Breathing room

Airships drop from the freighted clouds, bringing peace
to America’s scattered factions. The new satrap
declares his rule will be benign, his punishments
beyond appeal, his mistresses all that money can buy.

The newsreel ends with an unfamiliar anthem
as we disengage, stumbling to attention. Hands
that curled ’round willing selves now stretch
towards another new tomorrow,
while south of the border, la lutte continue. 

**

Skippy goes bush

Old Moonface dead. I’ve always thought
his finest scene the one where Skippy
just gives up and goes back bush
having failed once more to tell
Ed Devereaux that Boney might not be
the Real Thing, up there on the AMP
while five men vanish yet again
from Pinchgut that very night the town
packed up and headed for the Mountains
just as dawn found Bogle Chandler cheek to cheek
on the dancehall drifting through the poison mist
en route to Lavender Bay in a brief homage
to the scene that one day would open Bliss.

**

Whereof, thereof

Last year we were fighting
out where the tourists are queuing for postcards
sun-up to sun-down, May to September.
Those memories their only reward
when headaches arrive on the bus
back to the old quarter and the watered drinks
served up by people who are just like us (without
the motive or the glottal stop).

Last night we were on manoeuvres
in the cathedral square; denunciations
filled out the peace between the bells and the words
like clown, like echt, like terroir.
There with their cameras and always questions
which we answered politely, though with nothing to sell.

**

The Wendish for dog

Who, she asked, is Princip – and what
in the name of God is Mr Ping The Elastic Man?
My daughter meanwhile all thumbs on the screen
raps out bons mots such as
Mount Druitt ain’t a country, bitch.

But was where I was heading home one summer evening,
his knee against mine, tapping a message
he reduced to words at Rooty Hill.
How far do you go?
……………………………………..Poor sod,
I think now, but way back then the certainties
were something else, like the man who asked,
When I am gone, who will know the Wendish for dog?
The answer now – as always – being
Princip, and Mr Ping The Elastic Man.

**

Sydenham Station 1983

The platform is deserted. Rain
is expected until Saturday.
And I’ve put on weight again.

No savage beauty here, I doubt
that anyone would find this beautiful,
the antic joy lost beneath an inch of paint
and the fireplace cold behind its boards.

The platform is still deserted. I have no idea
of where I should be standing. The trains
are all on time, but leave in the wrong direction.

 ——————————

Matt Creighton lived in Mount Druitt for a number of years, and now lives in regional NSW. He is a failed lawyer and barman who has lived a largely uneventful life. His current poetry models would be CK Williams, Derek Mahon and Craig Raine, if he weren’t overcome with feelings of inadequacy every time he reads them.

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