Tender Napalm

I am so exhausted I've burst into tears twice today. Inopportune moments, and nothing to do with songs or memories or nostalgia. Just tired, and scared. Ratty scared and jittery about the job.
Work this week has been heavy and hard and I've done next to no real work at all...

Tonight I came home, head full and the air fragrant with freesias and the sky low and somehow caressing, and sat on the balcony with N and a glass of Old Well and talked about "There's something in the water" (our homegrown soap to rival home and away) and the bigger things in life. I didn't feel at all like dressing up and going into town to meet JP and sit through a play. I wanted to file my nails and pull my knees up under the doona and read.

But I did get dressed up (not too much) and I did go into town and I parked Norm and I waited in the theatre for JP to emerge. A man approached me, and I couldn't help but smile - a habit I am unable to break - and he was quite close before he said something and I realised that his broad Australian accent was definitely not what i was waiting for. I said "you're not the man I'm waiting for". He laughed, we laughed, and then he said it was delightful to see the expectation in my face.

And then JP arrived. He is gorgeous. We crossed the road to the Bird and had wine and talked for an hour before the play started. There is something incredibly warm about him and it brought VC just that little bit closer.

And then the play. I had such high expectations after Mercury Fur. I so wanted to be moved. But I didn't like it. Lyn Gardner in the Guardian wrote of a melting tenderness in the play. If it was there, I missed it. I felt (and maybe I am getting old and prudish, though I doubt it) it was seeking shock value. Nudity at the end was gratuitious (nice boobs not withstanding) and the fine line between love and hate so easily crossed seemed far too stylised. I didn't connect with either character, and when their violent loss was revealed - or was it - I didn't feel emotionally engaged. Though interestingly, this is the third play I have seen recently that deals with the loss of a young child.
The language was rich, and perhaps would have been better read than seen. The director failed to carry the audience across that very important bridge between the page and the stage. I longed to be transported, to be moved, to be made angry or sad or at the very least happy... I wanted the love to win in the end but I don't think that it did.

As I drove home, Tchaikovsky blaring through the open window, the city sat at my collarbone and warmed my neck. I am home. JP said, as he introduced me to his east coast colleagues: "Anna is a Perthite. By choice"
By great good luck I say.

And now, to bed. Meeting Steph at quarter past sparrows for a run and then ...

And if on Friday it was the Ship Song that tore at the strings and burst memories through marrow, today it was the Bagman's Gambit, as I tried to block out the world and work on the application ...

How I long to hear you say
No, they'll never catch me now
No, they'll never catch me
No, they cannot catch me now
We will escape somehow
Somehow

Reading is Sexy

I just found this sticker in one of my literary mags...how apt and true! But where to put it? If I adorn Norma's bumper with it, people will think me a grandmother lamenting the passing of her youth ... (I really should be less harsh on Norm eh?)...

And speaking of youth, I've just now had a reminder that I am not in my twenties anymore. I went to the post office after work to pick up a parcel which I had hoped would be the canvas print of one of my B&W Pindabunna photos, alas it was a slinky Cooper Street dress I had ordered online a few weeks ago, when I felt the lards were a thing of the past. Just like the way I registered at the BDO a few years ago among crowds of 17 year olds off their chops that I am no longer 17, standing in front of the mirror just now I giggled to myself and was happy that I am, in fact, 31. Sometimes I can hardly believe it!

I got a sad email from Dad today - Margo is still away, and I really hate imagining him in that kitsch house of tile and glass, holding up traffic for corio schoolkids and then putting up with their violent shit just hours later at the shopping centre. I miss him, and at the same time I don't, but I wish so much that this was different.

I've missed my gym class tonight, and it appears I have a case of the verbal runs ...

Walking home from work today, the clouds had started to gather, glowing from behind with the last of the day's sun. It's crazy to think it is still, actually, winter.

I missed two very important anniversaries this month:
On August 2nd, TEN YEARS AGO, I met two of the most important people in my life. VC and Dale. In the subtly insistent Budapest sunshine, in a gentle fug of cheap beer (or was it VBK?) I found them at the world music stage and I think it's pretty safe to say that they changed my life for the better. On day 2 of our aquaintance, VC sent me a text as I was tramming out to the island again, to say we are going to take you away to another planet. And they did.

And, on August 22nd six years ago, I first touched down in Perth. Surely no more needs to be said on this subject. I think I've found the love that lasts forever. Cue wanky love poem:

How do you know if love will last forever?
You ask the question again,
as you land in yet another city
Will this be the place finally
where searching can stop?
will this be the place
that you'll grow to love Vegemite (and become a real Australian)
the place where the Qantas ad
will no longer make you weep embarrassingly?
but more importantly
will this be the place
The place
where you can put your own full stop
on the map?

