online today!FargoFan Poetry (118)

the first inkling I had
rang alarm bells I did not heed
but I should have.
the voice is so sweet when it is sweet
and sour when it is coarse
hoarse in the first soft words
is a curse to hear and I should have heard
but did not heed.
indeed in another life I will
ah! when I hear her the shoulders twitch
that witch knows not how I cringe.
Those first words my eyes opened wide
but my brain shut out the fierce sound.
Fool!

Anger
rage
never
rises
mouth
high

Irritation
sometimes
retching
reaches
upper
regions

rich
fulsome
ruminant
memory
ascends
blissfully

food
chilli
salami
salmon
all
mingle

ah
so
passes
this
lovely
saturday!

And a sudden irrestible urge
possessed my right shoulder
my right foot first slowly
then with intent
pressed forward and then
I was looking up the street
the pub horse-cart a single carriage
away from her
high hat on head
I strode away.
and that was that

But in those days no one would have said 'whatever' so...
I was looking up the street
there the rare corner pub
from an era past,
away from her
chin high as always
I strode away.
and that was that

I vaguely remember when
last I felt the delight
or the pain and
so hurry not to fight
to seek either again

twenty five years or so before
a birthday greeting.
all but one her last letter
then silence each day meeting.
gone, nothing to say, love? no more

but it's no big deal, really, is it?
no one touches my shaggy eyebrows, so?
or tweaks my earlobe, looks
askance with a private smile, or slow
knocks on the door for a clandestine visit...

but it's no big deal, you will agree
the final letter - three words she wrote
in a hand unused to an alphabet
'finished is finished' - unexplained, I quote
but one year later, just single and free

That female so fearsome
With eyebrows like bullwhips
When one is cocked you wait for
the crack of the whip

lips pursed and so rigid
when she hisses kisses
through her teeth whistling
wee and far oh no cummings
is coming alive again

fierce and forbidding
forboding a frightful night
but in fact she is so funny
and the photo is just
to scare away foolish males

When she then said
In response to what
I am unsure
I said
When I landed in a land
a bed
where no one except me slept
so long ago
what did I think
actually i did not
but now it is thank god that's gone
I think, what I thought
Is long ago and gone
mmm
is gone..

She had sent a letter, she said
And wondered when it had arrived
And so returning at night from work
as one does I told her

Again she'd sent a cheque she told me
And asked about when it had arrived
And so returning at night from work
As she had asked I told her

Again she sent a cheque
A year on from dad's death
But did not ask
In the morning I thought to walk
To the post office,
having time but the train came in

That night
The letter was fat
And unopened I started to cry
knowing...
I went to the pub
And read.

The police were waiting
when I arrived home
and took all the letters

They go for the angophoras I think
A tiny colony lives there
Squeaking in the dead of night
Where the dog that daytime
barked incessantly barks no more
not because of any act of mine
they've just moved on
I guess

Two towering
flowering specimens
there nearby their home
the flowers their food
how does a mother flying fox
instruct her brood
to hang from the lowest wire
I wonder

For as days pass
and they achieve
that exact length
to touch kiss and festoon
the power lines
clutching the upper
and caressing the lower
barely one year of four

One kept me company for years
Walking home from work at night
down that undulating hill
past this year's dry carcasses.
He on silent leathery wings
from tree to tree
then veered off to the left and home
as I entered the cul de sac

Good night he squeaked
Etched against the oyster evening sky

I am thinking of her sitting on a bleak beach,
a wintry day grey sky
and sighing waves
an inland sea.
She comes here summer and winter she says
sits on the sand
arms wrapped round her knees
looking now at the feet the sand her toes
wiggles one the left one giggles once.
I sat then in the harsh sun squinting reading,
oh reading 'Being and Nothingness'
true! it's true
or Alexandria Quartet
its true its true by Manly beach
I lay and squinting sweating read them
and hearing the waves not sighing crashing

Now she thinks of lavender and I of jacaranda.
So for her chin on knees
here now is Margaret Preston

Of course Tuesday is
itself naught mundane
being just one alone
and not every day.
and nor is it every day you see
a fridge walking down the hill.

I ask you as I asked myself
'When the f*ck did you last see
a side-by-side fridge ambling down
your street,
on garbage day what's more?'

Nimbly side-stepping the black Holden
rear-end poking across the path....
(the self same rear-end I had scraped
a two-dollar coin across
last time when on a dark stormy night
distracted by wafting flying fox wings
and watching not
I found myself on my own rear end
on the cold wet concrete
amidst the fallen red callistemon
that festoons our street,
but as someone profoundly irksome in the blogs
says so often 'I digress')
...it remounted the kerb
and resumed the descent
as did I this time.
(try reading that between the brackets in one breath!)

'Mr Tudor Elgee' I said approaching
nearer, 'Wherefore walk you down my street?'
'Well it's a lot bloody easier than goin up ain it'
Quoth he, with impeccable logic
'I see you struggling bike and helmet up the hill,
You won't see me doing that so often!'

So I resumed my thoughts of mundane Tuesday
Is it Yellow bin or Green this week?
If I cannot go to Kamchatka or Sakhalin
An ambling fridge will pass the time,
Thai takeaway for tonight.