No, not yet. You reminded me about him - and that time in my life - so I
may very well approach it.
Thanks!
Andrew
On 14 November 2014 02:39, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Thanks for these encouraging remarks, guys.
>
> Andrew - have you written your Jarrah Jack poem(s)?
>
> Max
>
> [my Norman may get to read my lines - but asking round...other survivors of
> that lost world tell me 'not unkind', but wonder what I may write about
> them.
> None were eccentric enough.]
>
> On Nov 13, 2014, at 11:18 AM, Andrew Burke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> > Your ink is flowing well, Max. I too loved Disposals - and this one
> Cheap:
> > I knew a man like this, only drugs got him. (Jarrah Jack was his
> moniker.)
> > Homeless really, he bummed from commune to commune and then brought fresh
> > fruit in a bag to the suburbs to sell.
> >
> > Andrew
> >
> > On 13 November 2014 08:28, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >
> >> Congrats, Max, especially for Disposals, well worth redipping into. For
> >> its range, it's acceptance.
> >>
> >> Bill
> >>
> >>
> >>> On 13 Nov 2014, at 2:23 am, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> My thanks to Anny for posting me twice on Halvard's blogspot -
> >>>
> >>> http://halvard-johnson.blogspot.it/2014/11/max-richards_7.html
> >>>
> >>> and the second is a piece I'd otherwise have sent this week to
> poetryetc
> >> - she remarks:
> >>>
> >>> I had to publish your other Seattle poem on the Day of the Dead on
> >> another page:
> >>>
> >>> http://halvard-johnson.blogspot.it/2014/11/max-richards.html
> >>>
> >>> Thanks again, Anny and behind her, Halvard.
> >>>
> >>> Cheap
> >>>
> >>> My frugal friend Norman
> >>> resolved to live like Thoreau
> >>> though employed where I was,
> >>> both on decent salaries.
> >>>
> >>> Norman taught inter alia
> >>> American literature,
> >>> including Walden,
> >>> sometimes with me.
> >>>
> >>> He'd bring me some trifle
> >>> by Cummings or Williams -
> >>> now isn't that fine!
> >>> Mostly read Victorians,
> >>>
> >>> the more forgotten
> >>> the better for him.
> >>> Their plots were passed
> >>> on in any chat with him.
> >>>
> >>> He deplored how little
> >>> we asked of students.
> >>> Meeting a new bunch
> >>> one year he said:
> >>>
> >>> for me please write
> >>> a short essay each week.
> >>> Most of his students
> >>> transferred to me.
> >>>
> >>> Some also preferred
> >>> chairs and a table
> >>> to the benches he made
> >>> from scrap planks of wood
> >>>
> >>> on which he served acrid
> >>> tea in mugs from op-shops.
> >>> His weatherboard cottage
> >>> was a short bike ride away.
> >>>
> >>> Every room was full of books,
> >>> with many underfoot.
> >>> Front and back, grass grew long
> >>> around his self-sown trees.
> >>>
> >>> It was wild! He looked wild,
> >>> gleaming through his beard.
> >>> His clothes were from charity
> >>> shops, ill-fitting and worn.
> >>>
> >>> A day came when he confided:
> >>> 'I now buy op-shop underpants,
> >>> very cheap.' Only he could wear
> >>> dead men's undergarments.
> >>>
> >>> What he didn't spend
> >>> he made sure good causes got,
> >>> confidentially. He did let on
> >>> he'd bought land -
> >>>
> >>> acres not farmable
> >>> down Gippsland way,
> >>> a train trip and a bike ride.
> >>> He wanted it reforested,
> >>>
> >>> trees no-one would harvest.
> >>> As he aged he visited them
> >>> seldom. Last chat we had
> >>> he said the farmer next door
> >>>
> >>> had taken the land off
> >>> his hands, very cheap.
> >>> Privately I called him
> >>> 'our cut-price Thoreau'.
> >>>
> >>> Tread lightly - that he did.
> >>> I nurtured his wedding gift,
> >>> a gum-tree sapling
> >>> in an old tin, but it died.
> >>
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Andrew
> > http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
> > 'Undercover of Lightness'
> > http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
> > 'Shikibu Shuffle'
> >
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html
>
--
Andrew
http://hispirits.blogspot.com/
'Undercover of Lightness'
http://walleahpress.com.au/recent-publications.html
'Shikibu Shuffle'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com.au/2012/03/new-from-aboveground-press-shikibu.html
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