A Pale Blanket
a pale blanket
and a rusted blanket:
the harbour
and the clouds
in the time from Milsons Point
to Wynyard
the rust turns to lead
it was light out when I left
and in the last bit of brightness
I flew out into the yellow sky
my thoughts
missed their stop
Way Down in the Marrow
Way down in the marrow
way down in my deep
down sleep
she takes me in
Way up on the bridge
way up in the cold
bright morning
she takes me in
Way over the skyscrapers
way over the numb
monochrome faces
she takes me in
into the warm
into the distant
into her voice
into myself
Fishing
I am casting my mind
Out over the water,
But the words they hide
Under the pier's shadows.
Sometimes I see them
Dart out into light —
A silver gleam,
Speared by the morning sun,
The gum trees an olive haze
Behind the winter blue harbour.
The Sun Slipped Away
The sun slipped away
Before its cue,
And the starts blinked,
Sleepy,
Pulling another
All-nighter watching
The tired city rolling
Over in its long
Winter sleep.
Bright and Empty
Bright & empty
morning
the hollow air
eddies & pools & carries
my breath
in streams
from my nose to
who knows where —
where it's spring
Exercise: Voice/ Point of View
First Person
Out on the island the wind was always blowing to the west. Standing at the edge of Calumny's Cliff, overlooking the tiny pebble beach a hundred feet down, the gulls would float and bounce on an updraft and look you in the eye. At sunset the pelicans arched their massive ancient wings and glided to their nests on the Western Rock. You could look at your long shadow as the wind whiped your face, listening to the barks of the sea lions report across the rocks below. The waves would hiss at the cliff face, and the dying sun left a trail of orange gold on the sea.
Someday I imagined I would step off the cliff and walk lightly on that golden path to the eastern horizon.
I was thinking about what I'd find there, at that faint blue line, when I walked home a summer's evening. The last threads of twilight fell through the grey leaves of the olive grove, making purple patterns in the dust. My bare feet looked nearly black in the dim light. I shook my head and chided myself for thinking there was a place at the end of a horizon and skipped my feet to trot home.
Third Person
Out on the island the wind is always blowing west. The gulls will catch the updraft off of Calumny's Cliff, dancing and bobbing above the pebbles a hundred foot drop below. At sunset the pelicans catch gold and red on their white heads and ancient, arching wings as they glide toward their nesting ground on the Western Rock. The waning light casts long shadows across the breadth of the island and out to see as the olive trees and coreopsis whip and shiver to the beat of the wind.
Pouding up along the cliff face, the swells crash and retreat with a hiss. Huddled out of their reach on the meagre pebble beach, the sea lions bark out their evening chants, oblivious to the glittering path of gold laid out across distant water by the lowering sun.
A girl sands at the cliff with her back to the cloudless sunset, watching that bright reflection like a trail of gold coins scattered toward the eastern horizon. The wind whips back her hair and the gulls eye her as they float above the chorus of the sea lions and sea.
The summer sun slips below the lip of the island and she turns to follow a path through a grey-leaved olive grove, shaking her head to herself.
Not sure which version I like best, but I think I might be leaning toward the third person narrative.
I Don't Want to Write
I don't want to write but I want to write. I want the words to be written without expending any effort, without taking a moment to listen and pass on what I catch from the back of my mind. I want to be a writer but I don't want to write.
I don't want to write because I have too many ideas. Which one do I pick? What if none of them turn into anything good? How come I can never work out an ending to a story?
I want to write because I have so many ideas. I want to visit those places in my head I catch glimpses of. I want to sink into them, each one, be absorbed, see what I can learn from them.
I don't want to write because I don't have time. I would just be stealing scraps of moments on the train, in the evening. If I'm going to be a writer I should be able to devote as much time as I need to it. Otherwise I'm just dabbling.
I want to write because I need a stolen moment on the train that shields me, makes me step inward and outward at the same time, I need the balance, I need the refuge, I need quiet moments of... sanity? insanity? Something, anything imaginative.
I will write about the grey autumn sky and the grey cold train, hissing and screeching its way north through suburbia. I will write about the quick glimpses of the harbour and a sailboat heading out to sea, its jib billowing with the morning wind. I will write about the funny, strange, sad, and boring people on the train, their stiff expressions, waiting for their stations.
I will write.
The Only Love Poem I Can Write
O Sea,
Our summer fling was much to brief
And spring is months away, O Sea,
O Pacific, O Mother of Fishes
The morning sun
Paints gold on your leg
O Sea
At night the city
Lights are your jewels
On the train
I pass by you
Lean my head against
The window, close my eyes
Hold my breath, O Sea
In my mind
I'm a mermaid in your cold embrace
(O Pacific, O Mother of Fishes)
Free and sleek I swim
Further into your deep,
dark