The afternoon is tacky
As bare skin on vinyl
As I swim in a sea of open tabs
And text that is too small.
I will myself to focus
Damnit
But my body squirms
Vision blurs
Simmering subterfuge
Of body against mind.
So:
On two wheels
Up the hill and across the bridge -
A nod hello to the Wilson river.
Past the houses
with the boarded up windows:
shuttered eyes which watch
this kid on a bike
racing the crows
down back roads
Saturated with the thrum
of drum
against base,
Heartbeat
against breath,
I touch back down
From screenworlds
to sinew and skeleton.
Throw my head back,
Eyes wide
For a facefull of sky:
Clouds adorned
In pastel tones -
the dregs of a Monday.
Cat-tails catch the sunset tendrils
and the cows assemble in paddocks
around puddles.
A memory of the swamp this place once was.
The swamp this place
still wants to be.
And here is the part
I can't out-peddle:
Still tender to touch
and slick with mud
that no measure of bleach
or elbow grease
can budge.
When I'm brave of heart
I can prise it apart
and trace
my image
in the sediment
bellow.
I have begun to seek refuge
Balanced on the edge
of the moment itself -
The weary mind
Of the perpetual daydreamer
Projects itself
Into the every crevice
of a reverie,
Whilst the faithful body
Knocks shins against doorframes
And singes fingertips on frypans
Too swept up
In contemplation
Of a shimmer or a symmetry
To remember to watch her step.
I'll ride in circles
admiring the sky
Averting my gaze
from the arc of time
that nudges us ever further
into the Anthropocene
With her battered river banks
and eroded hillslopes,
the smokestacks
and coal seam cracks.
Still, I'll ponder
the pond skaters
askitter at the surface,
even though
I know
that the slow moving waters
of the riverbed
heave with heavy aches;
the promise that she will continue to take
if we do not take care of her.
But with this breath
And bend in the road
I am just here:
doused in the ebb
of the afternoon.
Lismore Poetry Slam 2022