Lemonades

The Mallee is wide. And seemingly endless.

The writers’ festival had dished up lashings of seductive: writer in residence Carrie Tiffany, the breathtakingly eloquent Gail Jones, Stefano’s unctuous Mid Winter Feast. And a myriad of other people places and pleasures. And so it was, that on leaving Mildura, I was deeply engaged with the hypnotic and the vast.

Hitting the city’s outskirts, I was struck (again) by the block upon block of orchards. Acres of trees had welcomed me on my arrival just days before, and now as I left, endless groves still stood silently, like globular Christmas pines bedecked in citrus baubles, obediently waiting to be relieved of their bounty.

Every farm gate boasted a sign enticing passers-by to indulge in “LOCALLY GROWN” “FARM FRESH”. There were wheelbarrows, old and new, laden with orange butternuts and nylon netted bags stretched taut by heavy harvests. Produce was reverently stacked on pallet board bench tops.

Joining the A20 and heading for home I passed through Buronga and Gol Gol  - places whose names rolled around in my mouth like golden syrup. Despite their sweetness, some of them seemed nothing more than a locality sign, there being no discernible difference between the fold upon fold of farming endeavour and their insistent signage. Bombarded at every bend by beckoning boards and with a roughly formed idea of something still intangible, I decided to count the number of signs I passed. I inwardly hoped the shift in focus might also lighten the post-festival blues I was already hearing.

My window down and Jeff Buckley’s ‘Grace’ on loop, I set to my task. Having committed, I drove more deliberately, determined to spot and honour each and every hand scripted sign.

Almost immediately my first subject loomed on a bend. Its sign declared “PRices as Marked” [sic], directing customers to “Put MONEY IN THE SAFE”. Radishes, lemons, oranges, eggs and pumpkins all called - they sat bagged in gentle hillocks or, in the case of eggs, in military marching band formations. And “LEMONADES” for a princely $2 per bag.

The lemonades at Trentham Cliffs pricked painful
memories, but I bought them anyway. 

You don’t often see lemonades for sale - or at least I never have. 

I first knew them to be in my Nana’s NSW mid-North Coast garden, not far from the mossie- infested passionfruit-vined pergola. Actually, it wasn't really a pergola, being free standing and so unattached to any walls. I don't think my Nana would have known what a pergola was if it slapped her in the face on her way home from milking. No, she would not have had a pergola in the house yard. The passionfruit thing was more a humble frame - from which the heavy black fruit hung - and stood close by the ‘hell bed’ where I was sexually abused by my uncle each Christmas. 

More recently, I rediscovered lemonades in my mother’s home orchard. She gathers scavenged and otherwise collected scions from roadsides and long abandoned and tumbledown homestead sites. Along with dozens of other heritage and rarer varieties birthed into existence by her careful grafting, the lemonades hold company in her orchard with the unusual and unfamiliar. 

I chose the heaviest of the four hanging bags and depositing the scatter of shrapnel scrounged from the console, I returned to the highway. And to my counting.

At a place I now know is Monak, I passed a two-storied b-double on a bend. I wondered where the cattle it carried would be sleeping tonight, before making their way to bloody abattoirs and butcher rooms. Just as the last of the truck’s axles left my vision, a shiny glimmer of something caught my eye on that side of the road. There it was again - stuttering shafts of light across my windscreen. Perhaps it was broken glass ejecting winter sunbeams caught in its hollow? Or reflections off a residual pool of water not yet soaked into the thirsty earth following last night’s rain? 

Naturally curious and with time to spare, I slowed, pulled over and doubled back, retracing my route. 

To the flashing. 

It seemed that I drove for almost half a mile. I almost gave up, thinking that approaching from the opposite direction might make the flashing invisible. And just as I slowed - to abandon my search and resume my counting - the shimmer shimmered again. 

And I spied it. 

Ahead of me, a little behind the tarred road’s edge, were singular smatterings of withered silk flowers, and then a melting party hat and scraps of tired and mostly faded tinsel. One length of silver tinsel was carefully draped on a low salt bush, its loose end frolicking freely in the breeze and enabling its small metallic fronds to throw perforated rays into the day. Just a few days shy of the winter solstice, the low sun’s glare combined with the reflecting tinsel to make it difficult to see. A modern day Gretel, I treaded gently on the red earth, following a path of detritus. 

Curiouser and curiouser.

The remnants of old celebration finally led me to a faded hand-hewn red-gum cross. 

