Bottle

 

[Bottle]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘Dining room at Le Cannet’ (1932)

 

Remind them of the shape of bottle

lip and neck and base and not too subtle

how it fills the space not too little.

 

Erect the form using line. incorrect colour

the time it takes to fill with water

or something sweeter or tipsier, richer.

 

Suggest body with blue patch of window,

crimson curl reflection, distant dayglow

inside glass silver liquid, go with the flow.

 

Demonstrate, using cubist traction

impressionist smudge, baroque affection,

its air of indefinite abstraction.

 

Imagine the genie who got us all here

all the questions so far yet so near.

all’s as it appears, yet changed it’s clear.

 

Write the message bottled for their word game

who still have to find out how futile is fame;

only love, work, rest, signed with your name.

 

Imply that all objects have such mystery,

the contents take effect in all their variety;

the poet said it, the world’s incorrigible plurality.

 

Describe its glassiness as simply the start

of iconic afternoon its edges prefiguring dark.

there are years wherein to appreciate the art.

 

Leave it to breathe where you saw it last

to the gaze of aging friends sharing the past

and the young who find the whole thing a blast.

Table

 

[Table]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘The Table’ (1925)

 

The head turns this way then that

so show that, with her face hidden at

an angle in thought whereat she sat.

 

The arm embraces as well as fends,

so show as veins and nerves extend

its curve, how the muscles flex and bend.

 

The hand puts all things in their place

so show how the fine parts hold in space,

move slight, or swift, with speechless grace.

 

The plate holds the earth’s goodness

so likewise show its hue and centralness

hard and round and chipped no less.

 

The knife there has ten thousand uses

so solitary, like a paintbrush that sluices

seizes on sizes, renders and reduces.

 

The bowl upholds all things their forms:

attend to the round, sharp, frilly, forlorn

each resting in transit to their next morn.

 

The table, the tablecloth picture the day,

so centre them so with the daily display

of our needs, our work, our play.

 

Then, the door exhibits our small universe

so render both dark and light as at first;

stay this side or exit, for better or worse.

 

The shadow shall speak of passing time

so define each body and object’s special line

outlined by light, and made a certain sign.

Suburb

 

Glen Huntly at Daybreak

[Suburb]

 

“march suburb haiku”

 

there’s a crack in everything

yarraville

and that’s how the light gets in

 

the compost is perfection

thomastown

the tomatoes turn bright red

 

minutes broadmeadows glenroy

pascoe vale

west brunswick on the freeway

 

pobblebonk frog from log drops

moonee ponds

into the water kerplop

 

the weekend arena of

jolimont

its roar of weekday workers

 

more green leaves than yellow leaves

collingwood

soon more yellow leaves than green

 

oh apartments apartments

south yarra

apartments more apartments!

 

the ubers go too fast through

elsternwick

and the trams go far too slow

 

cream brick fifties make way in

cheltenham

for the chocolate brick twenties

 

heatwave conditions of march

kananook

cool into daylight saving

 

glades caper and shimmer in

rosanna

eltham copper butterflies

 

patients in emergency

heidelberg

doctors talk in corridors

 

dry side toasts with rainwater

camberwell

wet side floats on gold bubbly

 

same same, same but different

glen iris

ashburton glen iris, same

 

eucalypt mural barks of

mooroolbark

and morale barks of park dogs

 

there’s vietnamese spanish

dandenong

peruvian sudanese greek

 

more carparks stores trolleys as

pakenham

grows miles in all directions

Need

 

Image: Illustration to “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy. ‘Pahóm Running to the Hillock’ by Arkady Plastov (1952), watercolour and gouache on paper. The Leo Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow. 

Reflections for the Second Sunday in Lent, the 16^th of March 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 James Joyce, who wrote the funniest novel in the English language, regarded Leo Tolstoy’s short story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need’ as “the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.” It is a story about being tempted with the promise of owning the world.