And you consider.
And think you'll have to wait a while

But love,
with all its irrational promise
comes within a week
as flame trees curl
their august colour under your skin
and suburban streets hum
reassuringly with the trusting
beat of your footfalls

This irrational love floods everything.
Bus drivers receive
high voltage smiles
and every early morning
is treated as a gift


Another Voicebox tonight, and this time M is coming. I am jittery with hope that he won't hate it.

Today was a day warm enough for flippy summer dresses and sun warmed skin. At the Wetlands stage next to the gallery poems were read about country, about Australia, in my case about my dear West.
It was another beautiful collection of words from everyone and I read two new poems I had written earlier today.
All my poems about place are drenched in love and this whole weekend has been a time of high emotion.
After the poems, Blackcurrants and I headed through the city to the foreshore, where the cars from Targa West were doing a bit of a drive-by. Oh loud cars with big engines, I do love them so!

The afternoon was full of light, but the end of the weekend loomed large and we were tired and footsore and I've started feeling nervous and preoccupied and ready to rest.
I had a long bath at home, and finished a book of Laura Vapnyar's stories and now I'm listening to Ira Glass before a very very early night.


Outside Paynes Find

We sit in the still Western night
and nothing feels like a cliche
nothing feels worn, or
thought-of before
and the pressure of your hand
reminds me of where i am
And in my naive
and not a little biased rapture
i let my eyes drift upwards
and fill with stars.
Surely, this wides sky
was invented here
surely no place but this place
can possess such vastness
and somehow, for a moment
i can ignore the pain of drought
as the dry soil creases under my thighs
i can forget the dried bodies
of kangaroos
caught by fence-height
dead just metres from the dam
Somehow, i can be selective
and think rural beauty
where there are broken fences
and eerily swinging gates
miles from anywhere
we sit in this
differently perfect night
and forget that we are just visiting
that when the embers of the fire
cease to glow
we'll load up the landie
and go back to a place
with fewer stars
and a little more water
and perhaps,
a little too much comfort.

Shifting lights

The Perth Poetry Festival opened last night with a wonderful keynote speech from Kim Scott. The venue reminded me so much of Robert Drummond's old studio on the banks of the Barwon back home. There was much free wine and cheese and pate and a whole lot of love.
Bless you dear blog, for I could at least come up with one poem to read at open mic.
More readings tomorrow and an extra Voicebox this Monday.

The week just gone was full but also starting to crack with my own fears.
But last night - last night was wonderful. It fixed so much.


An abbreviated promise
the press of your hand in the dark
the waiting morning
will wash everything white
moving shadows
and the shifting lights

An abbreviated promise
your posture: a question mark
the gentle fray we fall into
with the clink of plastic glasses
moving shadows
and the shifting lights

An abbreviated promise
will become a mere figment
sought-after memory
of the question that owns no answer
moving shadows
and the shifting lights


In the arms of my city, I curl safe in the knowledge it'll still be here when I open my eyes.

From the Heart

I had an incredibly filling day today.

A wonderful day at work - actually producing things of value. The targeted communication slide I'm devising for the GMs is getting some good feedback and I have my first website workshop with the team tomorrow. I love every hour that I'm there.

After work, Joy and I (in her wonderful purple 'suede' jacketfromMelbourne) went to the Garden for pizza and bubbles to have a chat before her six week trip to Canada. It's always so good sitting down with her and gasbagging. She is my mother-hen at work but she's also my good friend. And absolute queen of the cupcakes.

Then I walked home and changed jackets and hopped into Norma and drove to East Vic Park to Crow Books where the first of a series of "A good book and a glass of wine" events was held. Tonight, the author in question was Kim Scott, whose latest novel, That Deadman Dance I am reading now, and whose first novel Benang, refers also to the title of this post, and was one of my novels to read during my BA AIS at Murdoch.

The bookshop for a start is amazing. And the evening was a pleasure. Kim was so full of quiet pride in his heritage, his language. His face changed when his mouth formed Noongar words. And he spoke with his whole body when telling us about his novels, about his projects and his process of writing. He fielded questions and read to us from his work. He was warm and engaging and I walked out at the end filled with electric light.

Then I got lost on the way home. I turned off at Plain Street, thinking it was familiar, and then somewhere by waterways in East Perth I realised I was going round in circles... but I'm home now. I talked to M, and then I talked to Dad and now I'm ready for a bed, after a gloriously full day - another reminder of how lucky I am.

"Almost everyone seems related, in one way or another. Even to birds and animals, and plants and things in the sea."