It stood perhaps a meter high - its perfectly proportioned cross bar carefully recessed - making the memorial instantly halting. A length of fat pregnant silver tinsel was wrapped over the horizontal arm and surely secured, for although the day’s stiff breeze ruffled the tinsel’s fronds, it stayed firmly tethered. 

The cross was gently greying as hardwood does, its exposure to the elements forcing fissures into its surface that echoed of dry Mallee creek beds. A name, dates and loving inscriptions filled the parallel arm. And my second sign - this one not enticing potential buyers, but forever declaring a family’s love and loss. Its lettering still golden and rich, a black marble tablet sat proudly at the cross’s foot. William was, I now know, “LOVING BROTHER TO DAPHNE, TRISHA, SHAE, DEWELLA, RACHEAL, AMROSE dec TERRY, DEWAYNE, CLEON, JACKSON, RILEY”, “LOVING SON OF COLLEEN & WILLIE” and “LOVED SON TO YVONNE & GERALD”. 

I was overcome by a gut-wrenching grief and within seconds, welling tears spilled from my eyes. They fell to the earth and parachuted red berets of dust onto my shoes. The eleven funerals that I attended last year - each drenched in an ever-accumulating rise of senseless despair - ricocheted around me. Snatches of burial track melodies and lyrics crashed into me in a cacophony of anguish. A glimpsed ugly clutch of synthetic carnations, gyp and greenery screamed at me in a blurred haze, morphing into Kathleen’s casket spray of yellow roses. 

I don’t know how much time passed.

I heard crows and magpies when I regained lucidity and my cheeks were wet and hot. 

I fashioned a naïve posy from the stolen branchlets of nearby shrubs and trees. Wrapping their gathered stems with a sappy length of red eucalyptus tendril, I added my humble offering to William’s memorial.

And returned to my counting. 

RIP WILLIAM JOHNSON

6.6.1985 - 21.11.2009
IN OUR HEARTS FOREVER.

#writersinaction #mildurawritersfestival #milduraarts 
#creativevictoria #latrobeuni

Writing Love - a short story

(inspired by Carrie Tiffany’s Mateship with Birds, her sound installation ‘The Loving Tree’ 

and Mildura Writers Festival session, ‘Reading [and writing] for courage’)

The heady days of a new relationship are equally fraught with dread, anxiety, hope and a dare to dream that pushes nervous animated candidates into unfamiliar and sometimes scary places.

And so it was as she and her tummy lurching love interest embarked on the early days of the tentative square dancing that is a new dalliance.

As a teenager she had read of the unresolved sexual tension gaudily paraded in the racy airport novels stolen from her parents’ bookcase. A shelf or two above the proudly installed World Book Encyclopaedia and its junior companion Childcraft, were the salacious Valley of the Dolls, The Thorn Birds and other middling titles with thinly veiled allusions to illicit sexual desire.

She had no real idea of course; her knowledge of sexuality was limited to the awkward conversations sparked by the embarrassing arrival of her period at eleven. Her mother prided herself on her candid and open discussions with her first born, oblivious to the discomfort of her cringing daughter. Dolly was a more trusted source of knowledge - that and the weather sheds in her country primary school playground where girls took turns in being Sandy Olssen, Danny Zuko and the Pink Ladies. Her favourite Pink Lady was Rizzo - the flawed and vulnerable anti-heroine whose fragility frightened and exhilarated her.

Fast forward to a time when university exams were a distant memory and her career under way. 

And enter a new colleague.

A muscular handsome man with wavy dark hair and espresso coloured eyes. They’d met at a staff function months before. Now, the previously dismissed chemistry was finally acknowledged.

The first date was a picnic. He had carefully prepared a generous basket of preserved olives and fatty salami and luscious velvety cheese. A hand formed and wood fired sour dough loaf was nestled easily beside a South Australian Pinot Gris and a pair of chunky Vegemite jars from which they drank.

Bellies filled, fat smeared fingers licked clean and mouths mopped, they settled into easy languid conversations about nothings: the purest scarlet of the nearby bottlebrush flowers, the silly elephants in the clouds, the comforting rhythm of rain on a winters’ night.

“Tell me a story,” she said.

The prickle of the dry summer grass tattooed her hips and thighs with a messy perforation of coupon cut-out lines. His eyes lifted to the tops of the eucalypts that fringed the reserve. From there, vast flocks of cockatoos squawked a daylight reverie each morning as they embarked on their daily travels. In the evenings, they returned just as noisily to reinstall themselves before sleeping.

In late afternoon, though, the canopy of the gums is silent but for the occasional peep of one or two rosellas, painted in complementing plumages and singing of party and celebration.

