Three Poems

By John Tranter
Copyright 1993 by John Tranter

STORM OVER SYDNEY

Blustering over the Harbour, brilliant rain
slaps and blathers at the rusty Bridge.
I dodge for cover as the sky turns green.
Cars wobble and skid on William Street,
            hot with mechanical rage.

Lightning strikes twice: a blinding white
crack! and the echo whacks the concrete.
I fossick and dawdle in the supermarket aisles
safely underground, among the paper plates
            and the jars of honey.

The thunder has trundled a thousand miles
and boiled the Pacific black to bother us all,
and it's dull and sick from its long journey.
Now I'm trying to wheel a crook trolley
            from the shopping mall:

the chrome's rusty, and a bent wheel clanks.
It's the season of ruby cellophane and holly;
the gutters are chock-full of summer hail
fresh-frozen and smashed into chunks.
            At the café I doze

in a corner, read the messages and the mail,
and unwrap the book I've bought. It's old, old:
the writer's fervour whispering down the years,
epigrams elaborating a narrative - as though
            such fragments could!

On schedule, the weather grumbles and raves
westward over the suburbs. I'm happy. I know
a little park where I can park the car,
sit on a wet bench and watch the waves
            fume in the amethyst air.

NORTH WOODS

The whirring projector flings this
onto the screen: she tilts clockwise, leaves
the view of the rocky river flowing out of focus
tangled and white like laundry boiling, slowly
turning her back and moving into the shadow
of the porch, on a cloudy afternoon - the light
tinted pearl, a naked toe bent and dipped
into the water, that's what she's seen,
it worries her sleep for weeks afterwards.
            Sitting on a ledge
high above the sky, a place for whispers,
you meet the question which had grown up
around the edges of the party, in the gentle chatter:
how she tears herself from the brilliantly-coloured
view and sweeps into the room - she seems younger,
the hairdo's different, there's less available light here -
like something pushing its way through
            the photo-realist wallpaper -
then she looks into the depths of things, charming
some guests, frightening others -
            what if all our secrets - that's
ill-mannered on this coast, but not on the other.
Then her novelist nostalgia flows away
            beside the crumbling cliffs,
a fall evening, with its sheaves of red leaves,
that's what will appear to us in late middle age,
            or so she guesses.
The primitive ferry bumps along through the rapids
and a breeze rearranges the mist so a rainbow
points down to the earth
            and the dyes there
are reflected on your trochus shirt button
and tint their sketched hair, the screen.
            The screen.
The imagination babbles forever,
the kitchen light in the cabin always
glowing in the fog ahead where frail ghosts
glimmered, like a gin ad in the ancient forest
then her remedy rattles down from the shelf, the sun
spoking through the lonesome pines and she becomes
as we prayed she would - full of zip,
            the sky pink and happy.

Yes, we guessed she could be elated, but
we could be wrong - she's quite like us;
we know a dozen ways of being miserable,
and three or four secret paths to exaltation.
At least we'll know where her imaginings come from,
and that evening drift-down feeling that seems
enigmatic or smutty to her, but we know
how a wish and a hex make it dissolve
and turn into the statue - the one lolling and
reading a paper, in the abandoned garden.
            Well, the garden's overgrown
and apparently deserted, except for us possums.

Then when she leaves, when she strikes out
into the adult world, the bad things will happen, but
she'll be undaunted, the author insists.
She takes the neon light sparkling on a brooch
            for a sign, and the evening sun
leaking through the clouds and reflecting
on her friend's lips, glinting on the crimson gloss
as she gives a smile - looking up from her typing -

that's right, now I remember - midnight -

in the garden a sunken bowl brimming with rainwater,
reflecting the moonlight - she looks down - uh! - then
after waking from the dream she's full of fear,
            her pillow's wet, she's alone,
she thinks about the brain's shabby bargaining,
tangles in the neuron net, the scriptures
in gloomy wolf cover, and the ridiculous promises -

            if she's perfect
she'll live forever, that kind of thing.

