Off the Cuff 28: End of the Line & The Letter-Thieves

APAD 28    prompt: an 'end of the line' poem


End of the Line

It's the end of the line
for us. From here, it's car
or bus. The train continues
to other towns. And comes
from distant termini; we board
to gathering of personal items
and frowns. The times our train
stops at our station, I watch
with avid eye the transformation
from busy passenger container
to shunted overnight retainer.
I love the grey and red vans
parking very fast; I don't admire
the heavy reds that trundle past.
The Sprinters and the V-Line
Fast Trains leave me somewhat
breathless; for them to terminate
here would be feckless. But often
from the platform my avid eye
creates our country town
as Queen of the Termini.


The Letter-Thieves

Who are the letter-thieves?
Those reckless hands whose
existence shows up in
what's missing? Who takes
those L's and E's and R's
from innocent words
headline signs, the proprietary
nomenclature on truck doors?
"Bilinger" proclaimed
on back side of sixteen-wheeler
made into a cockney elision:
Bi inger on driver's door.
I saw it as I drove on traffic-
weighted bridge, and wondered:
who collects? to what use
are random letters put?

At work, my boyish colleagues
animate: "I used to steal the
street signs, I was seventeen,
it was FUN!"  "I shoplifted
one bandaid, once. And didn't
get away with it."  Perhaps

the thieves are masters of
deconstruction, proving language
is easily broken, disempowered.
Or are those letters jumping off
the walls and truck doors to which
they've been attached? Presented
with the idea of choice? Or realising,
their liaisons with other letters
are mismatched?

NaPoWriMo  28

Off the Cuff 12: Living in the CBD, Melbourne & Singing in the Baptist Church

APAD 12       prompt: pick a city

Living in the CBD, Melbourne

My colleague lives on the corner
of Little Collins Street and Spencer Street
right across from Southern Cross Station
where all the trains from country towns
terminate, and the racket of metropolitan
trains can shake the teeth from your gums.

Today his lunch included roast pumpkin
from my garden, out there where country
trains are born, and I asked him, "Are you
growing herbs on a balcony where you live?"
"Ah, no," he said. "They'd get covered
in soot. As a matter of fact, I'm asthmatic."

As I chewed my home-grown cucumber
and spicy pumpkin dip on bread sold in
paper bags to enhance its image as healthy,
I pondered the gifts of the city: great views
of public sculptures, parklands pasted over
industrial wastelands, the vertical challenge

of journeying in lifts day in, day out, the risk
of needing a doctor at midnight, the lights
that are never turned off, glass walls that
provide myriad images of self and other
self and others, others, others, and self.
Dying with blackened lungs, for research.


Singing in the Baptist Church

It's been associated with women and seduction
the danger of sirens ringing through centuries of ears.
It's been the best way of being breath-taking
for those of us who, ex-smokers, now
enjoy oxygen in our advanced years.

We ain't no rock
and we are marching
freedom is coming
o La Lay!
That's our repertoire
in the A-Choired Taste
of Gospel, whether or not
we come here to pray.

My daughter's not old
her voice is pure
if anyone's a siren here
it's her and Lauren, sure.
But without them rocks
and miles from a shipping
route,
our energy rises as
our voices dispute
the sinful nature of
singing out loud.
And it's the harmony
of team-voice
that really makes us proud.


NaPoWriMo