humour

Big Summer 

(after Philip Gross)

              and on the appointed day, 
or thereabouts, everyone drives off to find it
going bumper to bumper audiobooks at a standstill 
till they hit the the bridge at the Bay
where summer officially begins.

Reversing vans onto powered sites
families arrive at crazy angles, lean-tos
bottom hand down, unrolling tarps
unfolding tables and what are you wearing? 
barely shorts, palm prints and heavily logoed tees

rising over swollen bellies. 
Staggered by the embrace of eucalypt and diesel,
you’re pulling cones in a juice bottle bong 
and holding in that sweet herbal 
until the contours of the day

swirl with laughter so you finally put aside
the self that was half the body’s winter.
Cicadas so loud you have to SHOUT 'I've arrived'
thongs for the blaze of sand or go barefoot fuckit 
where every shadowed path is alive with blacksnakes

and the water is revelatory—a turquoise roaring 
familiar as a Cronulla childhood
until the flash rip takes the legs
out from under you, and you’re up to your neck
in it. 

Image: c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. A summer holiday poem after Philip Gross’ Big Snow.

Notes: ‘the Bay’ refers to Batemans Bay on the NSW South Coast; a juice bottle bong is a makeshift water pipe for smoking marijuana – comprised of some aluminium foil, a section of garden hose and a plastic orange juice bottle; thongs in this context are a rubber soles held to the foot by two straps that meet between the first and second toes; Cronulla is a seaside suburb of Sydney; a flash rip is caused by the unexpected collapse of a sand bar.

And for music this morning here’s London-based jazz ensemble seed with their 2021 album balletboyz (Youtubers try this)

Our projects

My wife and I have been separated for some years. She lives in a flat in town and I’m out here in the burbs with the lawn mowers and the drug dealers. But we still see each other—daily. I’ll drop over for lunch (she’s made a Moroccan casserole and there’s too much for one person) or she’ll stop in on her way back from somewhere to pick up a bag of lemons from our tree.

We also have our projects. Last week she turned up with a broken wall clock; Saturday there was a problem with her car’s petrol cap; and recently we’ve been working on finding her a new phone. 

We were both in management before we retired, so we like problem-solving. First, she wrote out the criteria for her new phone (both essential and nice-to-have), did the research, studied the reviews and visited phone user forums. Once she’d settled on a model, I went to that auction site and found several quality candidates that balanced price, battery-life and condition (‘imperceptible scratching on the frame’ versus ‘a tiny abrasion on the logo’). Once delivered, I sent her a photo of the box on the kitchen table and a thumbs up emoji. She replied with a green heart.

Next, we worked on how to set up the new phone, how to migrate years of messages and photos, what apps to keep, what plugs and cables were required. I sent her a link to a YouTube video where a technician rehearsed the sequence of manoeuvres needed to effect the upload. ‘It’s easy,’ he said showing us how the phone should look when the transfer was done. 'You see, happy phone.' 

Before the phone project, I had a washing machine emergency. She quickly researched noise ratings, water efficiency and which companies had the lowest carbon footprint and highest ratings for ethical manufacturing. I did the install. 

‘What a team,’ she said as we stood together in the laundry that afternoon watching the new washer slosh through its first cycle. Then we did a clumsy hi-five and for a moment her hand came to rest warm in mine. 

As I sit at my bench with the wall clock disassembled about me, I wonder will this end? Will there come a time when all our appliances are working, all our lightbulbs, our automobiles? Then I look at the flimsy plastic screws they’ve used to fix the clock in place and realise that cheap industrial design will keep us in projects for years. 

I was walking the dog on the beach yesterday morning. A pale wintrous sun had barely crested the horizon and a brisk easterly eddied the sand. A couple had stripped down and were walking into the water (even though the sea is currently down to 18 degrees and with the wind it must have been much colder). They stood apart. Neither egged the other on—it was clear they were serious about the swim. I saw how they hunched into themselves as they entered the water: knee- then waist-deep and I could hear them gasp as a wave broke over their shoulders. Ahead of them waves were lined up across the bay, coming on one after the other. 

Image: Circuits and electronic components of an AWA radio, Sydney, Australia, 1948 – 1953, by Max Dupain c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr.

And for music this morning from 2009 here’s Swedish jazz trio the Esbjörn Svensson Trio (or e.s.t) with  From Gargarin’s Point of View (and Youtube) – from Retrospective The Very Best of E.S.T. (Youtube)

This Warmer Winter


Revived, a house fly cartwheels past my nose,
hyper at 20 degrees C. It’s June and 
in the garden: butterflies (!) skinks on stones
marigolds resurgent, magpies carolling, 
sweetcorn that should have been pulled in May 
re-shoots. Even the jasmine (tired old trope) blooms.

The brassicas grow rank and bitter in their beds
as we, sweating under the winter duvet,
argue (over) heated lines or fast-forward 
through eps. of Alone, to linger on the snow shots. 

O winterless world, what’s to become of us
polar bears and poets, schooled by the seasons:
‘how frost doth spangle the lips of a rose’ 
Adapt! Find a new metaphor. I grow old. 

Image: Polar Bear at Seaworld Australia c/- Misaochan2, CC BY-SA 4.0 on Wikimedia Commons. Here in Australia it’s been a warm start to winter. Seaworld is an entertainment park in Queensland featuring a range of displaced animals.

And for music today here’s Belgian Afro ensemble Zap Mama with Brrlak! (or youtubers) .

