Bathroom

 

Go there in a hurry, red coming out, a burn a blister, an event breaking the surface of skin, to stop the hurry, the tearing hurry of pink squares and protective film, to hold the fear in place, a few seconds of stop, going on non-stop, that was a burst of fear fear no more. Or worse, go there for the jar of rattling antidotes, to fend off the gush of nausea, the swell of headache, the flesh prompts for disgust, something unpronounceable and no time to say, there to vomit the facts, meet the shivering need for water, or whatever it takes, held tight alone by awareness of certain walls. More normally, invariably virtually, is entry for the comb that streams the comedy file of fine lines in curves and waves, curls and dreams as preparation for out again, out into the commentary of weather, the mirth of your head tingling appreciation whatever anyone says of the current style, hilarious that human weather of commentary, the comedy stand-up of your very self brushing at the mirror, all concentration on your part, and the comb. Likewise, the satisfactions of the toothbrush. And there’s soap, milky or translucent, oaten or jasmine, readying you in fresh scent for flesh to embrace its future that today may be simply the weather again, self-respect enough, or who knows but suddenly and particularly the pleasures of love named, enough for encounter, enough to feel pretty okay really, thanks. Thence beneath the human-wrought cloud perforations of the showerhead, such wonder washing your face, eyes closed, your limbs their litheness and limits, every part of you refreshed under the solid sprinkle, the one genuine trickle-down effect, as if just for a brief while this warm heaven went on forever. Go there to manage the inexplicable fact of existing, again, like the last time was again, where expectations are you will be cleaned and tidied and scented and brushed and cured and dressed and prettified and from in there will summon some little fresh courage for out there, from somewhere. Contemplative it is in there, where you attend to your needs, that place of acoustic perfection bel canto excess in the shower recess, a well-lit cleanly place that rarely knows anger, unless another raps demand at the door, interrupts peace with their own special hurry, their hedge-backwards uncombed hair, spoiling your care. Only, on occasion, thinking about such elegies in elegy mood, do you pick at the scab of mortality, reach frustrated for the crumpling blister pack, consider a minute the sorrow of the body, your wondrous and yet mysterious friend, who is everyone’s sorrow timing down to switch out the light and go.

 

 

 

Lightbulb

 

The herald arrived at our door mid-afternoon. She had a Sinhalese name meaning Practical. Her name dangled on a lanyard. I didn’t catch the surname. She came to foreshadow the gift of lights. To be more specific, lightbulbs. If we were so inclined, she heralded, two men will appear within the hour and replace all of our current bulbs with new bulbs. That which was old technology will be upgraded to new. Her name may well have meant Graciousness, or Inspiration. The lights in question were light emitting diode lights. This was, explained Practical, a government initiative. We pay our taxes and behold there is light. We expressed a preference for warm rather than bright bulbs, having given it some thought. Kindly light passed unexpressed through our minds. Thanking Practical for her offer, we thought it a happy day when light is offered for free. In fact, individual lights to replace each existing bulb in house and environs. One hour later the men of light arrived, as promised. They carried ladders and cameras. They started photographing each bulb that was to be replaced, whilst yet in its fitting. This is where business meets state bureaucracy, explained one of the men of light. His name was the same as a central character in Jane Austen. Upon me saying that will be a lot of pictures of lightbulbs for someone to look at, the other man responded: someone in India. His name sounded Sinhalese, but I couldn’t catch the name, nor pronounce it. They must message our bulbs to the subcontinent, I thought to myself in wonder. Cheerfully they went about the house replacing mercury-laden bulbs in chandeliers and standard lamps with cheaper longer-lasting energy-efficient LEDs. Vanilla whip bulbs out, luminous nose bulbs in. More pictures were taken of the grand array. The men of light noticed how every room had walls of shelves of books. They remarked on the sheer number of books. I explained that I run libraries, my wife bookshops, and then we come home. What is your favourite reading?, asked the Sinhalese. Poetry, I replied, wondering in my mind what favourite reading means. My favourite is Patterson, said the man from Jane Austen. Banjo!, I exclaimed, I love Banjo and started reciting “There was movement at the station …” at which he joined in and we finished the verse. Incandescent halogens were unscrewed, accumulating for the recordkeepers of India. In return, energy efficient lumens found their place. Soon the men of light had balanced old with new, hoisted their ladders through the front door and were onto their next mission. First though, they photographed all the extracted bulbs and I signed off with my fingernail on the Sinhalese’s business screen. As evening fell in late October, our house glowed with a new inner glow, warmly, in preference to brightly, efficiently in preference to costly.     

