K

 

[K]

 

Prague. Autumn Twenty Twenty-Three. Dear K.,

the lid lifts on the world, but what’s for supper?

I reply to yours of the 1st inst. Suffer

I have your number so have a nice day.

 

New paragraph. The cravat is back and very.

Bureaucrats have bungled again alas

glass newspapers call their faces faceless.

Archduke is a word in a dictionary.

 

Next year is your mortal centenary.

Bravo to all your unburnt manuscripts!

I have to answer this phone call, okay?

Public statues praise entomology.

Every room in town somehow comes to grips.

Until next time, as they say, they would, K.

K

 

K (May)

Screenwalking has become extremely common. The screenwalker resembles K, back more or less straight, one leg in front of the other, arm held at differing degrees of upright, screen unlocked. They are kings and queens of self-absorption. K describes their daily encounter with non-screenies. The screenwalker steps in a more or less straight line as the non-screenwalker curves, or makes a rapid ninety degrees to avoid collision with the obvious, or rather oblivious. K-Lanes may have to be introduced on footpaths and public concourses to remedy this daily traffic, though will screenwalkers remember to keep inside the dedicated K lines?

K (February)

K is for Kilometre? King? Kevin? Special K? We enjoy the way railway views and warehouse walls turn into kindergartens of big alphabets, cosmopolitan forums of multi-limbed human-high words. Kali? Kryptonite? The night of its writing was February green and their eyes were flames. Come daylight fennel and daisies get in the way. L is for Love? Maybe, though the other letters blaze so wildly Chicago plus badged over frequent, only L is recognisable. Brickwork mortar and train speed don’t help, either. LOL or LHC? Second childhood sprays back fence murals rainbows, then heads for the monkey puzzle tram stop.

K (September)

K is the kilometre or three of the Clifton Hill Embankment, availing the crossword traveller of stretched September vistas: aged freeway chimney, browned Ormond College tower, creambrick Redmond Barry, dark-red Lygon Street highrise, evanescent Barak Building, firm St Mark’s Fitzroy, greying Hoddle Street highrise, hive-like Collingwood Secondary, ink-sketch Collingwood Town Hall, just Telstra, knotty Gardens, lonesome Collingwood silos, massed St Patrick’s Cathedral, neo-cubist Hyundai Showrooms, original Orica, patterned  St John The Evangelist, quilted Caselden Place, reality Nauru House, solid Sofitel, transformed Southern Cross, upright Daimaru, veiled Mercy, wilting Hilton Hotel, x-rated Hyatt Hotel, yo Rialto and oh! a zed tunnel.

 

Photograph by Mark Hassed: Roof of the south tower of Collingwood Town Hall.