Along the mountain track

And as I go I love to sing

My knapsack on my back

1

You could blame waking thoughts

You could blame something like that

Today’s headache comes out of nowhere

Today’s headache comes out of nowhere but it’s not today’s headache only

It’s the headache of everyday

The bellbirds chirp, a single note

It’s clear, it’s crystalline, that’s what people like to say

Clear, crystalline

It’s nothing of the sort, it’s just a sound signifying very little

No, it’s hardly the handiwork of God

No, it’s no Hallelujah Chorus

No, it’s hardly a call to prayers and there’s nothing of the supplicant about it

It’s that noise, it’s that silence – and into that silence something falls

Listen hard, listen hard and you will begin to hear it

Something

Every song is the song of the day, every song is the song of the hour

[end of section]

2

A call to arms, tell me, what would that sound like

Does it have a sound, does it have a name?

The cause, sad to say, remains invisible

Not that causes are necessary

After all, the cause is the first thing to be mistrusted

Rightly, it’s right to mistrust THE CAUSE

Wave your flag, wave your banner

Throw your sheets from the upstairs window

Cry ‘Long live Saint George’ or some other ridiculous slogan

Issue forth your chant: ‘What do we want, when do we want it’

Hijack the ice-cream parlour

Have a meltdown in your mother’s kitchen

Surrender before becoming aware even of the defeat

Settle for what you think you have to settle for

Curse these familiar-unfamiliar surroundings

Do not expect anything to happen

Note the little waterfowl paddling across the slip-slap waters of the river;

It’s not wide, it’s not really much at all, it’s certainly no grandiose stream

Keep your own council

Offer no advice

Settle for less

Deny destiny but settle for less

Call in the fumigator, bring in the bug man

Listen to the hum of the electric fan heater

Note how the sky has clouded over

Call your aunt, ring your maiden auntie

Send a card to Gran

Look out the window and wonder if the stillness will remain constant

Note the hint of moss on the rocks

Observe the patches of painted blue

The white roof, the white railing

Return to the topic

Try to see indeed if there is a topic, something, anything

Note that whatever unfolds unfolds of its own accord

There’s nothing miraculous about it

In fact it’s a tedious business really

Slow, slow, it’s a slow day

And elsewhere a shower of traffic

Speeding

Speeding as if there were, truly, a destination to go to, somewhere

Somewhere to justify the trouble and the expense

Somewhere to justify putting on the seatbelt and driving off, with or without the kids

This place never opens

This desk is far from that desk

There are acres of space to meander in

There are vast fields of painted space to traverse

There are bellbirds to pick at the hours

There is a single kid in a white hood standing on the platform

Somewhere someone sits down with a glass of gin and a deck of cards and inaugurates a game of canasta

Somewhere someone sits down next to a small table where the telephone sits on a knitted doily leafing through last year’s Christmas cards

Somewhere someone sits down

And the headache advances

It advances

There is nothing

There is nothing

There is nothing to break the spell of it

[end of section]

3

Stay at home, you can always watch it on TV

Get in Céleste or Céline or some other TV star

Heartbreak High, yet another home run

Run the whole programme from the local shopping mall

Make sure the surfaces glisten

Make sure the sheen is sheenier than Mr Sheen

The Brill more Brill than Brill

‘After all she was just an ordinary lass, from down the road, Loftus Central’

Garnetvale awaits

Bumbling Brooks

Sparkling Cascade

Nookyrook

Some other nameless piece of inertia

You too can own your very own piece of signed cardboard

And spend a night in Mosman and listen to the roar of the elephant, the bleat of the lamb

(There are things there in cages you will note)

And so we heard stories of cattle transported in cattle trucks

Days and days on the railway somewhere between point A and the border

Days and days

As if the life of livestock must be extended by any means

As if, somehow, some miracle will happen

As if, somehow, there will be a reprieve at last

And the whole of Libya put on starvation rations just to save the latest shipment of beef their mortal fate

Cattle truck

Cattle truck

Cattle truck

[end of section]

4

To scorn the human condition is nothing at all

For if, as some of us believe, we have transcended ourselves into virtual non-existence

As if, in the pursuit of the higher glories, we have become nothing at all

Outer space fitted to a commentary fitted to some game show or other

Lawyers with desks

Glamorous defence teams dealing with the high and the mighty as if polished wood panelling and chrome-legged furniture and natty fitted jackets in delicious fire-scarlet really mean something

‘Today I think I shall dress in red and sweep my blond coiffure just so …’

She purses her lips precisely, it’s all systems go

‘Go get him Joe, sink Santa, he’s obviously a lush …’

And so the defence team sweeps to the rescue, preserving the world from itself

The world watches, the world awaits, adoring!

[end of section]

5

‘Doors closing’

The metaphoric always catches us unawares

‘Doors closing’

It’s supposed to presage movement, a departure

It’s supposed to send us on our way

‘Doors closing, doors closing’

We are frozen here in some sort of relict space

The grind of the compactor

The Council exercising its normal functions

(Turn off that U-Tube, it subverts the workers)

(Do not swear, this is a family programme after all)

(We will tell you what family values are because we know)

A brick falls from the tabernacle at the corner

A pale blond brick

Sparrows skip and skitter at the corner post, they have found an ingress of sorts

The bellbirds continue their single chiming notes, marking out space and location

(Tiny acts, tiny acts of repulsion)

I claim, I claim

I shall rent you asunder

I shall plight you mine troth

I shall break these birthday crackers together

I shall do something or other

I shall read the newspaper

I shall do the crossword

I shall sing ‘Home on the 
Range’

I shall sing ‘Home on the Range’ with a high C

I shall ring up Centrelink seeking an appointment

I shall enter sight unseen all sites where the policy is ‘The less you know the better for us’

I shall enter every site where the official policy is DETERRENCE ONLY

I shall enter every site where the official policy is ‘DON’T BOTHER US’

I shall enter every site where the sign reads ‘(PLEASE) DON’T DISTURB’

The train stops, the brakes have failed

The train stops, people alight on the platform

The train stops, people alight on the platform dressed in gay summer frocks with picnic baskets over their arms and a song on their lips

Val-deri val-dera val-deri val-dera ha ha ha ha ha ha!