The parachutists

In this still blue bright out of nowhere
they appear, five, six, nine, just hanging

I notice them peripherally, a flock much 
larger than the usual circle of seabirds

a tenth is still falling, a stone tied to a ribbon
then the shute flowers finally and she brakes.

I hear them distantly woo-hooing each other
legs a-dangle, bodies hung from a string. 

Maybe they’ll bring us news from that upper realm:
‘the air is cold and thin’, ‘clouds wispy like pillows’

or say how we appear in our gardens
unexalted, climbing ladders, walking toddlers 

or, having snatched themselves out of the great mouth
tell us the particular word death said when denied.

Image: Royal Australian Air Force parachuter, c. 1939, c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr.

And for music this morning, here’s an early album by Max Richter, The Blue Notebooks (youtube) – (maybe start with the familiar ‘On the Nature of Daylight) which he described as a meditation on (and against) violence. Featuring Tilda Swinton reading from Franz Kafka and poet Czesław Miłosz‘s Hymn of the Pearl and Unattainable Earth. Originally released in 2003, here we are nearly 20 years on…

Drake tanka

girl in the Honda 
smoking as she shift lanes
she's listening to Drake 
driving like she doesn't care 
she’s thinking YOLO

Image: Dodgem cars, Luna Park, November 1952 _ photographed by Ivan Ives, c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. Drake, is a Canadian rapper musician, who is currently the most streamed artist of all-time on Spotify, with his songs having been played over 46 billion times, as of April 2022.) He also popularised the saying YOLO (abbr. you only live once). A tanka after Drake Equation by British-Nigerian poet Gboyega Odubanjo

You’ll have to find your own Drake (just ask anyone under 40). Meanwhile here’s US bassist and singer Esperanza Spalding with her 2008 album Esperanza, (Youtube) maybe start with Samba em Preludio (Youtube)

tanka on Cameron Smith’s victory at the British Open, 17 July 2022

every morning
my usual breakfast
cereal, fruit
and eighteen wild swans
lifting over the water

Image: Tho it’s still winter, the bird of paradise (Strelitzia reginae) is blooming here in the suburbs. A piece in tribute to the mullet haircut of Cameron Smith, professional golfer who recently won the British Open. In case you missed it, here’s a patronising piece on Cameron from the Daily Mail – ‘you can take the boy out of Brisbane, but you can’t take Brisbane out of the boy…’

And for all those suffering in the heat, here’s some very cool retro R&B soul from New York band Nuyorican Soul with their self-titled 1997 album Nuyorican Soul (Youtubers).

at the club tanka — July 12

at the club
expanse of 80s carpet
we joke about 
my funeral — 'no poets
they’ll kill the vibe'
at the bistro
shared pud + icecream 
rosettes – how quickly
the glaciers retreat
to a moraine of crumbs 
the roast and two wines
for the woman dining 
alone by the window 
— one for him long gone
remains untouched

Image: Decorative wall, The City Diggers Club, Wollongong. Diggers refers to Australian soldiers. The club still has some commemorative functions along with the poker machines and bistro.

And for music this morning, here’s US composer and vocalist Caroline Shaw with percussion group Sō with their album Let the Soil Play Its Simple Part (Youtube). Maybe start with Lay All Your Love on Me (a halting interpretation of that ABBA song) (Youtube)

3 haircuts tanka — July 10

my retro haircut
watched by a half-draped
beauty 
from another century 
— her weary smile
my usual haircut 
barber’s clippers buzz
at my neck
reminds me how you...
i stifle my pleasure
my standard haircut
for a few dollars
johnny pushes my hair
about as we chat  
— you don’t do that anymore 

Image: Two of the first female men’s barbers in Sydney, Miss Dolly House and her sister, c.1927 photographed by Sam Hood c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. Yes, it’s time for my ‘short on the sides and leave a bit of length on top’ once more, so I was musing on haircuts, an oddly intimate necessity. After Jeanne Lupton, Eucalypt, 32, 2022.

And for music today, here’s some bluesy jazz from 1960 Chicago: the John Wright Trio with South Side Soul (Youtube) (maybe start with La Salle St After Dark (Youtube)

a daily tanka — July 8

Roger Federer

is back       his backhand

as if he’d never

is quicker       quiet genius

moves       like a dream      thru the crowd

Image: Country week tennis, White City, Rushcutters Bay, Sydney. 1937. Photographer Sam Hood, c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. This made perfect sense when I wrote this at 2am.

And for music this morning, here’s First Nations musician and composer Dr G. Yunupingu (commonly known as Gurummul) with the posthumous 2018 album Djarimirri – (Youtube) — The album was completed just weeks before his passing in July 2017 and presents traditional songs and harmonised chants from his traditional Yolngu life with orchestral arrangements. Stirring.

This poem was written on the land of the Wodi Wodi people who are the Aboriginal custodians of the Illawarra — and I pay my respects to Elders past and present.

a daily tanka — July 6

how gently you
wipe that uh-oh of mayo
from my chin — 
now we can continue
                             uninterrupted

Image: My collage of domestic fruits. A tanka after David Terelinck, ‘how gently…’, Eucalypt 22, 2017

And for music this morning I was a little stuck for ideas, and then found myself in our local supermarket – and there was Sunday Morning from The Velvet Underground playing over the speakers. So here they are – Lou, John Cale, Morrison, Tucker and Nico from 1967, produced and cover art by Andy Warhol (Youtube).