“What story do you want to hear?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Any you want to tell me.”

He looked at her for a short minute, taking in every freckle and the wine-tinged blush over her cheeks. Then slowly and deliberately, he lifted himself from the ground, contracting his torso and rising to a squat. From there he leant across the repacked basket to where he had earlier laid his canvas rucksack.

The grubby bag was criss-crossed with hand-drawn caricatures etched in permanent texta; a peace sign grinned in vermillion; rainbows, buildings and skyscapes filled the gussets; and a garland of freeform daisies encircled the front pocket that bulged with the promise of a small volume shaped protrusion.

He unbuckled the closure and withdrew a small brown notebook. Its cover bore shadows of raindrops and greasy fingerprints. A large blotch of dried black ink bled from the book’s top edge across the cover and along the spine onto the its back. A corresponding Rorschach inkblot bloomed on the now empty pocket, hinting of the long ago bleeding biro.

“Choose a number.”

“27.”

He slowly opened the notebook and turned each page ’til he reached his destination. He was in no hurry, happy for this to take as long as it would take.

He gently pressed open the book, running the seat of his palm down its spine. 

She shuffled along the rug ’til her head rested softly on his left thigh and her body lay perpendicular to his legs. Her hair fell gently around her shoulders and across her throat. He softly collected it in his free hand and rearranged it, gathering wayward strands that lingered around her temple and smoothed them into gently submission.

Lifting her right arm, she searched for his free hand and after balling her own, rested it gentle inside his. 

“On a cold winter’s day in 1959, I scoured the shelves of my school library, searching for breathable relief from my clumsy adolescence. I stumbled across a slim volume, wrapped in smooth brown paper, but devoid of any title or other text. Excepting for a glossy black and white photograph, the cover was bare. The photo was square, about three inches by three inches and showed a man of about fifty, steadily gazing down the photographer’s lens.”

“The book was a collection of essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson. I was embarrassed to borrow it because the librarian was a mean spinster who ridiculed my lofty aspirations. So I stole it and kept it jammed under my mattress in case my mother discovered the absence of the witch’s inked initials on the back page.”

Over the next hour, he read memories of growing up in inner city Melbourne: brief interludes with green grocers, bank clerks, a crippled man at a pedestrian crossing, a litter of dumped kittens and a service station attendant arguing with his wife. They were short and succinct, capturing single moments of a boy’s life, each beautifully sculpted and throbbing with the intensity of lived experience.

A natural lull settled over them. Their kisses were sweet and warm.

They gathered their possessions and moved off to cars parked on the bitumen beyond the copper log fence. 

And all the way home, she replayed the sound of his voice reading his life. 

#mildurawritersfestival #creativevictoria #latrobeuni #writersinaction 

Unexpected gift

" ... poetry is like a bonus to life ..." 

Peter Boyle, 2017 Philip Hodgins Memorial Medallist


My relationship with ‘poetry’ has been somewhat tenuous, and despite my desire and occasional diligence, we never really hit it off. Like a long awaited movie sequel, poetry rarely met my expectations, instead often falling far short. And although I have always sought others’ profound words on births, deaths and marriages, poetry has not filled the place in my life I once imagined it might.

Like a lot of Australians of my age and background, my poetry education was shaped by the likes of Paterson and Lawson. Mostly Banjo actually, as his birthplace is just a few miles from my own and our town had been hanging its hat on his fame for decades. His bigger than life identity flavoured all things poetry at my primary school. Years on, thoughts of my father’s galloping rendition of ‘Clancy of the Overflow’ still evoke wistful melancholy. 

As a kid, I loved poetry. I loved AA Milne and Seuss when I was really little and Milligan and Carroll - particularly their nonsense verse - as I grew older. Always an avid reader, I loved words so much that I embraced all things poetry whenever I could, sensing it to be the finer art. I loved its rhythm, sense of adventure and occasion and the way its words fuelled my imagination and painted pictures in my mind’s eye. My childhood notebooks were filled with phrases and snatches of soulful sentences: I loved the sound of the spoken word and peppered my dialogue with metaphor and allusion. As an eleven year old I won a recital competition for ‘The Play’, the fifth chapter of CJ Dennis’ verse novel, The Sentimental Bloke. I distinctly remember selecting the whimsical tale of Bill and Doreen’s date night in a subversive and secret hope that one day I would find meaning in that world of staged representation. I was drawn, I’m sure, to Dennis’ apparent innocence, irreverence and larrikinism - the very antithesis of my home life.