A song on every lip and a bright toothsome smile for all to see and children with rosy cheeks

And

And

Smile

Smile, smile, smile

Say cheese

Grin

Grin and bear it

Say cheese

Grin

Grin and bear it

Another photo in the family album

Another

Another

And

Doors

Doors

Doors

Doors closing

Doors closing

Doors close

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the General Manager is not well

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the Technical Officer is indisposed

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the General Staffing Officer has flexed off

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the Engineer is out of order

The circuit broken

Something wrong with the fuse box

A short

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the workers are in revolt

I’m afraid, I’m afraid worker morale is at an all-time low

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the staff spends all its time on U-Tube looking for something ever so slightly animated

You know, something with movement

I’m afraid, I’m afraid the staff has forgotten what each other looks like

They’ve gone blank, they’ve entered a visualisation blank

They’ve entered a recognition free zone

The site of recognition has been rendered null and void

They think that Animal Farm is all about rabbits

They think that Lucy in the Sky is all about

Is all about

They think that David Bowie should have died already

They think that Major Tom should have had a better name, a more important nomenclature

They think he should have had a swipe card of his own at the very least

They think he should have had his own  private docking bay

They think he should have had DISABILITY PARKING

They think he should have had free parking on account of his Native Title standing

They think he should have been the first child born in outer space

They think he should have been called Captain Cosmos at the very least

They think the next State of Origin should be played on the moon at full moon

And Wimbledon, too

And the Rose Bowl

And the World Ice Hockey Championship

And the Mickey Mouse Cup

And the Green Cheese Platter

And the General Service Award for the Month of August

Suddenly the screen goes blank

BLANK!

Bzzt bzzt bzzt bzzt, bzzt bzzt bzzt …

BZZT BZZT bzzt bzzt bzzt …

Blank! (plaintively)

Major Tom Major Tom Major Tom!

[end of section]

6

And now we are about to perform

What will you perform

And now we are about to perform

What will you perform

The butterfly sits on the branch

The butterfly is still

Self-poised, says the poet

Not frozen seas more motionless

(He pinched that from his mate)

In any case it’s not that kind of stillness we seek

It’s a stillness that quivers, unlike the ice

It’s a stillness that stills all movement

That traps the wind between its wings

That knows what it is doing

Ice knows nothing

I’m sorry, I left my Esky soul behind today

I left it in the freezer

I left it behind with the frozen fish pellets and the frozen peas

I left it behind with yesterday’s stale jokes and the unread newspapers

I left it behind with the secret remedy for whooping cough

I left it behind with the family history there on the shelf

Like the newspapers, destined to remain unread

Forgotten on the instant

On the spot

Scandal lives forever

Scandal is eternal

Scandal lives forever even if everything is forgot

The scandal lives on, it haunts

The scandal lives on for at any moment it can return

It threatens

A spectre in wolf’s clothing

Little Red Riding Hood in her little red riding outfit

Her jaws smeared with blood

And a wicker basket over her arm

For the suburbs are murderous my dear

For the suburbs are wreaked with blood and accusations left unsaid

Accusations that are accurate and therefore unfair

One slip of the lip

Control, annihilation, venom, spleen

The national heritage far from dead

‘Oh say can you see …’

Doors closing, doors closing

Please stand clear, please stand clear

No, I’ll be there any minute

No, I don’t know anything about that

No, I don’t remember

No, no

No, you can always get it at the supermarket

No, the weather report says

No, you’ll just have to make do

No, I won’t be there Friday

No, no

Turn off the camera, turn off the screen

Turn off channel 9, 13, 21

Turn off channel 63

Your spite my dear is endless

Your malice precedes you by several leaps and bounds

Your green card got lost in the post

You’ll need to register in Manila

There’s nothing we can do about it

We told the technicians yesterday

We sent out the order months ago

We sent

We sent

We sent

They brought the tablets down from the mountain

It was they said the Word of God

10 fingers, 10 commandments

Holy Writ

A digit for every thing that must be obeyed

10 – 9 – 8, counting down

7 – 6 – 5 - 4

They brought the tablets down from the mountain

They brought them down

We prefer, they said, the Golden Calf

The workmanship is very fine

The gold gleams

You can get it on special if you’re quick

You can pay on Pay-Pal, it’s sure to turn up one day

If you send a further two thousand dollars we can guarantee shipment instantaneously

If you send a further two thousand five hundred dollars, we will, we assure you

We will …

We will …

Honourably yours, honourably yours

If your life insurance isn’t paid up let us suggest that you remedy the situation immediately

Pay it now, pay it now

You may, with any luck, earn a special dispensation

Pay it now, pay it now

Benedicte, benedicte!

Live long and prosper

Benedicte, benedicte!

You too are Spock’s lost child

[Turn off monitors one by one]

5 June 2010, Casula