martin's poetry and lyrics

Affiliation: On a dirt road in affiliation with the shade my friend and I are talking. We have our purpose as do the trees, tall trees lisp and dapple conversant in fraternity and the rubbing of shoulders. We take one step at a time through the conversation. He laughs. In his eyes wisdom pools for the dipping if the thirst is recognised. He advises me of inevitable disappointment that comes from expectation. When the time comes for the aloneness of this contemplation I cry into places empty of human ears, into spaces too small to hide the fear of recognition and think perhaps soon I’ll be ready to carry the weight of things when the lion of winterest thoughts growls in the sprawl of me. I put no promise into any thing, weary with the longing for that which is impossible, alone in the dream of relationship, the illusion of seeming tangible; the hunger to be defined by another. Later I tell my friend I wish to be set free, to see myself as anything but a self. And later still I find, on a dirt road, unexpected, affiliation with the lisp and dapple of trees and a longing for the cool flap of his dusty step leading me on a road to somewhere other than disappointment.
Axel: Axel, who never owned a rocking horse once rode a bright blue tricycle calling it his ‘Athenian Rhapsody’, He loved to play the tuba in bed, and when he was feeling particularly happy, would sit on the loo in the outside shed, pants around his ankles oompa- pa’ing till the cows came home. That was quite a while ago;the tuba and the tricycle have gone,yet he can still hear the triangle sound the bell made on his trike, and still remembers the scraping of the old keys on the ancient tuba. Axel listens to old sounds very well (all the time)he loves Bach, Mendhelson and Donovan loves to eat crumpets with honey and drink a large white mug of milky tea, it reminds him of summer fishing trips to ‘Eucumbine’, mushrooms and gnats in the full-sun morning air, (he loves to talk fishing when he’s playing chess with Carl the orderly, often quoting from his favourite magazine, ‘Modern Fishing'). Axel was once an expert at fly fishing; tying the ‘super moonshadow’ to perfection (he named the fly after what he thought was a Donovan song, written by Cat Stevens). When the hospital staff remember to buy him a new box, Axel loves to drink Lady Grey tea made from tea bags, he prefers tea bags he feels that somehow they bring clearer definition to tea making. Axel thinks a lot about definition, noting how the edges of his bed are very clearly defined by the clean-blue hospital blankets that drop suddenly to the ocean of the grey linoleum floor. He likes the smell of clean-blue, it’s somehow a new sea to sail and sometimes the feel of his favourite jumper when he was a boy: a definite edge of beginning and end. He knows that soon he’ll cross the floor-grey ocean, sailing under a white-sheet set to ward-sterile wind, a wind that seems to only blow in death and blow out hope, which is not a thing Axel dwells on for very long, he prefers to think of such things as his next chess move and flirting with Miriam the night nurse. Axel feels there’s a certain definition to, "his withering carcass" as he calls it. Where once he was full and strong and plump, his flesh now retreats to its chalky bones, like old maids returning from the dairy with drying pales of milk. He loves milk, he says it’s good for his old teeth. ------- Axel has just beaten Carl in his last game of chess, and said goodnight to Miriam, ..........a long quiet goodnight a good long, good-night. He won’t wake again, he knows this, he feels ........ ........peace and it’s ....... definition. When his last breath comes he hears; a faint scraping sound anda single precious note from a triangle bell on a bright blue tricycle. They’re good sounds They are old sounds They bring him . . .
Black Vacuum: I put my lips to your face and suck in old skin. Your face changes colour. Becomes pink with new complexion. Your mother calls. You can’t tell her about this. Instead you tell her ten, for coffee. After coffee. At shopping. She remarks, my daughter is so very beautiful.’ The salesman nods in agreement. She purchases a new appliance. It matches the colour of everything; it is the most powerful and efficient vacuum in the world. She is happy. Brings it home. And plugs it into the socket. It sucks up everything, including the paint from the walls, the curtains from the window and the telephone from its cradle. Your mother is pleased, it’s everything the salesman said it would be. Along with her furnishings, it sucks both of us into its black belly. In its guts, surrounded by the comforts of home we start a new life together. One day you say, we’ll be very happy. But it’s so dark I can’t see your face. The phone rings. It’s your mother. She wants to know how we’re settling in.
