prose poem

Winter ode (lunch with Linda)

we agree

—the correct way to eat Bàhn Mi is with irony and a raised fist—the baguette as de-colonised bun of resistance, made fluffier/cheaper with a handful of rice flour by the Chinese bakers kept in back—pickled radish, carrots and def. go the vegan (eschew pâté in solidarity with the goose)

—on stolen land, beneath London Plane Trees (ugh! more foreigners)—mottled trunks and non-invasive rootage favoured for civic squares everywhere. But it’s their deciduosity (adj: a part that falls off or is shed, as sprouts tumble from my ricepaper roll viz. the deciduous roll) that allows the first sun for days 

—we chat about Sappho and Aphrodite—Achilles sword drawn chasing Hector thru the laundry pools off the Scamander—Joyce and Nausicaa, masturbation and the empty trains to Port Kembla abandoned to the pervs.

The office-workers hurry their take-aways back to their desks; how lucky are we?  Dribble of nuóc châm down my shirt-front—too heavy on the fish sauce, you say (pungency n.) takes you to Phú Quôc island where fishers turn the iridescent beauty of a billion anchovies into the best fish sauce in all the Socialist Republic. Love Island©resorts for tourists and party hacks, once a prison for dissidents and missionaries— 

         beyond the barbed wire, palm trees
         shade the water in the afternoon
         so baby can swim 

You show me photos of Monkey Magic Kingdom garish reds and yellows—I’ll play Pigsy and you can be Tripitaka, your journey to the west...

for now the world becomes intelligible, full of contradiction and good crunch—history as an unreliable menu scrawled on a blackboard—a puddle of sauce glints in the sunshine. 

Image: London Plane Tree by FreddieBrown on Flickr.

For music this morning here’s some lively prepared piano by Taiwanese-Australian pianist Belle Chen from her 2019 album Departures (Youtube).

The Horses at the Steelworks

(after Ada Limon)

written on Wadi Wadi land

There’s a herd of horses on Springhill Road, a dozen or so. Agisted on the setback to the Hot Strip Mill, their paddock is fenced with steel made right here.

I see them briefly most days—heads down, leaning together in threes, twos, or pairs with one further off—driving as I do between home and town. Dappled greys, chestnut and horse-brown, they’re ordinary-sized, a medium number of hands high. They crop the vivid green paddocks or stand four-square as horses do.

On the other side of the works, there’s Port Kembla. I’ve lived here for a decade now. The northerlies bring the funk of coal, sooty washing, sheets and pillowcases, grit on the waterbowl, inhaler by the bedside. ‘It used to be worse,’ my neighbour (who’s ninety) says with a shake of her head. ‘Much worse.’ Wonder how we’re inured to train brakes shrieking, huge plumes of steam, ships moaning. And the horses? With flames all night, violet and yellow.

The horses are loved. Dads and daughters pull out of the speeding traffic into the culvert to unload bales, brushes. A granny smith offered on the flat of a hand. Some Saturdays they’ll back a float in and drive to a bridle path or event somewhere.

Blanketed by soot and noise the horses remain, full of possibility. And we wonder, while waiting for the lights, whether in dreams—a dash down savage grasses, the thrill and wind in the run

Image: Horse in Motion, Eadweard Muybridge, 1830-1904 c/- Boston Public Library. Ada Limon is US poet laureate and her earlier work included poems on horses including Foaling Season. The horses at the steelworks are a different herd entirely. Springhill Road runs adjacent to the Bluescope Steelworks at Port Kembla.

And for music this morning, something beautiful from Saint Hidegard von Bingen via Australian artists Kim Cunio and Heather Lee with various musicians: The Sacred Fire (youtubers).