BoM

 

Isometric is a good name. Until abbreviated to Iso, likely to cause confusion after two years of lockdowns. Cloud? Everything is in the Cloud these days. For example, the Cloud says it will be sunny all day. The Cloud predicts thunderstorms over the nearby hills. No, too vague, it will never work. Too much information. We wonder what was on the long list of new names for BoM. Atmosphere. Southerly Buster. Weatherperson. Rain Gauge. Go Troppo. Windsock. Frosty Reception. Sleet Sheet. Looking Good. Vane? My brother once worked in human resources at the Bureau of Meteorology (BoM). I asked him, what is weather anyway? He replied, weather may be defined as rain. He meant, there are two states with certainty: raining and not raining. Obviously, there is much more to the job than saying whether it rains or not. Daily decisions hinge on having some idea of temperature, wind velocity, gutter levels, and will there be four seasons in one day. Record floods have a cause. BoM by any other name is more than a rain gauge. We wonder what was on that list of alternative names the consultancy company The C Word Communications Agency Pty Ltd had to finalise in its prescribed four months. Cloud Cover. Choice Chances. Climate Change. Colourful Charts. Cumulus Concerns. Close Calls. Current Conditions. Carbon Copies. Chattering Classes. Climate Change. Oh sorry, did I mention Climate Change again? C Word in the end recommended the word Bureau for general public usage and all future communications, begging the question, had C Word trialled Bureau for potential conflict of messaging? The Escritoire expects a slight chance of a shower in the afternoon and evening. The Bureau of Statistics has issued a sheep weather alert for the eastern part of the state from tonight. The Federal Bureau of Investigation expects overcast conditions for the next month. Had C Word tabled plans for BoM to be rebranded honouring names of beloved weather reporters? Rosemary Margan’s Bargain (RMB). Edwin Maher’s Pointer (EMP). Rob Gell’s Well-Well-Well (RGW). We still wonder what was on the long, or even short, list of alternative names for BoM, now that BoM has been reinstated by the new Government, given everyone says BoM anyway, not Bureau, and no one had a problem with BoM in the first place. BoM says it will be sunny all day. Seems fairly cut and dried. We’re ready for it, a sunny day. Everyone likes BoM, but herewith I forward other names for your consideration, waiving the usual $70,000 contract fee I would normally expect for this kind of job. I mean, it’s not as though I’m raising a sweat over a sonnet or anything heavy duty. Red Sky at Night (RSaN). Hail to Thee Blithe Spirits (HtTBS). Chiffonier-in-Chief (CiC). Rain on My Parade (RoMP). Wet the Finger (WtF). Send Her down Huey (SHdH). Winds Light and Variable (WLaV). Dry as a Dead Dingo’s Donger (DaaDDD). Deluge Desk (DD). Postscript Climate Change (PSCC).

Halloween

 

