Second draft below, all:

The burner

In a paint-flaked weatherboard house wedged between
St Pius Catholic Primary School and East Ivanhoe State
School number 4386, wild-haired Mr Wakeman, school
caretaker lived with his wife and freckled son John
who sat two desks from me in grade three.

Old Wakeman scoped the school grounds.
Collected metal bins full of lunch scraps, upended
them into a brick incinerator we called 'the burner',
between the wooden tuckshop and his backyard.
Thick smoke, each night, billowed from the burner.

Come morning recess we'd pounce. Three or four
of us regularly. Down on our knees with sticks, raking
out cool ash from under the burner grate, slow sifting
for careless treasure. Coins. Cropping up because
slack kids failed to check for change in their tuckshop

lunch order bags. Mostly halfpennies, or pennies.
But sometimes a button-sized threepence or sixpence
with its regal kangaroo/emu coat of arms. And once,
John Bright hit the jackpot: a blackened shilling,
distinctive ram's head silvering up nicely with spit

and hanky rubbing. Magic. We knew the best
we could hope for was change from a two-bob bit.
But on another level it seemed that the burner
was creating money for us. The very process
of burning, some alchemical purifying wizardry.

Old Wakeman knew what we were up to.
And he'd come charging out to shoo us away, hating
the strewn ash piles we left on the cracked concrete
apron in front of the burner. But we could no more stop
than we could stop clambering on the monkey bars.

Some tuck-shop ladies turned up their noses at our
proffered black bounty. But most clanked our coinage
and served us Chocolate Royals which we promptly
smashed on our foreheads before peeling chocolate
to reveal pink or white marshmallow atop jam biscuit.

Or Sunnyboys, sweet orange cordial in tetrahedonal
packages, also available frozen, the better for lasting
longer. And when you finished, rip apart the package
hoping to see the blue print on silver foil indicating
you had scored a 'free tetra pak' bonus Sunnyboy.

1966 saw decimal coinage take over but no one
slipped a new silver fifty in their lunch order as far
as we knew. Not that it stopped us trying to suck
in gullible burner newcomers:  'Uh huh,' we'd say,
a shifty schent shit!' And heads would whip.

Both schools still exist, on Robin Hood Road,
East Ivanhoe but in between, where the caretaker's
house stood, gleams a massive steel stadium,
a facility perhaps shared. Who cleans it is anybody's
business and garbage is stowed in green wheely bins.

bw
7.7.16


On Thursday, 7 July 2016, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Thanks, Doug. I was aware that this is very much a draft, doing a lot of
> telling. I'll see what I can do. I take it you mean 'strict' purpose. I
> considered bunching the whole lot up into a prose poem but I think it would
> be more just loopy prose.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thursday, 7 July 2016, Douglas Barbour <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml',[log in to unmask]);>> wrote:
>
>> Bill,
>>
>> you’ve got a good story here, & I enjoyed that, but I don’t feel it as an
>> more than that yet. I think you now need to go at it & edit for (I don’t
>> know, exactly) speed, & shifts. Too many sentences that just feel broken
>> but not for any street purpose where the lines end & begin…
>>
>> Doug
>> > On Jul 5, 2016, at 4:34 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>> >
>> > The olive paint-flaked weatherboard house was
>> > wedged between St Pius Catholic Primary School
>> > and East Ivanhoe State School number 4386.
>> >
>> > Old Mr Wakeman lived there, wild-haired,
>> > grumpy state school caretaker
>> > whose son John was in my grade.
>> >
>> > Imagine now someone suggesting
>> > building attached premises to schools
>> > for live-in caretakers and their families.
>> >
>> > But it worked. We all knew Old Wakeman
>> > had eyes over the whole property.
>> > Maintained it, kept it clean.
>> >
>> > Metal bins full of lunch scraps he'd empty
>> > into the 'burner' as we termed the brick
>> > incinerator on school grounds between
>> >
>> > the wooden library/tuckshop building
>> > and Wakeman's backyard. Smoke
>> > billowed each night.
>> >
>> > Come morning recess we'd pounce.
>> > Three or four of us regularly. Down
>> > on our knees with sticks, raking
>> >
>> > ash from under the burner,
>> > slow sifting for careless treasure.
>> > Coins. Mostly pennies, halfpennies.
>> >
>> > But sometimes the odd little threepence
>> > or sixpence with its kangaroo/emu
>> > coat of arms. And once, John Bright
>> >
>> > hit the jackpot with a blackened shilling,
>> > that distinctive ram's head silvering up
>> > nicely with a bit of spit and hanky rubbing.
>> >
>> > The coins cropped up because slack kids
>> > failed to check for change in paper bags
>> > with their tuckshop lunch orders.
>> >
>> > The best you could hope for was change
>> > from a two-bob bit. Especially if
>> > they only ordered one thing.
>> >
>> > Old Wakeman knew what we were up to.
>> > And he'd come charging out to shoo
>> > us away, hating the strewn ash piles
>> >
>> > we left on the concrete apron in front
>> > of the burner. Sometimes it was lumpy
>> > stuff. Best was fine, powdery ash,
>> >
>> > so available of quick coin reveals.
>> > Some tuck-shop ladies turned up
>> > their noses at our black bounty.
>> >
>> > But most clanked our coinage
>> > and served us Chocolate Royals
>> > which we promptly smashed
>> >
>> > on our foreheads before peeling
>> > off chocolate to reveal marshmallow
>> > on top of jam biscuit. Or Sunnyboys,
>> >
>> > sweet orange cordial in a tetrahedonal
>> > tetra pak, also available frozen,
>> > the better for lasting longer.
>> >
>> > 1966 saw decimal coinage take over
>> > but no one slipped a new silver fifty
>> > in their lunch order as far as we knew.
>> >
>> > Not that it stopped us trying to suck
>> > in gullible burner newcomers:
>> > 'Uh huh, a shifty schent shit!'
>> >
>> > Both schools still exist, on Robin Hood
>> > Road, East Ivanhoe but in between,
>> > where the caretaker's house stood,
>> >
>> > gleams a massive steel stadium,
>> > a facility perhaps shared. And who
>> > cleans it is anybody's business.
>> >
>> > bw
>>
>> Douglas Barbour
>> [log in to unmask]
>> https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>>
>> Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations
>> 2 (UofAPress).
>> Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
>>
>>          Automobile Accident
>>
>> Not finding where the flowers were
>> he seized a tree.
>>
>>               Lorine Niedecker
>>
>