Cold Comfort: Rust, that un-used plough; vigilant in the swallowing green shares the fugue of its various machinery. And in tangible mist milk-cans emptied flood the ground, cows send back to pasture, fence posts are made ready to burn, in an afflicted winter burning cold in the comfort of sorrow. If an old crow happens at the cloudless this is more omen than the shrinking market. And when the shoulders of my father farming this winter are no longer brave enough to carry the sky I carry his gun to the gate; we walk a silent trail to shoot the enemy that never comes. The cold sun; a bright nail pinning us, the blue weight pressing horizons from reach. My father searches this expanse, his hands extend to something... but I see they only move to wave away flies. And if there is any comfort... my hand in his is cold this winter.
Colourful Blah: The vista spiels with neon. Non-essential conversation repeats worldwide. Inhumanity hovers at entrances to shopping centres. Every need overtakes another urgency. Yabbering mouths pause only to hold coffee or hamburger. In the smoking section tobacco allows the privilege to converse in toxin. Any foliage unwraps permanent green in permanent stain. Gesticulation is reinforced with adornments such as nail polish, jewellery on every finger and the loudness of small change rattling across counter tops. In here the weather is everything warm and cool; a constancy designed to stimulate my mediocrity. My reflection in each shop front is on sale at bargain price but I cannot afford to buy on impulse. I turn away to blend with the colourful blah.
Encircle: I. Awash. A broken spiral-shell. And a stream of moonlight through the imperfect aperture: the delicate intention. The sure clutch of a seagull that turns this. Foam of low tide weeps for the broken marriage. And the sandy-wind turning out dried-up husks of baby turtles, once clutched surely. II. A fisher-man turns, squinting from the moon to the sun. Down through his nets are nests of old fish tales and an old wife waiting for his return. Both, ever awatch for a silver sprinkle under the wave-top, and for a basket of fat herring thumped proudly on the table-top. III. A crane steps on his mirror behind the sea. Fishes the land locked pocket with a spear in his beak. An albatross, no time for gulls or cranes and less for yearning nets, encircling. The fisherman is for his pipe. Fishing in his pocket for a pouch of backy. And for waves. And for wind. And for silver.
Folding Colour: The colour of towels hang in my house, down, like waterfall from doors and windows. Some outside some on racks, all open mouthed, spread welcome. I have paintings also, but they’re not the colours of angels blessing a clothesline or bedroom floor. If I’m wet the towels dry me, if they’re wet I dry them, it’s a good arrangement. They smile at me and if the truth be known, often break into laughter when I attempt folding - they think it’s a hoot; trying to fold away colour.
Friend: I have kissed you in many mouths; those hunted doorways emptying like children from school. I have tasted you but not found you, you’ve been elsewhere; the curl of your tongue forming a ribbon in wind. The cut of your hair tied into shapes I could make with my hands. Your voice; breezes in phrases I reach for their possible echo. I have waited to bend you into my smile, how my mouth has made its reasons for wanting the shape of your name, and the marriage of words I have learnt just to speak of you. I have called for you devoured air for you devoured my name and not found you. Are you there friend now or waiting, or passing as a ribbon in wind curling slowly to the tip of my tongue.
From His Wilderness: The way each hill runs down the way tree lines suspend the turbulence: my father’s arms are in these hills taking timber from the gully the crest of his hat starts at the waterfall his toes peep through lantana lizards bask like heat-curled nails in the sun, billy smoke whispers its tail through the canopy his advice trickles its pools from the hollows; the cool step of a century has seen him turn one eye toward the sun the scrape of sharpening-stone on rusting scythe sets my teeth on edge his whistle to the team calls me back but it’s too late, my ears gather in another harvest I am already removed from his wilderness.
