Part Two, Notes of a Newcomer – Life Resumed, Brisbane

Life Resumed , Brisbane

I looked at myself yesterday

and found myself deep in mud.

No, not just in mud but mud myself;

mud in my head, mud in my mouth,

mud in my stomach and mud in my lungs

mud myself

And not like the lotus growing in the mud

but mud itself

propagating itself

for its own purpose

mud my head mud my mouth

mud my stomach and mud my lungs

mud my mind mud my spirit mud my soul

 

 

 

Working again

What has all this done to me?

Who’s left here a dried cadaver now

till next morning

to rise again

a smiling fool only to travel

and live the working day

and a day of various affiliations

to end a dried cadaver again?

 

 

 

Now  that I am no longer present

Now that I am no longer present

what do they say of me there

within that small group within which I was known?

I can see the portly

happy man

pointing to his head and saying

He knew a lot of things.

Do they speak of me as a nice chap

easy to talk to, mild and not offensive?

(Oh, they would I’m sure.)

Awkward and shy he was,

says another. And then perhaps it crosses

their minds that they speak of me

as if they were speaking of the dead.

He’s still alive,

perhaps someone mentions

and there is subdued laughter.

 

 

Quick and nimble

My friend helping me on a shopping trip

as I set up home requests

that he use his credit card and could

I give him a cheque for the amount.

I’ve got no problem with that.

My friend gets his fly-buy points

(or is it credit card points? Or is it both?)

and I get a little wisdom:

how swift the world is, and how it

calculates its ways and moves. Quick and

nimble, as they say, to survive in

a fast-moving society. Be quick and agile.

Or you’ll lose out.

No. I’m content;

I’ll earn my money

and I’ll pay for what I get.

I shall live as I came, simple and content.

 

 

 

You talk fast


There is another way of talking and chatting;

there are other ways.

One could be slow

and could wait; one could listen

to the other and not butt in as quickly as possible;

one could listen till the other finishes

and only speak when the other is ready to listen and to

understand.

One could be slow and meaningful

utter only words that capture your feelings.

But you only seem to understand

the rapid gunfire way.

There are other ways.

in more desert

so from desert to desert one goes

You can’t say that’s exile

for one place is just like another

no one knew me there,

no one knows me here,

unacknowledged and unknown

one moves and one wanders

and one orientates

one traverses the vast desert across the globe

and exile is a false term for the sands

merely shift from one place to another

and the one has not moved

Gentless

go down the path of peace;

take the road down gentleness

walk the way of meekness

and one day a tribe will arrive

and beat you to a pulp

and beat you so good

you’ll never be able to stand up again.

 

 

Portrait

Four truculent decades have trundled down the slope

and the subject life’s left me is myself.

Not a Rembrandt self-portrait or a Picasso

or even a tortured Vincent;

merely a portrait to hang in

the closed-door dusty gallery

of a man who has no claim on the world

 

It’s my life

 

They’re here on planet earth to live their lives

to discover their real selves, to give expression

to their true needs. So mother buys the best perfumes

and crowns herself with sundry styles at various hairdressers;

and the daughter learns about mascara and facials

and she discovers a new restaurant on each voyage.

They’re here to be themselves.

Discover Your Self

is the buzz phrase.

Or

Discover the Real You.

The son has a sports car and revs his engine

so he drives down the lane and his head rests

on his sleek mobile phone.

A chip off the old block

which is itself still inchoate and incoherent.

They’ve got slogans like

It’s my life; Life’s for living.

Live your life. Find fulfillment. Satisfaction.

Enjoy! It’s an anthill here on planet earth

with so many beings running in all directions

discovering their true selves

and finding true bliss.

 

 

Oedipus-like

(i)

Yes, I left but I am no further

away from you and formations and life

than I was before

The physical journey and remove

make things and events seem real

but I traveled a great distance really a long time ago.

I wish you well and, except for the occasional

(fair comment, as journalists might say) bitter word

that even you will allow one who lived in your midst

and is so removed, I speak no ill and

every time I hear of you or am

made reluctantly to speak of you

I feel my distance. I feel again strongly

how far I have always been

to all things close to me.

(ii)

I cannot say how it happened but

a long time ago, so far away I cannot

salvage when precisely from the ocean of memory of you,

I traveled far within; I became isolated and alone and

could not say a word any more to you.

You might say, in rejecting home he rejected everything;

for a man who can’t fit at home

will not – (I know you will not use the word probably) -

find anywhere a home.

(iii)

You might say

again

the man who rejects his home

rejects all places; the man who felt alone

in his own home will feel so everywhere.

And so I carry this with me; no, it is not this

place’s fault, nor your fault that I first felt that way

but it is a curse that perhaps I drew upon myself Oedipus-like

that I should wander the terrain of the earth

isolated, alienated, unconnected and feeling alone.

 

 

You sent me away

I did not go away on my own;

not of my own accord was this done.

You sent me away

(or perhaps, I should say,

circumstances did;

you taught me to be vague,

not to seize the bull by its horns

for there is only one man in your annals

who can ride the beast)

because I could not do things the right way

unlike yourselves who know right and wrong

who know the moment and supply and demand

and propriety and the right views and the truth always

I knew nothing of that sort

for I had merely stumbled upon your community

and stayed long and always felt estranged.

Then you pushed me away

(or perhaps, I should say,

circumstances did)

 

 

 

 

Songs of leaving

Stop there, friend

you who have packed your belongings

and so quietly, almost with stealth

and tell me where you are off to.

I’m moving, dear friend,

as anyone would when the time comes.

But you would leave your friends?

Some leavings, in a way, are like death,

my dear friend,

and one has no choice.

