Poem 59

Sunlit melancholy … working as a programmer on a middle floor of the Reserve Bank my desk was by a window overlooking headstones in the Bolton St cemetery … sometimes the sediments of life were only too visible … I thought of this as a message to the next echelon to rotate into my desk – but also felt the depth of those gone, weight of those yet to come and how we’re squashed in the middle …

( there’s something about time rows a boat between people that I find so evocative … the segment of sky is droning because there’s a distant plane in it … )

Poem On A Public Service Blotter

Greetings from a dead man

from underneath the bricks
greetings
from the strips of sun in the new windows
from the Sun Department
greetings
from the collapsed man
the man of dust
I give you greetings
you in the not here
you in the not now
I greet you all
and greet you again
out of this faded morning since simply
to address you must be enough

time rows a boat between people
creeps on the water like an insect
I wave to you
make contact
but I can tell you nothing
greetings only
take this moment to know me
to see me here this morning
the blade of sunlight tilting up the wall
a bit of blue sky droning like a bee

from here on top of death
with your feet on my bones
from the thin meat
in the sandwich
from a dead man
greetings