He Counts the Fish at his Toes: Connors’ folk slough to the Arms in the shape of four or five, a tawny pint floats the hour, and by seven the place is alive. My father now by the edge of the groyne is a gaze half mast to the sea, as he sails himself to the brink of an isle and turns a yard arm to the lee. He sets on his oars the cataclysm of waves he casts the wind at his hair, swears salt is the sword in the taste of this life and not what falls with this tear. He will treble a note in harmonica muse and rustily suck a bone pipe, spit saliva colder than frost on the grease and never complain of the gripe. Running the wind or roaring the cape or rounding the sound of the wire his name is the take of all seafarer kin; the hearth, my heart and the fire. My father the salt, the seafaring man a wave in the seas as they glide now found to the ocean, a son to the sea the son to the father; my guide.
He Was Big On Tea A little empty that morning she sat on the top step of the verandah sipping tea, sipping thought. Three steps down to the pavement squares of sandstone lay in even handed rhythms; flatly refusing to contour. He’d moved away last week; big bloke, big smile could clasp four pavers in one hand, laid the lot inside ten days, maybe a record, who could say. Completed, the pavement was now empty of him, no more scraping back, no more chipping out, no more broad smiling hands reaching for her cups of tea. She missed this; as she missed the slightly flat renditions of ‘midnight oil’ and ‘fleetwood mac’, the cock of his straw hat and the farewell call of... "see you sometime in the morning suze..." (always at exactly 6.30 a.m.) He was big on tea, said he was glad to meet someone who knew it wasn’t merely the dis-colouration of milk. She’d smile at that, he was right, things like tea were best, given time to infuse. she sipped her tea, sipped her thoughts and the deeper taste that came with a little time.
I Let You Pass: To my dead son or daughter; I left you, let you pass, kept you out frozen: The mark of the palmist foretelling five children, I climb this hill with four at my side. Your memory: A shadow on the distant range, where eucalypt is to its last; the blue mountain. Though I climb and four grow, the wife that was then is now gone; her grief and her echo. Still I sense the soft pad of your call, the tug of your passing, and almost the first breath of greeting.
If You Were Here: If your mouth were a river; a kiss would sink explanation. If your tongue were a bird; song would never attempt flight. If your hair were laughter; each curl would unseat apprehension. If you were here I would tell you this. I would ask you to explain why the heart beats twice with every pulse.
Magic Death: The boy who hangs his story from the bridge. As if by fairy tale told minutely to a desperate lover. The bulging eyes of his spine reading this through an over-broken neck; his story told in the lingering art of death. Or he who faces the train to Ferny Hills and each commuter who remembers that day’s monotony as bits of him slapped against a carriage like someone throwing wet fish. Or the pass-over traffic grumbling at the fall of tragic demonstration - a boy not welcomed anywhere except by the earth that took him in with a kiss of bitumen. Or balanced on needle point, a thousand thousand weights pressing death into an arm embracing the tv-cable guide and a torn photograph of jennifer the mud wrestler. And all this waste sending little statistic waves of shock that don't anymore. Gone to sleep like the boys who left us. Early sleep. Early rise and forget the sons who disappear in a magician’s finale. The cloak of social history that accepts this. The magic abra-cadabra of unhappy youth.
Milks the Light Now: My father shouting at me (loud enough to wake my dead grandfather) loud like an exploding razor blade, the red air is frightening I try not to tremble; it makes him worse, he hits me with a strap - but his anger soon passes. Tonight the moon seems old, if it cries it can cry for me because my sadness is deeper than tears and the old man I will one day be will remember this. -- My mother, happy in her freedom swims naked in the bathroom. Swims an olympic record from the tap end to the end where we keep the shampoo. Beneath the waves she can't hear the crashing and shouting from the next room. The bathroom light is turned out; the moon fills the bath with its soft-milk. -- Sad is my sister crying tears like wet feathers. Crying for the pain she can't feel. Her tears are starved birds that never learn to fly. -- My sister cries the guilt of an expert. My mother tends herself with soft lotions. My father (a helpless bystander to his own rage) wears spectacles passed down from his father. -- Tonight the moon is my quilt. Heart-beats are held and all is muffled. The rage is the sea. My skin milks the light now.