It's a beautiful morning in Perth. As I look out my window, the sun slices gold along the windows of the city skyscrapers and the cold winter snap keeps the air supersharp.
I had another night of almost-pristine sleep and woke to go to the gym feeling fresh and energised.

Yesterday's day at work was unreal. I worked until 5.30 but it was a full and ludicrously productive day.
Then the Blackcurrants and I went to a Pho Vietnamese bar where Nickiy treated us to delicious soup (that's what Pho is). Later Evi came over and it was a comfort that we could have a long conversation without a smidge of gossip.

The riots in London are frightening. I just heard girls being interviewed on radio national who are treating it as a night out to collect 'freebies'. Unbelievable.

But here's one I wrote after I saw the Disappearances Act (or was it project?)... the play I saw a couple of weeks ago:

I wait, with curtains drawn
and the door locked

There is a candle
spitting and hissing
but that's the only sound.
I try to contain my breathing.

And there is silence.
There is darkness.
And there is no news.

I put your pictures up-
the toothy smiling face from grade four
I put your pictures up
in police stations and milk bars
and shops and offices
And wait.

The streetscape slides slowly
by the windscreen
the gently lighted buildings
just a wet smudge.

I still have fuel - I think
And I could keep driving
steady, into the long night
but the lights turn green-

The lights turn green
and I stop.
I just stop
And it's not because
It's not because...
but I stop

And later my husband comes
in a differenct car
and takes me home
And there is only silence
and no news.

Your memory is watermarked
on my mind.
But there is only silence.

What a weekend... much sleeplessness, but some of it was for an excellent reason :-)

On Friday N and I went to Matt's new workplace - Elite cycles I think, in NOrthbridge, where no shit he works with a couple of the most down to earth fellows you'd ever want to meet. There was pinot noir and some caramel-y mud cake and lots of laughs. And apparently there's a bike brand called Pista. I warm to cycling more each day.

Then the three of us went and listened to a spot of jazz at the Universal bar until I had to duck off and go to Applecross to meet Sarah at the Tivoli theatre and watch her squeeze in a performance. The Tivoli is across from the Raffles Hotel, where Bon Jovi stayed during their tour last year. (Cue heart palpitations)... The Tivoli performance was lovely- low-key and accessible, and wonderful that there is still space for this kind of thing. Long tables in a big hall, and a sort of revue up on stage. It really was delightful.

Then I drove home half asleep, fell into bed and woke again at 2. Saturday started off sluggishly, and my potter around the lake was pretty useless and windblown.
Then N came with me to do some shopping that was long overdue. And i was measured properly for a bra for the first time in my life. Yeah so I'm 31, so what!? :)

There was more jazz that afternoon, once in Globe Lane in the cbd and then at the Bird in Northbridge, where we got stuck into a bottle of vino served by one of the coldest bar bitches I've come across in Perth so far.
I wrote another poem, or the start of one, about tall men and jazz and then we walked home, ravenous and perhaps a little tipsy.

I woke again at 2 but managed to talk myself back to sleep till 7. N and I ran, then I showered and got ready and M called just after 10. They are home, and he is like home.
He said he'd be round at 1ish, and so Matt and Nickiy and I went to the WA Museum to see the ACDC exhibition in its last day. And my goodness it was fantastic. Rock n Roll!

And then M arrived. Brown as anything, a tiny bit paunchy, but towering and dependable.

Here's one I wrote before the last Voicebox:

Consider: the soft darkened road ahead
abandoned shopping trolleys
and ill-lit car parks
isolated yellow pools
of false promise

You will be safe here...
Really?
I look and I look
and I think - have we arrived?
Under this wide sweep of sky
where we thought contentment lay?
Contentment by the gentle river
strangling happiness

We thought...
but we may have been wrong

And somewhere across the country
behind shuttered windows
under the aching sharp lights
of the suburbs
we discovered our strangest fictions

Discovered that along the way
we misplaced the map

That language was different here
That maybe only one of us spoke it

But we fought it
pretty hard
battled the everyday
and unlearned habit
and gave in, to hope

But through and through we
discovered
the pain of context
and that sometimes
love is tied to geography

Another gorgeous night at Clancy's, and inspiration drenched the air. I wrote a poem while sitting down, waiting to read. Nickiy and I went up together, had dinner and some Rosily merlot.
I read four poems, and while the crowd was smaller than last time, there was again, some wonderful feedback.

On the way home I stopped at Leighton beach. Yes, it was 10pm, and cold but I had such a strong desire to touch the ocean. So I took my tights and boots off and Nickiy kicked off her shoes and we ran shrieking to the water's edge, Freo glittering away beautifully to our right.
The water was quite cold (surprise surprise) but there was a slim new moon trembling over the waves.