Wow, that is a truly moving poem. Thanks, Max. May I blog it? I admire the
man and yr weaving skills.
Andrew
On 6 August 2015 at 05:46, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks, Doug, also Sheila and Patrick.
>
> About broadcasting of Parliament, Australia also began this ages ago,
> and nowadays it’s also on TV!
>
> Last time I was in a Melbourne doctor’s waiting room, the sick and injured
> were watching Question Time, enough to sicken and injure in itself…
>
> Max in Seattle
>
> On Aug 5, 2015, at 11:25, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Nicely caught, Max.He knew a thing or two, still worth thinking today,
> I’d say (but hoisters to Parliament [is there such a staton?]today?).
> >
> > Doug
> > On Aug 5, 2015, at 10:27 AM, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >
> >> Stan Cooper
> >>
> >> Next door when I was thirteen
> >> Stan was the blind man in his shed
> >> weaving baskets on his own.
> >>
> >> Suntanned back and chest, wiry arms,
> >> he did his best for rows of beans,
> >> potatoes, tomatoes - Look at these!
> >>
> >> turning them in horny fingers,
> >> feeling for blight. Ripe! juicy!
> >> Those damn white butterflies!
> >>
> >> He’d tap tap his way to the bus
> >> twice a week maybe, visiting
> >> mates at the Blind Institute;
> >>
> >> on the way back drank beer
> >> in some dim pub or other -
> >> everywhere was dim, he told me -
> >>
> >> fuelling a two-voice barney that night
> >> with his sharp-eyed sharp-tongued wife.
> >> He’d back off, to his dark shed, its roof
> >>
> >> strewn with spread sheaves of wicker-canes
> >> delivered for him to moisten
> >> and soften up there till weaving-time.
> >>
> >> The same van took away good baskets,
> >> sources of pride but not much income.
> >> His little brown bakelite radio
> >>
> >> wired to a shed-top aerial
> >> was tuned loud to Parliament
> >> in Wellington, good for him
> >>
> >> to abuse the Tories, grumble
> >> at Labour’s ineffectiveness.
> >> Don’t they remember the Thirties?!
> >>
> >> How can they trust the banks?!
> >> Don’t they dare touch Social
> >> Security! The Pacific’s just
> >>
> >> a pond now for the U.S. Navy.
> >> They’ll want the Antarctic next.
> >> Untravelled, unread, un-sighted,
> >>
> >> Stan had wide horizons, taught me
> >> a thing or two - offered me weaving
> >> lessons. Thanks, Stan, no thanks -
> >>
> >> his swearing (‘bloody bitch’) irked Mum.
> >> I didn’t fancy horny work hands
> >> or all the Parliamentary barneys.
> >>
> >> I’d go back to my books, Latin
> >> for Today, New Zealand Our Country -
> >> nothing there about banks.
> >>
> >> [Owairaka 1950; Seattle 2015]
> >
> > Douglas Barbour
> > [log in to unmask]
> >
> > Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuation
> 2 (UofAPress).
> > Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
> >
> > Done in by creation itself.
> >
> > I mean the gods. Not us. Well us too.
> > The gods moved into books. Who wrote the books?
> > We wrote the books. In whose dream, then are we dreaming?
> >
> > Robert Kroetsch.
>
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