Naked I lay on River Rock: The smooth force of virgin skin carresses and moulds me in stone. I stretch to the contour groin the hollow nurtured and naked for sacrifice. Grave friend, grey faced steady eyed friend shallow edge great heart melt with heaviness the torsion in each of these limbs. I surrender time to the mother of you, dry tenderer, assauger of guilt, you who holds up day, and lets down night, who bundles and sprawls me like a rough shouldered parent. I search the place of no light in you, close my eyes to your dreaming seek out eons you’ve sloughed off and deeper, how your weight pulls the gravity out of me. I surrender and can fall no more into the rocking rocking lap of you; mother how can I fold into you how can I surrender how can I add my breath to the sigh of you.
Old Juriel: Poppies in September, remember Juriel? and seedlings - he came walking up the garden path puffing grandpa smoke, wrens jumping. Tap, dripping time drops into the bird bath. We ate crumbs, after autumn the tennis stopped; too cold to pick onions. Tea cake in the sun room, Juriel would laugh gold teeth chattering. Willow banks and cricket, off to join the Luftwaffe, before the season’s over. The thermos always leaked and the tattered wicker basket, we kept them anyway. Excellent hydrangeas second prize, open division; however, the pomegranate marmalade disappointed. The cliff that day, seagull squadron on standby, Juriel saw only the blue: noiseless it was marmalade got on everything, gold teeth scattered, everywhere.
Old Dust and Tin: In dust that walks the pale drive of winter on Black Mountain. Beyond cold spidering shadows of Cotter-River trees with-holding their names. In mist whispering in the margins of frost at Adaminiby. Up under bogong wings collected in granite caves at Brindabella. I sense my dreaming. And wild pig foraging down down-wind south south-east of Franklin. The brumby kicking at stars up on Scabby (where rock was my cradle). The mallee root nubbing its way into the fire. And the yarn over red-embers, billy tea and condensed milk sweeter than mother’s. And old Dido (grandpa’s labourer since time) in bib and brace overalls pressing down hard on tea-softened arrow-root, gums and fingers kneading the kind of tobacco that came in a tin.
Olympic Colour: There were painter’s clouds that day; broiled and tumbled, moving inner silence across an easel. Beneath them a concrete mind mixed and etched one long brush-stroke; the tarmac before us. Excited engines carried us along and carried by us an air befriended... with the convertible top thrown down your hair streamed behind olympic colour; a spectrum of extraordinary. Your head held back a sunrise laugh and all the wind belonged to exhilaration. The horizon captured another sky, a mist-green hail filled sea; that quiet litany. A pallet knife scratched its lightening and the danger of no potential that kept us moving on.
On This Shore: On this shore - my friend Simone taught me to fish at night with a string of moonlight by the lake beyond the tree line where stones at my feet grew wet. On Sundays we’d trade for loaves and plenty with fishes from old-man Sheady. On that shore there were no comparisons for lovers in Kosovo; where, lakes did not keep their fisherman. --- Now you and I stroll by this sweet water we cast a few stones, sinking a leaf or two, and each trajectory defines our harbour. Our children believe we make this shore safe: beneath a harvesting sun only the scare crow is ominous.
Returning to Sylvia: Returning to you sylvia in the black week of no moon: the carapace the awkwardness aflame with evidence the jew-net of Poland -- your rack of guilt. To fly at the sun or burn in its shadow emptying pockets before you leave you reap an abandoned harvest, but the cows call and call and hear ringing rocks; bells around the necks of ghosts lying down in green milk, somewhere bellowing. Their words like yours punishing me punching me up the middle, every image jagged remedy my arse to my heart jammed with grief, throat swollen with loss. The case of your broken bits; crockery splintered in capsules or shoeboxes or drawers carefully there, there you are lips pressing cold glass, to kiss you to drink your warmth impossible. After death I hear you; crow sends your messages but sweet sister that’s not why you call. Inimical oven: cavern or synagogue, I am undone discovering buried treasure. In the breath of trees you are somehow there, in the quick-slip of feet across smooth linoleum my mausoleum agrees with your arrival. But in the hour before dawn in the silent roaring you never hear of my love for you; we are cold lovers both agony.