 Pahóm, a villager, listens to his wife argue with her sister, who comes from the city. The elder sister praises town life (fine clothes, good food, theatre) while the younger sister says she would not trade her peasant life; she and her husband may never grow rich, but they will always have enough, whereas rich people often lose all they have. The city, she says, surrounds people with temptations from the Devil. Pahóm agrees with his wife, but also thinks they do not have enough land. If he had more land, even the Devil would not be able to tempt him. The Devil, who is sitting unseen in the room, hears this boast and decides to give more land to ensnare him.

 And so Pahóm raises money to buy 40 acres of a deceased estate. Happiness reigns until he starts fining other peasant landowners who let cattle roam onto his land. This causes resentment. Trials are held with no outcome other than further quarrels, bribes, and ill-feeling. Soon Pahóm hears of promises of even better land some distance away on the other side of the River Volga. Selling his land, he moves there, further away from home. Crops are good, life is fine, but he then learns from a passing dealer of even better land, and cheaper, in a province 300 miles away. He takes a punt and travels all that way, taking a servant but leaving wife and family behind.

 Negotiations with the chiefs of this region, who flatter and entertain him, lead to a deal: the price of their land will be one thousand rubles a day. Pahóm is puzzled by what this means, so it is explained that he can have as much land as he can walk around in a day. If he fails to return to his starting point within that time, he will forfeit his thousand rubles. The night before the Big Walk, Pahóm in a dream meets a man who is laughing outside his tent. It’s the Chief, but he then sees it is also the land dealer of long ago and, in fact, the Devil and that at his feet is a dead man: Pahóm.

 Waking up he goes out early to walk the perimeter of the land he wishes to own. The chiefs watch, the day is hot, and he walks for a long time, morning into afternoon then evening. Exhausted, he goes faster and faster and breaks into a run, discarding his coat, boots, and flask. The sun is close to the horizon as he rushes towards the chiefs and collapses in front of them, touching the Chief’s cap, in which his money lies. The Chief declares that Pahóm has acquired a lot of land. However, when Pahóm’s servant runs to him, he finds that Pahóm is dead. The servant digs a grave and buries him.

 After striving for so long to acquire land, all the land Pahóm needs now is six feet.

 

Secret

 

Iso-mandala No. 162 (October 2020)

[Secret]

 

secrets flare up from coals alive in ash

containment lines detect the nascent flash

stop turning my mood into burning trash

 

others congregate around a name

yours or mine or theirs it’s never the same

given what’s the game or who is to blame

 

secrets exist in various sizes

so many metaphoric reprises

deliver the same old instant surprises

 

daylight is no obstacle to dream

secrets secreted burst into words, seem

undercover yet ever on the scene

 

spell them out on the page for all to gaze

secrets that have become set in their ways

they still shatter peace or frighten the days

 

but what guilt or guard or hurt or fear

made them secrets likely to reappear

keep us in the dark where the price is dear

 

I would be freed of their inner power

the years cannot undo to spoil the hour

of their return and the doubts that sour

 

can but offer them in secret, my own

known or forgot, to the only unknown

to whom all desires and secrets shown

 

are there made real in their act of reveal

their dash and shame and cries and schemes unsealed

tears and cowers and groans let go, appealed

 

 

 

 

 

Scripsi

 

[Scripsi]

 

quod scripsi, scripsi

even when glitzy, bitsy

sober judge or tipsy gypsy

 

what I have written

bitten smitten befittin’ never quittin’

I have written

 

quod scripsi, scripsit

snipsit flipsit blipsit shitsit

eejit whatsit generates great slabs blitzit

 

what I have written it has written

splittin’ patent profits on ill-fittin’

prose more worse than bulwer-lytton

Room

 

[Room]

 

“1968 kusama lyric”

 

in a white room

with black curtains

in the station

 

you made teardrops

endless circles

goodbye homeland

 

phallic rowboats

naked dresses

tired starlings

 

endless english

softly spoken

now forgotten

 

you stepped into

such a black lake

from your high-rise

 

in the last room

hang one thousand

candelabra

 

all the mirrors

neon ladders

explanations

 

you’ll say no strings

can secure you

just beginning

 

stars out of reach

as steps ascend

the work never ends

 

all left behind

where the shadows

run from themselves