Spike Milligan made this recording in 1999, long after 

he and I became inseparable friends 

I was so entranced by poetry that when I won a speech contest a year later, I proudly exchanged my book voucher prize for Geoffrey Dutton’s compendium, Australian Verse From 1805: A Continuum, at the local Collins retailer. My memory has the prize being $100; a quick google neither confirms nor contradicts this, but hindsight tells me a voucher of this value for a primary school speaking competition is probably unlikely. Either way, my voucher’s worth was a perfect match for the volume’s asking price and after picking it up, putting it down, walking around the shop and picking it up again, I formalised my selection. The poetry section was at the back of the shop; it was such a long walk to the register. On arrival, I wordlessly offered my voucher by way of payment. Oh, how the book store owner must have inwardly laughed!

I've always loved the power of words but the purchase of this
book was a mis-directed attempt to understand them

Sadly (and perplexing beyond my then understanding), was the almost immediate realisation that the works so carefully assembled by Mr Dutton were double-dutch to me! Looking back of course, this is unsurprising, but  can you imagine my disappointment? I remember my confusion as I poured over page after page, doggedly trying to find meaning, wondering whether Mr Dutton even knew anything about poetry at all!!

As I grew older, I came to realise that the lyric poetry of the picaresque I’d heard my father recite, spoke little of the complexities of humanity that assaulted me each day. Now adolescent, I yearned for reassurance in my tumultuous world, imagining I would find it in the words of a long dead poet; if only I knew which poem to read! I sought consolation in Wordsworth, Keats and Blake; alas, these too, were mostly beyond my understanding. However a timely and gentle introduction to Shakespeare spoke to me profoundly. His plays and especially his sonnets, helped me to begin to locate myself inside the continuum of human existence. Dalliances with Chaucer (always one for the risqué), Dawe and Wright gave me another opportunity to explore the questions I had been asking for years and later, well into adulthood, those much wished for sighs of recognition finally arrived.  

Such relief.

But not the life affirming all-singing all-dancing entourage I had imagined in my childhood.

Earlier this year, on a particularly hot summer’s afternoon, I performed at a SLAM poetry open mic. That night, I took a pledge to ‘just write’ - every day - and share my output with a trusted group of co-writers. For a number of weeks, I ground out strings of sometimes pretty and more-often ugly words, always attempting to crystallise something about life and humanity. My results were varied: for each small sweetness there were stockpots of cliche and standard fare. And, short lived. I discontinued my 'just write' almost as abruptly as I started it ... but the commitment was empowering and the occasional perfect morsels filled my soul with hope. 

And so anticipation of Mildura Writers Festival poetry sessions filled me with mixed portent: during these sessions surely, words of rarified beauty might be dropped - or rather deliberately placed? I hoped beyond rational reason that I might decipher them, but was mindful of our rocky past.

The poetry sessions were wonderful. I laughed and cried with equal abandon. But there was more, so much more to come ... 

Over the festival's duration, I shared food and wine with beautiful humans who just happen to specialise in the art that is poetry. They were generous gracious writers comfortable with exposing their vulnerability; Les Murray shed a tear - a big fat single tear that rolled slowly down his greyed cheek - as we spoke about his late parents; and Judith Beveridge revealed her ongoing disbelief that her work has been translated into several other languages. They were both kind, self-effacing and real. Oh so real. 

More than this though, the poets unknowingly gave me permission to continue my own practice … experimentation in haiku, and in which I profess to be neither proficient nor skilled.  

And so, here below, is some of my poetry. Each semblance of words has been inspired by the MWF - by way of an observation or personal encounter - and offered with heartfelt thanks, to its poets.

          

                 a space sits vacant

        empty chairs call company

           nothing is nothing

lovers’ arms entwine

gentle touch, offers light air

needed to soar high

surprise harmony

our melancholy stories 

wistfully exchanged

         empty libretto 

             births impromptu concerto

             unexpected gift

                                                   parental caress 

                                                       gifts unconditional love

                                                                    loyalty in blood

walking beginner 

caramel eyes seek quiet truth

 downhill yet slowly  

                                                percussive rain drops

                                                an improvised symphony,

                                     thirsty olives drink

                                                       autumn’s splendour holds

                                                       unperturbed by emerging

                                                           life, lime wings erupt

I snapped this on the way into the Festival Finale Lunch, 

taken by its juxtaposition of old and new

#writersinaction #latrobeuni

#creativevictoria #artsmildura

#mildurawritersfestival #peterboyle

#lesmurray #judithbeveridge

#stefanodepieri 

Dislocation at night

I'm restless tonight ... 

the moon hides behind gentle clouds keeping the night under a velveted cloak  ..

and I feel dislocated ...

and I learn that Dr G Yunupingu has passed away in Darwin ...

and my soul whispers of a sadness that spills down my spine ...

and I flail in the fear that I might never feel happiness again

sadness seeps into every pore

the beginning of everything

Are you organised? The sort of person who previews, analyses, considers and then implements a well-crafted plan? 

