1

Enter the new literacy, enter the new something

Enter

There is no word for it, no word at all

Not a thing

Enter

Enter somewhere, enter nowhere

We’re at the midpoint of nowhere

We’re at the nowhere of somewhere

The fact is

The fact is, our bums are frozen

This is a frozen space

We are cold and the space is frozen

We are frozen chickens

We are frozen, we are frozen like frozen chickens

We will call this the diary, we will call this the record

We will call this the record of a terrible encounter

Now, truth be told, we undergo many terrible encounters

The fact that I had to walk 50 miles with a heavy suitcase

From the bus stop all the way home

50 miles!

A terrible thing

A terrible next-to-impossible thing

Do you believe this? I tell you it is true

A heavy suitcase stuffed with books

Heavy as lead

So heavy that after a while I began to stagger

I staggered and nearly fell

I staggered and bumped right into a telegraph pole

You may not believe this but it is entirely true

I walked such a long way

And

And, after running into the telegraph pole

I seemed to recover some of my strength

I seemed to recover my strength and I walked manfully onward

Lugging that accursed suitcase as if it was nothing at all

As if I was a true refugee from somewhere

A true escapee!

You may not believe any of this

You may not believe a word of this even though it is all true

Every syllable!

We all do stupid things in the name of stupid causes

Stupid things

Stupid causes

Things we couldn’t even begin to imagine we could ever do, but we do

We do do them

We somehow manage to pull them off

We are driven to them somehow

We are driven to them because we wish to maintain our independence

We are driven to them because we are too shy or too wary to ask for help

These things happen

We all do them

When things are dear to us we refuse to ask for attention

That is how we are!

2

The poet spat on the footpath

The poet spat on the footpath a second time

The poet spat a second time because (a) he liked how it felt the first time and wanted to repeat the experience; and (b) he had nothing better to do

He took a long time to realise that this is what he was doing

Spitting

3

Well, first of all the heaters failed to appear

Then the light bulbs disappeared

They called the environment sustainable, meaning

They called the environment sustainable, meaning that

Meaning that whatever it was was totally unsustainable

Unlivable, that is to say

YOU CANNOT LIVE HERE!

A giant sign lit up: YOU CANNOT LIVE HERE!

It lit up for about three minutes and then

It lit up for about three minutes when suddenly

Suddenly

It went out

Just like that

Everynow and again it would reappear but briefly

For three seconds or so

It would reappear and then it would disappear

Someone made a wisecrack

A smartarse remark:

Might as well have fireflies, that’s what they said

Lux, lucis, they started to recite

Lux mundi

And then we flickered into total darkness

A new-found obscurity

A death-defying silence

At which the next train appeared

The next train appeared, gliding into the station

No one got off, not a single soul

And then, finally, a boy in a blue jumper

A navy-blue jumper

Appeared on the stairs

Appeared hobbling on the stairs

Struggling upward

And managed to get to the top

To the top of the overpass

Just as the next train appeared

Yes, they were coming thick and fast at that hour

Which was just as well for there was nothing else to engage us

Nothing at all

Even in the middle of the afternoon it was dark and gloomy

Lights shone

Street lights shone even though it was not yet half-past three

Trees sat silent under the rain

Autumnal leaves filtered down to the ground

Making this a sodden wet somewhere else

Another land, another country

Not here!

We didn’t know where we were

It certainly wasn’t here!

4

Surely something will happen, we said to ourselves

Surely something will happen, we might have said to each other but we didn’t

The fact is we didn’t know what to say to each other

We didn’t have a clue

We might, quite reasonably, have decided to remain silent

We might have decided that but we didn’t

We attempted to maintain a discourse, a conversation of sorts

But in reality it might have been better to remain silent

5

I see, he said, that you have already written something about here

Yes, I said

Yes, I said, I had to write something

Anything

Come on, he says, it isn’t as bad as that

No, I say, it’s worse, it’s much worse

Reminding me, for no good reason, of that ABC reporter I knew once

Darlene or some name like that

Lilian

Who was always trying to jump into the cot

As if somehow that would compensate  for all those long cold nights spent on the Tablelands

There’s something to be said for the cold, the proper cold

You have to make proper preparations, for example

Or you can do what others do and put the oven on

(Electric, of course)

And the whole room full of electrified heat

And the wood fire smouldering away with cold embers

Cold, wet even

Congealed like fatty mutton

Randolph Stow died last night or yesterday, they told us on the radio

In England, of cancer

Such a pity, a great writer

It’s odd, we were only just thinking about him yesterday, or was it last week?

31 May 2010