YOU, YOUR ART

''A line is a dot taking a walk.'' - Paul Klee

You
are drawing with pencils
on paper
and you make a squiggle for my nose
and around the face you place deft but loose gestures
to imitate unruly hair;
somehow
with not much effort
you add bigger dots where the nostrils are,
then you create eyes that look like eyes,
but look like planets also.
Under
the chin you crosshatch in a traditional manner,
and behind my face on the rag paper you invent an ocean
by stippling with three different sized pencils,
and upon shimmering water
considered marks become boats with sails,
and all the boats with sails stretch like a picket fence walking across water.
This
vista is rendered with graphite pencils.
When
you have finished drawing my face
you look satisfied,
and you tell me matter of factly that when you die
to take you to the crematorium,
and to make a pencil from your ashes,
a pencil from the ashes of your body.

THE COUNTER LUNCH

Most often laughter in not being a solution
implies a room a credit card a waitress with tray
and upon the tray are shots of scotch and the bill

for two men sitting nearest the exit sign;
the uncomfortable wind pops in for a moment and has a go
at the pot plant. One man’s teeth clicking together

like a nazi boot heel / jet plane wings could be
no wider than the collar of his shirt but since birth
the gift of mesmerising conversation has possessed him

and like collateral has provided him with status.
Being true to his word you’ll find him when confronted
lurching from a field of skin / there being pathos

in his grin / you’ll not forget the way his shoes
don’t touch the floor. His crepuscular mate now drifts
in a warm beer reminiscence and anointing his forehead

privilege and silence; you might see this type in boat
shoes chanting private college cacophony at river regatta
might notice the blonde wife’s eyes above the shopping trolley

darting sideways. On days reduced to art and porridge
you might be reminded of them everywhere. That about sums it up
says the cricket commentator up there above the two

above the chalkboard menu / inside a television set.
Waitresses in surf shirts need not stand near the heater
a thing on rickety legs / as the two men scribble

on table napkins / scratch itch burp then towards the bar.
One brings out a calculator one starts writing cheques.
both men now turn towards the door which goes BANG

snipping off verdant pot plant leaf. Both men agree
that the wind is foolish / the tricks it can play with open
books with closed doors. Both men stand up. Exit.

WHEN BETRAYAL WAS IN THE AIR

I think of those silver trees
decorated with copper pennies,
how surrounding their trunks
was an immeasurable sea,
& how each lapping wave
formed a dialogue;
what sounds emanated,
what perversions !
To recollect alabaster legs
wading through water,
to see enjambed teeth rehearsing
next dollar dreadful comic,
was to arrive at moot point.
The abundance of trivia
in Elwood nights, or days
called nothing after breakfast,
after ennui, beleaguered me;
remember how
with loving whispers
I lifted you up
from penury & despair
to catch your every sob
your every breath;
you must remember that,
it was just after mother
nicknamed me Caesar.

MATTHEW AND THE PROSTITUTE

In minimal overload,
they took some hallucinogenics,

then mock acting, one held
a tomahawk aloft, and chopped

at velvet cushions, both saying
to themselves hee ha !

swirled arcs of thought
and feathers in forest air-

ripped then the yellow wings
from canary called Bobby Boy

then laughed and chanted
until the thunderwall came.

SHEET OF WATER

On Lake Connewarre
the birds swim in quiet formations
& their sounds wrap themselves
in my coat;
see how early light sends a long golden river
into their beaks / & into revisiting eyes,
invading every atom.
See how on the lake’s shoreline
I stand up straight
with homesick bones.

TWO ROCK FANS VIEW THE FUTURE

He is invited out to the opening of her legs.
She is a good girl, he met her at the dance / she is beautiful
like a shovel killing a snake. Where they live,
mad apostles roam the streets / clutching new testaments,
new faiths. Distance or proximity / which one
will sing with points of reference, with words of doom ?
Theirs too, the good girl and him, is one of displacement;
a car zooms along his arm / in pale blue ink / she
celebrates the slamming of a door ( the doctor said
her chest x-rays looked exactly like old ashtrays...)
Know there shall be arbitrary pursuits / presume
these will be accomplished ; in Hiroshima
a woman screamed there are horses in the street,
on fire- my baby’s head looked like a boiled octopus!
And here they are, fag end of day, two rock fans
dressed in pinks and greens, sublime, complacent,
cynical, inebriated, out dancing with the others,
talking about their favourite colour, their favourite
song; trapped / sucked / fooled into this myth / fame .
Fame /        she calls it          the seat of power. He only knows
it as revenge, or bullshit. ( Out driving with her
through the red traffic lights, the St. Christopher
medal covered its eyes...) .


Some nights driving back / it seems the fat orange dawn followed
their car / like a flying saucer. It seems
they looked into the rear vision mirror and watched their eyes
instead of the road.    ( Close the door
                sweetheart, the sun
                gets in my eyes...) .

LESS THAN SEVEN SECONDS

Leon Golub
New York painter
of large figurative works
concerned with torture
& atrocities
in South American regimes
when asked to describe his art
in less than 7 seconds
replied in 5
ships on fire f..kers
ships on fire.

Robert Drummond lives in Geelong. His poems have appeared in many literary journals including Poetry Australia, Overland, Poetry Canada, Going Down Swinging, Westerly and Eureka Street. A book of his poems, Ships On Fire was published by Ardent Sun Press in 2002.

about Ships On Fire

‘Drummond’s world is unsettling, not in small part because he makes jokes in the darkest places, and because he finds images for things that often go unspoken.’

David McCooey Southerly 1/ 2003