It is the season again of faux cobwebs over front fences, rubber skeletons dangling from porches, and plastic pumpkins with handles for collecting sweets. It’s weird, in a familiar weird way. Pumpkins themselves flourish in autumn or, as they say in North America, fall, which is a fairly major clue to this festival being a late import to Australia. “Mists and mellow fruitfulness” for a Queensland Blue arrive other times of year. Ritualists appreciate Australian Halloween as a springtime festival, first and foremost because it’s when children in bands invade the streets in costumes. Not just the usual spooky costumes like witches and draculas, but almost any costume: superheroes and ballerinas and gladiators. Every conceivable springtime colour, every imaginable excuse to dress to excess, every possible future. They run the odd side, the even side, more interested in treats than tricks. The neighbours oblige. Interestingly, it is the only festival when children meet large numbers of neighbours (known and unknown) on an equal basis, each year, and get to look inside their houses at close range. Halloween breaks down invisible barriers, invites discovery rather than fear. Not deathly, but lively. Knowledgeable adult pranksters argue for the season’s “pagan roots”, as they busy the children with Ziggy Stardust makeup and K-Mart capes, choosing to ignore that Halloween is self-descriptive of the night before All Saints’ Day, and the day that follows, All Souls’. It’s a bit like Mardi Gras. To really understand the festival itself you cannot have Mardi Gras without the day that follows, Ash Wednesday – because that’s the reason for Mardi Gras. I don’t see many trick-or-treaters going next day to pray to the saints, or the following day commemorating the dead. If I were to mention this to them, they’d probably think I was weird, in a weird way. Discussion is better kept safe and consumerist with the No Religion crowd. They are capable of believing anything, even that consumption is eternal. Can those who have everything go begging for something just slightly more than nothing, from the people next door? Yet for all that, it is the season of holy possibilities, the season of giving thanks and remembering those who have departed. Any time is a good time to share that reality. And Halloween is a start, it may be argued, children getting together in an organised fashion to meet strangers at the doorstep, in their very own street. They even sing a prepared song to extract free food. Plenty of time to learn whose love is unconditional, even their own. Time to learn how little time there ever was for anyone. Safely home they study their bonbons, enjoy the evening meal together, fold up their costumes (some throw them on chairs for someone else to figure out), and retire to bed with a book of ghost stories. Tomorrow is another day, as ritualists are wont to observe.  

Trumble

 

In September 2010, Angus Trumble shared some of his early school reports, with related background dramas social and emotional, real and imaginary, on his online blog ‘The Tumbrel Diaries’. He transcribed the words of the excellent Miss Cameron, his teacher at Grimwade House at the age of six: “Angus brings many books for us to read. He is most responsive to the rhythm of words and can join in the saying of many poems. He writes down many stories for our enjoyment. His drawings and paintings are especially interesting, being both colourful and imaginative. He has some excellent ideas for creative work and he gets much pleasure from the things he makes.” Miss Cameron was one of his most perceptive teachers. It could be a review of ‘The Tumbrel Diaries’, that splendid set of essays on all manner of interests in Angus’ life, all of it free, that now serves as a highly original, if forever incomplete, autobiography. Since news of his death was broadcast after the second weekend of October, I have been browsing these Diaries again, in order to deal with the loss and grief. Although I am friends with certain members of the Trumble family, my relationship with Angus was tangential, perhaps half a dozen passing conversations at most in the old days, before I stumbled (the only verb that suffices) across the Diaries during one of my daily surfs. I will miss our online banter and his exemplary generosity of spirit. He described, celebrated is a better word, wondered at, a world that I, like so many, connected with immediately: the world of Melbourne and beyond, the arts, art history, history in general, and in particularity. His particularity, one that spoke with wit, good humour, deepening knowledge, original insight, and all things considered, a disarming humility. He spoke entertainingly and informatively on whatever took his fancy, a very wide subject matter indeed. But it was how he spoke as much as what he spoke of, that clutched the attention. Where did that brilliant prose style come from? The Diaries index sprawls with family names, royal names, artists’ names, yet is thin on literary names. This leads me to believe that Angus’ prose style developed very early, urbane and readily accessible; a style he simply further perfected over time. I marvel with all the delight of a fan at his enthusiasm, and how he engenders that enthusiasm in others. Then also, his love of “the rhythm of words” resulted in poetry. One of my favourites are his haiku sequences written during Hurricane Irene in August 2011 (“No power, no gas./ Water’s off. With my flashlight/ Though, I read Miss Pym.”) proof that natural disasters do concentrate the mind. These little poems demonstrate why art is more accurate, more real, than the news: it puts you there and makes you feel it, albeit using the same black humour that informs the anagrammatic title of ‘The Tumbrel Diaries’ themselves. And typical Angus is to drop a name in without explanation, in this case a very literary one, Barbara Pym. He kept scattering clues.

