Yeh, Mind the gaps, Bill.
This is interesting in how it shows memory/mind working to remember, as there’s more here than in the first, as you ee it ever more whole, that day or time.
I think it works better his way…
Doug
> On Nov 29, 2017, at 1:35 PM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> Whoops, those gaps should not be there in new stanzas one and three.
>
> Bill
>
> On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 at 7:32 AM, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks, Sheila. Yes, I didn't know it but everything led to the rifle and
>> I just knew that was the end of the reverie. Andrew, Thinking again, I will
>> leave out creation of narrative. I know you have written prose poems like
>> 'The next poem' and your Linfen poems. They are more 'block' poems. Maybe I
>> can aerate mine differently as a prose poem, Doug.
>>
>> Bakewell Street 2
>>
>> On the corner of Thunder Street, Bendigo, a twisted wire front fence,
>> groany gate,
>> springy Buffalo-grassed front lawn. Echo-less sound of tin-lid postbox
>> screeching open, plopping flat shut after letter removal. Slight give of
>> worn boards on front porch with first footfall from top brick step. Iron
>> rungs reaching from concrete piers. Grandma Beat's place. Mum's Mum.
>>
>> After lunch, go outside and play. Brother Dan and I jumping from one post
>> to the other. Making up games with rules and consequences. Don't be
>> caught on the exposed veranda when a rare passing car aligns with you.
>> Home pillars the only safe zones. Running the bee gauntlet up lavender
>> path beneath wind-rattling wooden lattice.
>>
>> Thin water-stained plywood walls bulging. High plate shelf on wall. Framed
>> photos;
>> young Mum’s colourised rosy cheeks. Aunt Hazel in sepia WAAF uniform.
>> Hovering inside in heat. Gal roof stretching, popping in sun. Unused front
>> lounge room. Grandma hulked in winter knitting-by-woodstove position.
>> Pantry/scullery, cutlery dead-clanking on sink, muted by flour bins,
>> Brockhoff biscuit tins. Sour fumes from Uncle Rex's Abbots Lager 'soldier',
>> fresh from fridge, opened by feigned accident. Grandma's wink as she passes
>> the open bottle over the fence to grateful Mr Hennerbury next door.
>> Warm-valved tone of walnut veneer radio through riffling curtained speaker.
>> Spring-loaded back door's ping/clunk.
>>
>> Stretched stiff wire backyard prop clothesline. Sheets billowing high
>> over Mr Kinsmore's backyard caravan. Disused chookshed with dry,
>> ignitable overhanging potato vine. Long rusty tin shed, once stables,
>> powdery dirt floor. Stacked, spidersome cardboard suitcases. Finding
>> gold-tipped Black Sobranies. Flat match scrape, coughing.
>>
>> Full length dark brown leather coat hanging behind external laundry door.
>> Framed, faded portrait of flowing-cloaked de Valera, hanging skewiff. Bait
>> yabbies corralled in laundry trough overnight, crawling in wet hessian bags
>> filled with pungent gum leaves. Fishing nets, hooks, corks, spread on back
>> lawn, in readiness for pre-dawn getaway to Axe Creek.
>>
>> Groping in darkness, through hanging dresses, for hiding place of tiny
>> glass jar full of fossicked gold specks in the back of sleep-out wardrobe.
>> Grandpa's rifle.
>>
>> bw
>> 30.11.17
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>> On Thu, 30 Nov 2017 at 7:11 AM, Sheila Murphy <[log in to unmask]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Bill,
>>>
>>> This is very impressive. One thing that I noticed that bespeaks the
>>> miracle
>>> of poetry is the arrival at a rifle as the inverse of the rifle's own
>>> function. Very chic. You cannot force such things. They are poetry.
>>>
>>> Bravo! Sheila
>>>
>>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
https://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Recent publications: (With Sheila E Murphy) Continuations & Continuations 2 (UofAPress).
Recording Dates (Rubicon Press).
Listen. If (UofAPress):
would you
care to be more
precise about whatever
it is you are
saying, I said
Bill Manhire
|