Truly, not all

goings and comings

the ins and outs

meetings and departures

are within our control;

some are outside our wills.

(ii)

Dear brother,

sit a while

and talk to me.

Is it right what you do,

to go away from your brothers and sisters?

There is the rare occasion,

dear sister,

when the wrong is right.

Your brother must go that way now.

And the love, dear brother,

the love that binds brothers and sisters?

What of that?

That love,

dear sister,

that love

will let me go.

(iii)

So is it come to this,

dear neighbor,

that you will leave us all and go?

We are not good enough for you, eh?

Perhaps,

my good neighbor,

it is I who’s not good enough for you all

for I’ve made all our

communication

frigid

because of my reticence

my unwillingness

my abruptness

my awkwardness

my lack of confidence

my withdrawals

my silences

I think of the many occasions

when what I’ve said made no sense

and many turned away

as people said

It is so

because

he does not know

how to say what he wants to say.

It’s my fault,

good neighbor,

and I must go

somewhere

where even the inapt will find a place

because of its immense space.

(iv)

I kiss your feet,

dearest mother;

I prostrate before you,

dearest father;

forgive me and let me go

for it is my time

to cross the Ocean of Pain.

(v)

You are not filled

with bitterness,

are you?

Departure

of adopted children

who are grown and learn,

dear stranger,

of their natural parents,

some must stay on;

and some must return;

and some must move on

and so I did.

 

 


Comfort

There is comfort in being known, comfort in fame;

there’s comfort in acceptance, in praise

even while we seem not to hear, seem to be focused,

and there’s comfort in work;

there’s comfort in charity, comfort in doing good,

there’s comfort in our obsessions and perversions

and there’s comfort in what we find ourselves in.

But the joy in the unsullied state is only

in the meditation of the true and beautiful:

Om Nama Sivayah.

Now that I am gone

when I was there you did wonder

what a fool I was; you remarked

how naive and impractical I showed

myself in my ways. You looked kindly

down on me and my unrealistic views

and unworkable theories.

When you sit back in your chair

and your probing mind does settle a flickering moment on me

I wonder what you think of me now.

The stranger’s life

as quiet as the growth

of the creeper over the fence

goes on my life;

perhaps as stealthily too;

and just as unnoticed.

As unobtrusive as a whiff of cloud

that is blown over, and hides behind a

defined and heavy cloud

and then appears again amongst

a whole host of its kind.

 

 

Wonder about this stranger

Sometimes, though, some wonder

about the quiet stranger

as I walk past the cold aisles

unimpressed by the superstore wares

or as I walk on the sandy track

below the tall white gums.

Perhaps they wonder a moment

at this stranger come from his own distant place

and walking quietly in their midst.

Wash me of this filth

Wash me of this filth

and keep me clean;

living and desire are heavy burdens

and they wear down the mind

so that a tired mind craves the unpleasant

and drags being into the mires and

unclean grounds.

The unconnected

To whom shall the unconnected man

turn in a world disconnected and each turned in?

To whom shall the meek, the humble,

the quiet and unaccusing turn?

 

Rejection

One by one

my friends appeared before me

in inner space

as I lay down to sleep

and each one I denied:

I know you not, I said to each.

And each one denied me too.

 


Two children

A child thumbed

a spider dead

and said:

No problem;

and a child beside him

sat moved.

 

 

 

He’s gone, he’s not here any more

He’s gone, he’s not here any more; no, he doesn’t

live here any more; he’s left.

Yes, you can send him a letter, send him a note

send him another standard institutional card or mail,

send him

Printed Material Only,

but the mail will not reach him

because he’s gone; he’s not here any more.

No, he didn’t leave a forwarding address; no,

he didn’t think anyone would want to contact him

or that anyone would want to go beyond one attempt.

I believe he’s left the country.

Yes, they’ll send me a note,

he thought,

being on

the database of several mailing lists, his name in

someone’s eyes or finger tips once a year

someone told to do this, take the list and

mail a note or a greeting card to everyone on the list

they’ll send me a card, but no one will

need to follow up, to trace the person to

present address.

So he must have thought, so he’s packed up and gone;

silent as the still air,

silent as soup waiting to be taken.

 

 

 

Attempting to cross the road

Two hundred metres off the Mt Coo-Tha roundabout

I stood on the kerb to cross the road

and ended up watching you – watching us -

as you came on in a merciless

procession in three lanes.

There were nice new cars; polished new cars

in which were encaged tense and

other-worldly self-absorbed faces.

Aggressive  faces.

You were not the mates I knew in the streets.

I waited twenty minutes and crept away

weakened by your determination.

 

Routine

This is my bed I creep into

defeated by this day. The brain ridden

with many folds turns heavy and wonders:

And is this the way it shall be, the routine

set for the rest of my days into an animal decline?

With a body imprisoned by trips in a car

and limbs rushed from one manhour to another?

and myself seized by the throat

with unyielding and angry alien faces

pressed into mine and sucking me dry?

Is this how it shall be with me?

Returning to a place of rest to stare into vacant air

till the hour I creep into bed after an evening

in the lounge, feeling heavy and perfecting the tummy circle.

Will this go on and on,

everything of me bound and imprisoned, wearied and numbed

and creeping into bed yet again…

This is my bed I creep into,

defeated by this day…

When I am gainfully unemployed

When I am gainfully unemployed

when I am the king

and thus gainfully unemployed

I shall declare a day off from work

for every employed man and woman;

it shall not be a holiday

or a  day of celebration;

but they shall be gathered in the public square

and half the day

these shall spend the time

on their knees

in gratitude for being employed;

and the other half,

they shall spend in the dungeons

for the year’s thoughtlessness

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