Moscow

 

One of the funniest, most charming books you will ever read is ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ by the American Amor Towles (2016). Every page contains lines, moments, meanings, characters designed to amuse and amaze. Friends had recommended the novel, so when a paperback copy arrived in the Library in donation I thought, okay then. It is an account of a Count, Alexander Ilyich Rostov, who by chance wrote a poem before the October Revolution that Bolsheviks in 1922 deemed revolutionary enough to spare him his life. They directed that Rostov vacate his customary Suite 317 of the Metropol Hotel, to live in an attic room; a form of house arrest. This is the sumptuous hotel near the Kremlin, opposite the Bolshoi Theatre, that remained sumptuous throughout the Soviet 70 years and beyond. What happened next I recommend you find out for yourself, however reading the book during the Russian invasion of Ukraine has given me pause at the social meaning of many things in the novel. For example, on page 289 Rostov and his friend Mishka discuss the age-old question of the burning of Moscow. This is 1946, after the city had just escaped the latest such threat. Mishka hypothesises on Napoleon’s facial expression if, the day after capturing Moscow, he awoke to find the citizens had burnt the city to the ground. Although unsettled, the Count agrees that this is “the form of an event. One example plucked from a history of thousands. For as a people, we Russians have proven unusually adept at destroying that which we have created.” Similar thoughts have crossed mine and other minds since February, as we watch from afar at how Russians, directed by people in the Kremlin, wilfully destroy that which they claim is actually Russia. Would you not want to protect and uphold that which you regard as your valued inheritance? Who would destroy it? After gloomy disquisitions on famous paintings about Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible, Mishka continues, “How can we understand this, Sasha? What is it about a nation that would foster a willingness in its people to destroy their own artworks, ravage their own cities, and kill their own progeny without compulsion?” Towles inserts these harsh interludes to remind the reader of the brutal reality of the Russian world, views that seem belied by the rosy stoicism of the Count’s existence, as related with great humour and humanity the rest of the time. After retelling a dream of meeting the poet Vladimir Mayakovsky involving self-murder by revolver, Mishka concludes that unlike the British, French or Italians, Russians “are prepared to destroy that which we have created because we believe more than any of them in the power of the picture, the poem, the prayer, or the person. Mark my words, my friend. We have not burned Moscow to the ground for the last time.” Such is the morbid intensity of Mishka’s speeches, the Count is temporarily at a loss for words, a state that readers find hard to believe, myself included, given the detailed evidence to the contrary on the other 461 pages of the novel.     

Rochester

 

One of my earliest memories is peeping into the back lobby of the old Rectory at Rochester. River water had surged through to a height of one or two feet. Cold and clean, the water looked quite at home regardless of its recent arrival in our residence. Nature is like that. Its intrusion into our domestic arrangements was due to flood, the bush garden of the Rectory sloping slowly as it would down into the Campaspe River. Whether this memory draws on tiny black-and-white photographs of the same scene, I’m not sure, but the images are strong in my mind and include colour and sound. These memories are further coloured in by events of which I have only later reports: the arrival of my brother Michael into the world, so this was August 1958. Because the town was under water, the road between the Rectory and Rochester and District Hospital, in other words the Northern Highway, was blocked by river and rainwater. A long circuitous drive around back blocks was out of the question. The expectant mother chose to stay at home, against doctor’s orders, walking to the hospital being not wise in her condition. The ultimate decision was the child’s, who obliged by waiting until the flood had receded. This story is told to this day as though it were the norm. It was due to this particular flood that the vestry was propelled to build a new Rectory in the centre of town beside Holy Trinity Church itself, a home built with the fashionable white cream brick of the period. Flood was a regular hazard of life in Rochester in those days. Breaking its banks was what locals called ‘coming out’, i.e. the river would come out and go down again overnight; except when it didn’t. Walking from my new home a few doors to the main street, during the season I could witness that street completely covered in swirly floodwater that had ‘come out’; I was instructed not to go past the hotel on the corner. All the shops were shut for days as water slowly receded down drains and back into the Campaspe from whence it had risen. August, and Spring in general, was always a good time for a flood. At the age of six we left Rochester for Melbourne and more new homes, though in Melbourne they were called the Vicarage. This clear demarcation date tells me why all my early childhood memories of Rochester must have occurred before Melbourne Cup Day in 1961, the day of the shift. The thoroughbred Lord Fury led all the way to win the Cup that year. It was also the year they started work damming Lake Eppalock. Eppalock was a magical word of childhood, as adults extolled the happy resolution to the flooding history of the Campaspe River. Happy if you believe in regulated farm irrigation and safe, dry towns, doubtless, though presumably if Eppalock is full to the brim then floods will 'come out' again, as they have in recent years and spectacularly in 2022 when Rochester experienced the once-every-100-years event of being national frontpage news, the entire town being issued with an evacuation order.