I’m not. Sometimes I think I’d like to be. But I’m not. 

I am good at lots of other things though. 

I tie a great double-knot - if you’re after a shoelace that won’t unravel, call me. 

And I'm courageous - really really courageous. 

And I listen well. In fact I’m such an incredible listener that it sometimes upends my day. 

Like today.

I’m at the Mildura Writers Festival and despite not booking any accomodation before arriving, I’ve landed myself a wonderful airbnb. At the kettle this morning, I met another guest, a young woman of about thirty with delphinium almond eyes and high cheekbones. Over English Breakfast, Jess and I struck up easy conversation that moved into the sunny courtyard with tea and toast. Small talk exchanged, in no time at all we headed into the intimate territory of family dynamics, relationship foibles and vanishing hopes and dreams. Listening to Jess was second nature … she was eager to talk and I am tuned to listen. We traversed topics broad and varied; our next port of call was the heady stuff of DNA trauma theories and chemical memory, neither of which I know to be true. But we were flying!

My new friend recently arrived in Mildura having made a spontaneous decision one morning a couple of weeks before, to make her way up the Calder. “Mildura’s the centre of it,” she explained, “the beginning of everything.” 

I wasn't sure what she meant. I already knew that she was born and raised in the central goldfields, so the Mallee was hardly her ‘country’. Not by birth or familial connection at least. And although her words seemed odd, they also rang with a certain familiarity. 

I’d heard another new friend talk about Mildura being the stepping stone to Mungo National Park. Compelled by a pull similar to that described by Jess, he had relayed that, having travelled to Mildura for years, he was repeatedly drawn here because of the honesty and integrity of the desert. They weren't his exact words, but that’s how I remember his fervour and passion. 

So ... Mildura has a pull?

Jess and I talked for hours … quite literally hours. So many hours in fact that I’m embarrassed to admit I missed the first session of the day’s program. Our time together passed in an instant; we tapped so many private and deeply personal issues that it felt as though I had known her for years. We each shared some writing … something I have done only very rarely. We exchanged numbers and email addresses and I’m certain our paths will cross again.

Listening opened the gateway to making a new friend today; a friend who is sincere, adventurous and brave. Jess loves Mildura and after just a couple of days here, I am beginning to see why.

And organisation is for the birds … I’ll take listening any day.

#mildurawritersfestival #latrobeuni #writersinaction 

#creativevictoria #artsmildura

Mapping My Debut

(Subtitle: Yesterday I Became a Poet)

I'm drafting a blog ... but I need to sleep 

And blogging and sleep deprivation are unlikely companions

So instead ... 

I'll

Just

Do

This ...

Abe Nuok, RikTheMost, Simon Illif, Soreti Kadir, Jamie Lea, Sue Gillett, Joel McKerrow, 
Sire Camara and Nicolette Jahn all helped me celebrate my spoken word poetry debut at 
Shepparton Festival's closing event on Sunday afternoon.
(Photo credit due to Abe's amazing selfie arm)


#sheppfest #mapping #latrobeuni #writersinaction 
#spokenwordpoetry 

Festival Gods

Even the Festival gods would never have 

dreamed up this one ... 

Poetry debut: check

Festival close: check

Drive to Tullamarine: check

Collects friends' unattended luggage in International Departures: check

Avoid airport lockdown: check

Sweet-talk check-in staff and secure leniency on over-weight luggage: check

Begin goodbyes to my Teresa and her beautiful precious family: check

Sob like a baby: check

Attempt goodbye selfie: check

Sob again: check

Uncontrolled sobbing: check

Abandon idea of goodbye selfie: check

Adieu to my Teresa and her beautiful precious family: check

Sob again: check

Final waves goodbye: check

More uncontrolled sobbing:check 

Drive home: pending

More sobbing: check

... arrival, departure, journey, travel, destination, 

home, family, connection, pathway, return ... 

mapping

❤️🌏

 #festivalgods #writersinaction #sheppfest #latrobeuni 

#mapping #spokenwordpoetry