Lately my biographer wants me to talk, she says, he's
            fishing for retrospection,
dawdling around in this dead-end shack, then
he skulks back to the city to tell them about it,
the crawlers, so few rise up to the idealistic forms,
each day another friend involved in some
            fraudulent racket.
In confiding her memories she assembles a mausoleum,
and she makes inscription and remembrance a cult,
this melancholy scribbling . . . uh huh . . .
squalid counterfeit of intimacy -

so the hidden future seems just like
a table spirit hiding its tidings, but she
looks at it closely - she is growing
older and happier, or maybe more painfully
sketched onto the present as it doodles away,
changing the way she brushes her hair,
and now that the planets are setting, sexual activity
declines gently in view of the partygoers.

There are companies to raid, investments
to be combed and smoothed, patrons to be flattered.

And when she pushes on, when she pounces
on the future, audacious and exemplary,
the authors of her character watch from a distance,
unhappy at what they've brought about.
The sunlight glinting on a coin,
            that should be enough, but
in the wilderness those gigantic galleries wait,
and years later you search for it, a can of film -

the syrup of happiness filtering to the bottom
of the chill pool where light fails, losing
one wavelength after another, from yellow to blue,
to be preserved there in a kind of memory theatre.
Downstream the suburbanites
live with the lawn as best they can, a struggle
against nature, the agricultural runoff, the
phosphates, the thicket.
            And looking back,
the old people weren't real - that's what they felt;
since the kids left home they'd mutated into an ideal.
Then at least we'll have been made up, they say,
a tale telling us about our sad and radiant feelings,
so we can own them again.
What good is it all, in the end? the children ask.
We're them, that's what.
            She turns - the highlights
on her hair overtaken by shadow - and fades back
into the dim room, and disappears - would we be
satisfied with our childhood, if it happened again?
That's not too far out of reach of remembrance,
as we estimate these things, gathering what's left
of the picnic among the sliding plates and leaves.

Yes, we guessed this would happen, but slowly,
in view of the endless river.

JOURNEY

The door slides shut with a hiss and it seems we're moving out
            falteringly at first, the brick
            flats tilting then
            reluctantly shifting
aside. We're starting a long journey with half the plot,

some of the story, nothing to worry about and hardly a clue.
            Now a canal's rotating slowly,
            now a sodden paddock, starring
            a wrestling girl and boy.
All gone; we've had quite enough and we're shooting through.

It's hooroo to the broken mirrors and the scraps of sky
            glaring from the wet turf,
            the torn panties,
            grass stains; turn
your back and be rid of the lot of it, say goodbye.

Somewhere long ago you hunted among the chatter
            clutching a damp hand,
            frightened of appetites,
            bold, shaking, wondering
why she wanted you so much, and what was the matter.

And now she's disappeared, or what's worse, turned into just
            another bothered mum. Back
            there in the twilight
            then, she was a pink
breathless angel, all clumsy enthusiasm and lust.

They hope for more, they all want something mysterious,
            the heartbreak girls, the
            lost lads, it's no
            thanks to the bread of life
but give them a piece of cake and they go delirious,

wanting the sun to dazzle and stand still forever,
            youth to ripen, passion
            to flicker and flash,
            every cheating
kiss a puzzle, true love a paradox and a fever.

And what are you doing here? Do you deserve it?
            Dodging the blades, weaving
            between the wheels and not
            getting the chop?
You're hardly the handsome dandy after all, more the nervous

middle-aged college visitor bewildered at tea,
            ashamed of his tie:
            the wrong badge,
            prickly hedge, life
a locked book and an idiot rampant in a tree

wondering what the fuss was about at the front of the hall:
            the shriek, the slap,
            the shattered glass, the
            burst of clapping,
the stock market crash and the shock declaration of war.

And we seem to be rattling out of control along the track
            that clatters into the
            country, turns a bend,
            and vanishes into
the forest, into the waiting shadows, into the dark.

(Copyright © John Tranter 1993)