 

Photograph: Silo art in Rochester, picture taken by my brother Seb during a visit to the town in August this year. He was born in Rochester in May 1961.

Rain

 

LOVE – Let me put it to you that the start of the sound on the roof that is not instantly understood, only as the sound increases in number until before long is a steady clatter or flow, inspires the need to rush to the nearest window where the sound is quickly a forest of water droplets let go of by clouds, dark and out of view above, radiating life and light. MIRTH – I put it to you that predictable day with its humourless to-do lists is turned by a torrent along gutters over and jib-jab of plummets in pooling puddles, into a spectacle for relief bursting with laughter at the thought, more like the surge through the body, that says your previous pile of worries are piffle, your stubborn indulgence in pettiness is dumb; that says you will watch vertical cascades turn horizontal at ground level with glee, thousands upon thousands of ground zeroes. ANGER – You read about storms in stories, as warnings from gods that your patterns of life are spoilt; about floods rising above rooftops where everywhere is one sea. You read stories of climate change that speak as if great floods, like great drought, are outcomes of a volatile Earth righting itself, casting about for solace, for a cure. COURAGE – Let me say that such enormous forces of water, looming then let loose, have been beyond your control, and mine, for as long as we have opened our eyes; likewise each generation since waters parted from the heavens; and how this unmanageable element, more a power than simply an element, may be avoided or worked with takes as much courage as ingenuity. FEAR – Why, indeed, the weight of rain falling and then rushing hitherward may get into your house, or the storm lift the roof and wash everything away from one moment to the next, as the clouds keep arriving unseen behind other clouds dark with the threat of heavy falls; may isolate you from me, even close the conversation; may render obsolete the crowded inventions we put so much store by, yours and my own small share of inheritance. AVERSION – Such is rain’s condition of seeming indifference, I put it to you there is reason to desire only ever a clear day, as the inescapable element pounds on the ground, cuts off roads, upturns bridges, and muzzies the mind with relentless pouring that would be designed, by all that is reasonable, to disappoint expectations, dampen the mood, and ruin your day for the foreseeable future. WONDER – However, such time-honoured aversions turn out to be immaterial, I put to you, when you gaze at the white falls of walling water hiding the views awhile on every side, their corresponding thunderous torrents across tin roofs and open courtyards, with inside calm and quiet within where you gaze in silence, happy to believe in good fortune, which is blessing of complete wonder. SORROW – You could choose, later sometime, to look upon the losses inflicted by the storm, what then you could do to help that you could not in the midst. Or choose to watch raindrops dropping one two three into a still pool outside your window and wonder why instead of feeling pleased, you wish with a touch of longing for more of the same downpour.

Guesswork

 

