museum-of-the-Lost a camouflage of files
a shuffler of mingle dusts
I was determined never to marry an Australian
in case I married my brother
skin memory's lifetime touch
who can cut you as utterly
as the one who holds the sword?
our guardian was a mongrel, he split us up
the razor of power having such adult force
in a time of apologies the authorities aghast
and the era that meant it for the best
put to bed as history
nothing will ever be as bad
day, night, the seasons, the search
each year on her birthday
the ex Ward-of-State
who advertises in periodicals of hope
unable yet to strew rose petals
for a mother unearthed I asked my father
you didn't kill her did you? I might've, he said
The man in the moon and the axe of God
WELCOME THE CHILD, AROUND WHOM EVERYTHING
Tabernacle — this child learning to
cuddle hope and smirk at fate is curious
to know how each day your mouth
can so cleanly devour and disgorge God
ANNOUNCE YOUR MYSTERY AND SAY YOUR PRAYER
Mystery — the man in the moon
wielding the axe of God
like a Viking
Prayer — my aim in life is clemency
ALL GOD'S SERVANTS ARE EQUAL
but if-when the axe falls only one neck
will be first we grow old in prayer
Catholic knees are among the old-age
diseases that beset us we grow edgy
among flicker breaths the candles
check us for piety they count our
prayers but will not say if they kneel
to the axe or a Jesus on the tease
BEWARE PERDITION
the axe so tuned to perditio we should quail
between blessing and curse
between penance and grace
between salvation and not
I got slapped for asking
what a womb was, as in
blessed is thy womb
Tabernacle — as if you are
too pure for our mouths?
Bloodline
Holy Mothers
are all your wombs virgins?
The question is a red line
that must not be crossed
or it might bleed copiously
like the spear in the side
of the Jesus whose blood
must be drunk to keep him alive.
Holy Mothers
how can it be wicked
to hold that women and girls
are true sufferers of blood?
The blood all over the toilet walls
is the blood of menstruating girls
(I couldn't believe birth
came out of such a dirty place).
Holy Mothers
some of us know, have felt,
the agony of bringing forth
from the warm taboo that bore
the holy infant what are we to
name it if not womb? Lifeline?
Shipwreck? O birth and death.
Institutional
How we add up is not how we add up.
A woman who blames her mother,
not God, wanted badly to kill her.
A woman who adores hers admires
the discipline of inherent character
her mother learnt from the nuns (yes
and but, the inherent is dependent)
and how this led to a tolerance, her
daughter at seventeen reading Marx
(yes and but, she had access) and if displacement
is the big theme for all of us
why do some of us never leave while
some who have left fight a longing to
return. (Yes and but, what other home is
so theirs). What has deportment to do
with it? Mothers, you hold up how a cat
moves, its grace, its sinuous elegance
but have you questioned the nature of
homage? Have you imagined (or is the
system too storial, too set) a convent
of priests, boy orphans, wayward men,
on their knees to a female God and
hierarchy of priestesses? (yes and but)
How we add up is not how we add up.
Architecture
The nature of the place
revealing itself to us
as a troubled blueprint
we wander like the bewildered
who have lost everything
and return to find it still here
the years we buried behind
grey mince-meat walls
still present in the faces
which are not our faces
who trail us like the ghosts
of unfinished things the best
the worst the unspeakable
we were a smorgasbord
for paedophiles
heads nod heads shake truth
as difficult to prove as differing
histories even so even so
a haunt of eyes asking how
can you trust the sound that is not
a butterfly sucking on nectar
Gloria
Kyrie eleison
our voices shiver
above the narthex
if we could dance
our blood would warm
us Lord O Lord
we're hivey-jive girls
rock'n'roll girls (we
keep your picture next
to Elvis) Kyrie eleison
(Continues...)
Excerpted from The Abbotsford Mysteries by Patricia Sykes. Copyright © 2011 Patricia Sykes. Excerpted by permission of Spinifex Press Pty Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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Table of Contents
Contents
Acknowledgements,Rosarium,
Death's dream kingdom,
Mutter song,
Onus,
There will be a girl who,
This viper her tongue,
Providence,
Panic bell,
How will you know who you are,
Gamble,
Creed,
Gloria,
The Luminous,
Rose, roses, rosary,
Miasmata,
Coils,
The door,
Iambic pentameter,
Each phantom ache an amputee,
The man in the moon and the axe of God,
Bloodline,
Institutional,
Architecture,
Gloria,
The Sorrowfuls,
Aspect,
Lent,
Deadly endings,
Persecuting colour,
PUC SUX,
Mortal, venial,
Bad girls do the best sheets,
Mellifer,
Honorary,
Hell, memory,
Gloria,
The Joyfuls,
Incarnate,
Conceived,
Bound,
Immanent,
Abiding,
Feast,
Fount,
Edified,
Discipled,
Clots,
Gloria,
The Glorious,
Crux,
God's star,
Crocodile file,
Visitation of sweetness,
The perfect deception of night,
Winged ascent,
Glass story,
Beloved,
Having lost all fear,
Trusting the donkey,
Gloria,