10pm,
board the city train from Clifton Hill,
discover
blackfellas who want to make movies.
This tight posse of Kooris
they’ve got the themes:
“The contradictions.
The blackfella / whitefella.”
They’re hell pissed
but so am I.
One of the brothers, Jim
(their self-appointed orator):
“From the heart.
It’s not about this
It’s about this”
(points to Skin, Heart respectively).
We’ve said this before.
We missed our target.
The dead, usually darker
inner wood of a large diameter trunk
is termed the ‘heartwood’.
For my part:
“I’m a writer.
Nah, it’s cool… not a journalist haha”
I think of Andrew Bolt’s blog
bombing its way through scar country.
“You are looking at the next gen.
of aboriginal Australians.”
Me: “So where are you guys headed?”
“Softies… it’s a pool hall…
well, it’s kind of a strip joint”
“The whitest chicks you’ve ever seen!”
They laugh,
I laugh
(slight delay).
Then we’re
like a house on fire.
‘Accomodation’ is the way we adapt
to one another in a face to face
[conversation], the way my voice
soaks a little of yours, the way
we co-morph to accommodate
“History never sleeps,” says Jim,
like he's not changing the subject.
I’m visualising
Eric Fischl’s A visit to / A visit from the island
(and the rest…)
Blood signals the shoreline,
warding like brake lights;
shores awash, shallows
an unshaken cocktail.
Can a waste of blood warp beautiful? Can we?
For whatever reason
I’m hearing B B King in full
smiling flight:
I believe
to my soul...
& Jim spells out his email
(“we should hook up”)
then all 5 or 6 of them fall out
of the train
soon as it hits the city,
shout a mix of curses & blessings.
Jim pokes his head
back inside the door just
before it chomps automatically:
“So write me, brother.”
(c) Stu Hatton 2006
http://wordyness.blogspot.com/2007/01/heartwood-2006.html
(the blog entry has notes, links and images related to the poem)
board the city train from Clifton Hill,
discover
blackfellas who want to make movies.
This tight posse of Kooris
they’ve got the themes:
“The contradictions.
The blackfella / whitefella.”
They’re hell pissed
but so am I.
One of the brothers, Jim
(their self-appointed orator):
“From the heart.
It’s not about this
It’s about this”
(points to Skin, Heart respectively).
We’ve said this before.
We missed our target.
The dead, usually darker
inner wood of a large diameter trunk
is termed the ‘heartwood’.
For my part:
“I’m a writer.
Nah, it’s cool… not a journalist haha”
I think of Andrew Bolt’s blog
bombing its way through scar country.
“You are looking at the next gen.
of aboriginal Australians.”
Me: “So where are you guys headed?”
“Softies… it’s a pool hall…
well, it’s kind of a strip joint”
“The whitest chicks you’ve ever seen!”
They laugh,
I laugh
(slight delay).
Then we’re
like a house on fire.
‘Accomodation’ is the way we adapt
to one another in a face to face
[conversation], the way my voice
soaks a little of yours, the way
we co-morph to accommodate
“History never sleeps,” says Jim,
like he's not changing the subject.
I’m visualising
Eric Fischl’s A visit to / A visit from the island
(and the rest…)
Blood signals the shoreline,
warding like brake lights;
shores awash, shallows
an unshaken cocktail.
Can a waste of blood warp beautiful? Can we?
For whatever reason
I’m hearing B B King in full
smiling flight:
I believe
to my soul...
& Jim spells out his email
(“we should hook up”)
then all 5 or 6 of them fall out
of the train
soon as it hits the city,
shout a mix of curses & blessings.
Jim pokes his head
back inside the door just
before it chomps automatically:
“So write me, brother.”
(c) Stu Hatton 2006
http://wordyness.blogspot.com/2007/01/heartwood-2006.html
(the blog entry has notes, links and images related to the poem)