One minute at the red lights escalates into hours of waiting, over time, for them to change. Today’s one minute converts into six hours wait per year, once we start thinking about it. Conveniently, three sculptures have been installed near the corner of Heidelberg Road and Chandler Highway to help pass the time. Peak hour is transformed, now that we spend time guessing what they could be. Ice-cream cones is an immediate idea. Isn’t it normally? The sculptures’ colour and triangularity lend themselves to ice-cream cones. UFOs, thinks someone aloud, spontaneously, unclear as to whether the Objects are taking off or have just landed, or are perhaps just waiting like the rest of us for the lights to change. Dustbins, says another passenger. This dismal dismissal is not without warrant. The developers have indeed positioned three works that are shaped like rubbish receptacles in the middle of the footpath. Furthermore, sizable works, capacious enough to take any number of chip bags and hamburger boxes. This is the western corner of what was the Great Wall of Alphington, the gigantic whitebrick four-storey wall of the papermill demolished a few years ago to make space for a new riverside suburb of apartment buidings. Paper planes, proffers one of the passengers, warming to the name game and probably thinking of the vanished papermill and its generations of outgoing paper. Someone else suggests they are three origami, a fitting memorial to times gone past. Perfectly fitting, in fact. Three cubist origami folding eternal flames to another era. The Magi maybe, we three kings of Orient are, someone says, winding down the window to get a closer look. Or the three wise monkeys, which honestly is an improvement on the three dustbins. Trios occupy the sound waves briefly. The three musketeers? The three stooges? The three little pigs? The lights go green on Heidelberg Road and we’re off again towards Clifton Hill, leaving the next guesswork for another day. We are reluctant to go googling to find out their actual name, or names, conjectures being much more fun than literal facts. Google however proves unforthcoming about the three amigos. Or the three tenors. Or the sculptor, for that matter. We find that the 326 apartment, four-storey building replacing the Great Wall has the astonishingly unimaginative name Home by Caydon. Why not Papyrus? Or Diamond Sutra? Or Paperbark, maybe? Caydon is the developer of this property, or rather was the developer, now that Google also tells us Caydon collapsed in July leaving hundreds of unsold apartments all over the place, so perhaps the building will be Diamond Sutra after all, the earliest book printed on paper. Though a Wurundjeri name would be fitting. Birrarung, for example, after the nearby river.      

Concrete

 

Highly read concrete poetry of the urban environment is drawn rapidly into the wet footpath before it dries. After the concrete is poured urban poets have a brief window with the footpath before it hardens. Therefore, they must make it significant and short, usually monosyllabic. Their words are little more than a little word, their name, or their dog’s name, an initial, a love-heart maybe and the name of their amour. Jesus shows up incognito sometimes. Multiple instances confirm the handful of standard four-letter words to be perennial. The typical window is 28 days, curing of the grey substance, a soft secret for those who unnoticed would act quickly with a gumtree stick found by the path, then tossed away: the irresistibleness of swirling lines through fresco mud. Dogs are unwitting poets of this genre, leaving their daisy chain of pawprints after exiting from a sticky situation. Cats make daintier patterns yet, while humans prefer to put their big foot in it. Ripple soles are eternal. Although fines apply for street artists caught in flagrante graffito, and the difference between graffiti and mural art oft is left to the discernment of connoisseurs, no one ever seems to be fined for leaving their mark in wet concrete. There are those who would dispute it’s illegal at all, or art for that matter. Such thoughts went through my mind on my daily rehabilitation walk around the neighbourhood recently, after I came across this contribution in a driveway: A WISE MAN SAID ALWAYS WRITE YOUR NAME IN WET CONCRETE GEORGE W. 2021 On the face of it, George wanted to say something with his stick, didn’t know what, so wrote this. It’s his own quotable quote, his most durable statement to the world, an affirmation of existence. Wisdom, for George W., is supreme value, something he identifies with by doing what he says, walking the talk. But was it wise for him to sign and date his concrete expression? If the law defined this as defacing public property then the police might lay fines; imprisonment could eventuate if the poetry were serious enough. Under law, graffiti includes scratching and engraving, words that well describe the manufacture of the genre. Which explains why the form flourishes, due to the high value placed on brevity, rapidity, while leaving open the whole conundrum of George W. and his koan. And what of JAZ + JILLY, accomplices? RUSTY, is that their dog? Rain will smooth and intensify their names and dates, if police wanted to track their movements on street cameras. Sunshine will emblazon George’s wisdom for every passer-by who stops, tut-tuts perhaps, and reads. But nothing out of the ordinary will happen, now that the concrete has hardened, 2021 is synonymous in memory with lockdown, and the stick has long since been thrown over someone’s back fence.      

