Flood, 1974

In 2008 Suzanne Bellamy and I were commissioned by Lella Cariddi to bring together art and poetry for a touring exhibition on the subject of drought. Drought is often followed by flood and the poem here was written in memory of the flood which I experienced on my parents' farm along the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga in September 1974. This year Wagga has seen floods yet again, as has Brisbane and many other towns across Australia - as well as in the Philippines and Brazil.

The image is from the canvas Suzanne produced in response to my poems while I in turn wrote new poems inspired by her art. We have been friends for many years and it was great to be able to work together on this project.

For all the people reeling from the flood, wherever you are


Flood, 1974
There’s a roar that a river makes as
it breaks its banks– a sound that grumbles

deep into the body, unearthly, I think,
but earthly is what it is. We watch the

sun rise over the front paddock,
our bodies absorbing the flood’s power,

a shuddering that is later taken up
by the muscles in a great release.

It is a day of contrasts: we children
sent to round up cattle, our unkitchened

mother bakes a loaf of bread, our father
is trapped in a tree for thirteen long hours

while we sleep, eat our mother’s
bread, talk of the sky, the land,

the height of the river. Late afternoon
he is delivered in a boat, rescued by men

bearing sandwiches. None of us knew
of his ordeal until it was over. In the days

that follow we gauge the level of the river,
walk again the reduced banks, watch

the swirl of snag-driven water,
thrilling to the sudden birdlife.

The poem is from the chapbook, Unsettling the Land by Suzanne Bellamy and Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex Press, 2008

the game

It's strange that you can spend a whole year writing poetry daily - and then a year in which you write almost nothing. Here is one of the few poems I wrote in 2010. The image is artwork from Mexico. It reminds me of Frida Kahlo.

the game

death is an exile in the world of the living

in a three-cornered hat
death is stalking this interview

mid-sentence I go down
the synapses and muscles
organising their re-entry
to earth’s orbit together

at one pole a giant snake
ready to pounce
kundalini curled at spine’s base

at the northern pole bears are drowning
ice floes diminish
the body in electrical short-out
earth fizzing in heat

death is an exile in the world of the living

death is dancing
her grin toothy
under a wide-brimmed hat
flowers fall across her forehead
her skeleton flails in the dust

May 5 a day to eat cakes
flaunt the fact of life

prove how the blood flows
expectorate and let the spittle fly
showing off
a bee dancing the flower’s stamen

death is an exile in the world of the living

he’s stumbling along the path
looks frail with that stick
but it’s all disguise

wanting to take you by surprise
as you bend to sniff the rose
your nostril hairs flare
you grab your arm in pain
feel something squeeze your ribcage

it’s too soon you say when they
come in the ambulance
the wall of its siren screaming
through the brittle mountain air

death is an exile in the world of the living

never feel sorry for death
she’s slippery he’s a fool
that’s death duty

death will drive
a tram straight for the target
toss grenades roll tractors
or simply lie down and smother

death is an exile in the world of the living

rip

I wrote this poem last year when I was caught in an ocean rip. I had never understood how a person could drown in a rip. We'd been warned before going in and before I knew it I was way out and thought I'd better go back. It was the first day of a two-week Sanskrit intensive and I had just met the woman standing next to me. She got back in first and turned to watch while I struggled and somehow made it. I felt the line of her gaze pulling me in. My muscles went to water. My breath was sucked out of me. I stumbled as I reached the edge, almost fell. That afternoon, I had also felt overwhelmed by my inability to understand any of the language spoken around me. I was also drowning in words.


rip dp 60
for Lucinda
She was drowning,
not waving in the
rip of language. Help,
she called breathless,
the cold of its logic
wrapping itself about
her limbs. Swim across
the rip, through the
decline, let the wave
and its rhythm carry
you in. When you are
ready you will stand
upon your own two
feet. Don’t stumble
into the deeps of other
tenses, keep a cool
head. Her feet are
falling out from under
her. Linguistic dizziness
has her in its thrall.
One step, two step.
One breath, next breath.
She has found the
shoreline, the continental
shelf of language, her
feet are solid on the sand.

Valence 12

12.

you dream of flight with wings with claw some days
you sob because all the elegies for the dead all the strings
played with furious pathos will not stop the clot of war

Valence 11

11.

pharaohs haunt the tight tendon of night
it is dreaming that makes us human
footprints tracking their own unstoppable destiny
fighting homesickness you wing across the void the planet
hollowing on the verge of collapse while some human-made
god keeps on with his incessant dictation

is it the dead who keep you awake at night
a vision of a planet’s suicide attempt
limbs severed life hung in balance
what kind of shaming will it take to unpurse the future
in the moments before the noose tightens a gutful
of interglacial moments to ruminate on the planet’s past

a species whose collective search for jewels took the wrong
road in pursuit of furnaces and smelting of iron
instead of firelight and song the drying tips
of trees turned into barbs and missiles
overhead sky anvils crash and blast presaging the drop
of earth’s floor faster than a game of drop the hanky

Valence 10

10.

you try to measure the valence of your feeling
runged like a ladder it is playing truant
these are the astonishments of life cunning as gravity’s spectrum
this morning someone spoke of the desire to be unlimbed
this evening you race to the vet on a false alarm for the dog
how to measure that strength of bond is it like helium or xenon

at the time of vespers a huge flock of lorikeets
sweeps along the street a wave with thousands
of particles like a symphony filled with quavers
bones splinter in earth’s chemicals accrue new geographies
anchor on thin strings of narrative built syllable
by syllable valences as permeable as love

Valence 9

9.

undoing hatred is a pilgrimage of hurt
power unwinds as much charge as a tangle of wire
we squirm in death’s footprint caught in private fogs of affliction
all that energy ebbing in acts of fury the dying swan stilled exhausted
its wings wired its fluttering mind caged and broken
these many-mouthed furies iron-tongued grind their teeth all night long

uncurl your limbs stretch your spine
walk as if the sky’s mantle is wrapped about your shoulders
when your breath evaporates look at the world with a split vision
imagine a hawk-eyed view of the oceans
from that height see the vast pastures of plankton
whalefood float with cuttlefish unoccupy your days