I feel envious of your trip -lovely picture -a sort of ritiree collection
coming up??cheers P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Max Richards
Sent: 28 May 2014 08:18
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: 'By Tram'
By Tram
Ten minutes by lurching tram
up the broad boulevard
to the Arts Precinct,
two minutes more
to Federation Square -
how lucky I am!
Restaurants, cafés galore,
a river to walk beside -
excursion-craft, swans,
rowing clubs and oarsmen -
a high footbridge
to a stairway down
to a water-level
island bar - and trains.
Today I get off and along
into the shopping throng,
the Bourke Street
free-of-traffic Mall
where buskers compete,
more or less musical.
Turn left then down
Elizabeth Street -
but oh look -
that basement’s gone
with its secondhand books
stacked high. Melbourne’s
book dealers are indeed
a dying breed, or else
relocated into cyberspace.
So to the City Library -
nearby U3A and CAE!
Flinders Lane, I love thee.
I can slip through the old
Cathedral Arcade
in the Nicholas Building, drift
up the marble stairs
or take the quaint lift:
Hello, Kris Hemensley!
bookseller extraordinaire,
host to countless launches
of poets who sell only there.
I check and see my own
slim old vols, stocked for years,
have yet to find purchasers -
cool, calm, and uncollected
at Kris’s Collected Works.
Here I can browse away
what’s left of my free day
and eavesdrop on Kris’s
customers and guests.
Returning to the tram
I glance guiltily to east
and south - all that art
I came to town to feast
on, still unsampled. Shame.
Home, tram, home.=
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