Sektor

 

Well-known writers are protesting for proper funding on behalf of what journalism calls the literary sector. This makes sense if you are well-known and therefore stand to benefit from improved funding. It is no surprise that this sector has been neglected in recent years, given that those who allocate funding don’t read. Musicians tweet that there’s one creative sector even more poorly funded than writers, namely musicians. Sculptors cannot carve out an existence. Actors are speechless. All of these grievances are just and it usually takes a change of government for anything to happen. Symptomatic of funding thinking is the very word ‘sector’. No novelist began their life of storytelling happy in the thought they had now joined the sector. Poets, many of whom live in cumulative word clouds, many of whom are self-disclosing narcissists in their own lunchtimes, and punchlines, exist remote from any awareness of a sector. Writing their ‘Pantoum on Prahran’ is more fun, more fulfilling, than filling out the ten-page departmental form confirming they’re part of the poetry sector. Now that graffiti, or wall art, is an art form, funding has gone through the roof; such are the vagaries of public taste. Sektor might be part of the wall art sector, though no one knows because Sektor works only at night and hasn’t filled out the form. Indeed, although Sektor has web presence galore it is uncertain if Sektor is one person, a Renaissance guild, an incorporated business, a religious sect, or a criminal syndicate. The only certainty is that Sektor is a spraycan avatar, which could disqualify him/her/us/they/it from funding. Research indicates that Sektor started out in Sydney but has been infiltrating Melbourne for some time, probably to raise the profile for future funding. Why else spend your every 1 am (read also, in bold Dulux capitals: ‘I AM’) doing your S-name in calligraphy over railway bridges? Like novelists or poets or sculptors, a wall muralist might reply, “Because.” A handy indicator of wealth stream to any particular sector is the term ‘industry’. Music industry, for example, refers to that fraction of the music sector that makes megabucks. There are 100 names for pop music, many of which factor into the category of industry. No one talks about the writing industry, but the publishing industry is a familiar term based on the illusion that every book ever written is the next classic bestseller, a “stunning debut”. No one has ever heard of the poetry industry, despite the immense levels of industriousness going on behind the scenes. Graffiti is gaining traction as a sector, given the official sanction of city councils to wall art. That most of Melbourne is now covered with Sektor and their/its nocturnal friends, wall art’s prospects as an industry are looking decidedly massive, for those who come out from behind their signature.

Present

 

The present that is ever this given moment given, the present. Sight affirms. Words wonder at. One after the other, words. How to accept the present where it finds you. This can take years to learn. Yesterdays. Years to notice in its diverse colour. The houses passing by. The resplendent lay of the land. The same room. How you would like to walk away from this, into a future room more accommodating than this room. This yard of seasonal predictions. Blossom present, falling ice and bees. Hills of petals and hail. So many words. So much to take in. So much words cannot do. Or dream of a past that anyway surrounds you on all sides, the period glassware and stunning views, wherever you are now. Surrounds being what they are. A present you had no say in and how to live with it. Thank you being words it takes time to find. Stretching everywhere the eyes can see. Then again, the finest lace, a city rush. To start with, what’s going on? To startle with. To go on with, all of it. Odd, that you didn’t see it coming that, now it takes up your whole present, is something so obvious. It looks totally transparent, yet unwrapping it takes some time. All those invisible joins. Some times more time than currently available. Better just to leave the present transparent and uncomplicated. Allow it to continue. You take a deep breath of surprise or concern or joy or fortitude, a deep breath as you face up to the present. Sounds register. Night and day. A face and a name. It was simple, once. Curses can well up within you, wishing you were somewhere else, with some other present than this one. Thoughts the same as before, words getting in the way. Then what. Whatever can you hope to learn from the evil cast your way. Your being draws all its strength to curse the past that brought this to light. You could go on forever if you chose. Nowhere present in the present. Or worst. Or else. Blessing frees your being in simply blessing. The living breathing facts take in the present, without a second thought. Going into a tunnel. Coming out again. Acceptance. Finding a new road, a hidden grove, a far-out conversation. It is service to accept the present. Understood, misunderstood. Open-eyed, not another dream. Your body prefers to rest, not tense up. The antics of a pen have transferred to your iphone. Quill become keyboard. Transcribing present thoughts to sort them out. End of story, not. How blessed to stop for a time under these she-oaks. How long it took for them to grow to make such softening shadows everywhere. A present you walked into at just the right time. Better just to leave the present transparent and uncomplicated. So many words. So much to take in. So much words cannot do. Open-eyed, not another dream. Sunny shadows of she-oaks, a bottle of sparkling mineral water, everything going on that is given.