on 14/2/02 6:51 pm, Arthur at [log in to unmask] wrote:
Wow! Completely different from your other stuff, Arthur! What caused this
maxi-poem? I like the long lines, they make everything seem very rich and
exciting and quick-moving. It will not sit comfortably in your sequence
though, it's an altogether different kind of construction. Unless you do
more like this. You'll have a whole bookful soon. Watch out you are eating
and sleeping properly if you are writing as much as this (seriously)
Sally ee
> Ship Makkit at Patutiva
>
> Tilleys hiss in moth-drummed globes of light;
> kumaras glow like rubies, couched in grass;
> drinking nuts piled, brown and plump as Polynesian breasts;
> tapioca, starlight-white, snows on glossy leaves;
> fists of bananas bunch on blushing mangoes;
> char-grilled pink-cheeked job fish, rich seams of meat;
> pulled apart for viewing in the hot and yammering market
> close to the jetty and the sleek lagoon.
>
> Black hands, swift as spiders, fiddle and arrange,
> leaf-waft intrusive flies away from translucent melon
> and oozing plush-fleshed paw-paws ranged over
> treasured calico, chequered and chintzed and willow-pattern blue.
> Eyes, bright with betel, dart and compare,
> secret whispers fix prices, gossip, story and snigger
> behind the black fans of hand and leaf
> and always the anxious harking for a distant greeting
> down the long warm slumbers of the night.
>
> The swaying sentinel, palm-perched at perilous height,
> tears the night with his shrill cry," Uminao! Hem cam noa ia!"
> and a sigh settles on the market, like a lover on his bride.
> The hush explodes with shouts and squeals of laughter
> from the hip-wriggling pikininis' bare-arsed jig,
> the wafting leaves increase in speed as the night bulges
> with the whale-wide, low-watt-light-swung, rust-scabbed,
> tyre-swagged, hulk of the islands' ferry,
> as it sidles and nudges, with a gigantic grace,
> into the web of a dripping puzzle of ropes to mate with the jetty.
>
> Deep pound of diesel mutes to a murmur and the sides clank down.
> Light and people spill into the mill of the market,
> silhouettes till lamps define them and then they melt into the crowd.
> Frangipani, diesel, sweat, paraffin,
> trodden earth and slapping sea thicken the air.
> I sit with friends on long logs beside the stalls apart from this press of
> strangers.
> We chat and smoke the black tabac in resinous clouds;
> spit betel-blood to roll in dust; watch women at the toilsome tasks of
> trade;
> play-act the constant hunt for change; parcel fish in banana leaf;
> bundle the kasava and nali nuts; sift and twist the powdered shell.
>
> The bull-blare of horn informs
> and the
> Uminoa departs.
>
>
> We watch her leave, thinning down the moon -path, fading, gone,
> then fold the fragments, shake and close the cloths with loving care,
> scold heedless, past-it pikininis with sharp words and long sticks.
> Lamps disperse, float up the hill and will-o-the wisp along the shore;
> canoes down-doppler in fast farewells;
> cash is counted, tucked and put to hoard.
> All over the village lights burn a while, then dowse,
> one last raucous peal of laughter, a dog responds with indignation,
> then, slowly, silence and the moon folds Patutiva into sleep
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