Skye: The loving stretch of your fingers, your welcoming cob-web eyes. How the haunt, shake salt from the limb, sweep up leaves in courtyards, and carry their eclipse to the brink of me. Tree’s circumcised by gardener time poke forks at you , scrape your soft full plate with a chafe of spidering knuckles. Everything the flavour of sun-set is a plea. What can I do when the wing of you has nothing to say but fall in reverse, have you no pity, you do nothing but sleep, yawn and blink back your triumph. Where are the places I might squeeze you into submission; windows can only take in so much. Just once I’d have you secede at my feet, break bread with the best of me; release this enthralled impatience. I starve for some light conversation but you practise your zen enchantment, practise it right in front of me day after day after day. Show mercy. Crush me, do something. I want you to fall .
The Feeling Will Not Leave: I’m waiting for you to leave me but you don’t I’m waiting for perspective to re-appear, for diminishing return for warmth from distant appreciation but you don’t leave I’m inhabited the meal doesn’t end the wine re-fills itself surely time will take you from me a little further off so I can wave the small wave, of loving friend rather this than retain the air where you might have been imagining that you hold me as you do
The River of She: An hour hangs; the dark sheet unmaking. Dawn is a moth, belittled in the first spit of candle-flame, mandibles of first light slowly un-pinching. The river of she, who leaves on her own tide. I warm in a home-made sea, bed un-done; sands, eyes, oceans; one, in the exquisite whirl of this days unseasonal change. Worshipped relics hang at my heels; triumvirates of ebb, flow and rise. I hunt for the equivocal master, teaching; cause of flame, cause of sandal-wood and the soft red escaping... un-veiling, the intimate distance of silent night and voicelessness of... moth, bright with death, bright with flight. Her last wish unheard; the river of she passing through dawn, passing through the half light of change.
Things Brightly Wrapped: Gentle rain soothes the rooftops, clean cool waves pleat into corrugation; the order of rivulets reminds the grass to grow, worms, to inch toward warmer heaven. We know we'll determine things by this, we'll say; softer words that come with water fall, hold up lanterns for a homecoming take up letter writing and be diligent in all we see through windows, rhyming couplets and things so brightly wrapped, we’ll hold frangipani in its fragrance, tropical night in avocado air, and fall like rain if we can; with nothing more to do... nothing more than letting go.
When the Sound of Life is Anything: When the sound of life is anything before the music begins before there is time to listen; a child coughs in the next room. I wake carefully, pressing an ear to the last beat of a dream, and find you're not here now and you’re not in the next room. Carriages of wind move past my window move disturbance above the pool of a tortoise who periscopes to the surface, expectant, in the least, for a gulp of air. I swim somewhere beneath my ceiling somewhere beneath the air I prefer to breath. But you're not here now and you're not in the next room. When children sleep in the afternoon when grey breezes whisper away the sun, when an avalanche of crow-call murders the dove perched on my sill, there is nothing and none to tell and no circumstance worth repeating at a later time. You’re not here now and you’re not in the next room
2:15 PM Roma Street Sunday Afternoon: The three of you waving your brave little hands, smiling love and mischief at me through the tinted glass of the big green bus. I’m standing tight to the kerb screaming at the concrete as I smile waving back with gusto. ‘I love you ‘ mouthed in silence ‘have I failed you’ a silent question. I wave until you’ve turned the corner - gone in a juggernaut like stolen children; the street where we laughed only a minute ago now more empty than a new coffin. I walk back to the car knowing we will go through this again and again - every time you visit for the weekend.


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