This is good fun, Andrew.
On 6 July 2011 10:15, andrew burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Robert Hass – do accept my apologies
>
> for the coffee I spilt on pages 325 to 350
>
> of *The Apple Trees at Olema*. It is ironic
>
> really – the first poem stained was
>
> *I Am Your Waiter Tonight and My Name*
>
> *Is Dimitri.* The offending cup carries a kookaburra
>
> on its face, an imported bird known for its laughter
>
> at the expense of others: a schoolboy
>
> carrying a schoolgirl’s bag, an old man
>
> stumbling in his Gene Kelly role
>
> to court a fair lady. Here I am, clumsy
>
> apprentice to the master poet, writing
>
> in dwindling sunlight as clouds drift over.
>
> Not apples but limes grow beside me,
>
> limes which cost a dollar a pop in the local
>
> Vietnamese fruit and veg shop. Beside the lime
>
> stands a curry tree looking for all the world like
>
> a new recruit with his short back and sides –
>
> enough curry leaves clutter the garden floor
>
> to hustle for peace in Pakistan. You may be
>
> slightly appeased when I tell you the coffee
>
> was Fair Trade of a sorts, fair in as much as
>
> we buy it locally to support the café owner
>
> who isn’t doing too well, and who, in her turn,
>
> buys it from the Indian family with the Coffee Club
>
> who are likewise - or like foolish - not doing well.
>
> In economic terms, the heart of Australia
>
> has hardened: not the heart rules commerce
>
> but tax laws and banks. As I shuffle thought
>
> to thought, I wonder what’s Fair Trade in poetry?
>
> If our work paid it would be differently made.
>
>
>
> Late in this day music notation of our washing
>
> falls across shadow lines on my page
>
> and dust motes punctuate freely.
>
> Coffee has dried and almost disappeared
>
> where your words sit on the page.
>
> I translate your cover image into
>
> an Australian red apple from our south-west
>
> and a startling electric blue finch
>
> on Lady William’s* elegant arm.
>
> -------
>
> ** Lady William is a local delicious red apple.*
>
> --
> Andrew
> http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> 'Mother Waits for Father Late' republished available at
> http://www.picaropress.com/
> http://www.qlrs.com/poem.asp?id=766
> http://frankshome.org/AndrewBurke.html
>
--
David Joseph Bircumshaw
Website and A Chide's Alphabet
http://www.staplednapkin.org.uk
The Animal Subsides http://www.arrowheadpress.co.uk/books/animal.html
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