W

 

[W]

 

We skipped on skirtings, rushed hardwood seats

man with ear to horses, matchbox wireless

Venetian slats let scenery repeat

Preston, St. Kilda, Footscray, Glen Iris.

 

Corner clang, screeching curve and wobbly bogie

the gabardine crowd stood back to make room,

schoolgirls (gloved), daywear queens, dishevelled fogey

took opposite ends of the green saloon.

 

Double-tugged the cord, time to go, all clear

the conductor cut the ticket with suns,

our tipsy trip to town dreamt no idea

of drunken midnight last depot runs.

 

The trucks all halted and no car dared pass

as Melburnians alighted from their W-Class.

W (May)

This May saw the largest wave ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere. Time cannot see, it’s an expression. Armchairs questioned whether this was a wave or a swell. Is this a question? Newspapers quickly asserted it did not ‘eclipse’ the LWER in the Northern Hemisphere (2013), as though the hemispheres are in some wave contest. “Chill out”, keyed con-trolls (without irony) at non-trolls who mentioned climate change online. Politicians didn’t mention climate change, it’s a vote loser. A marble obelisk carved with not one but two Vs has been dropped at this historic site: Very Vast Wave, or Volcanoes, perhaps.

W (February)

W is for Writing, wiggle wiggle up-and-down up-and-down across the page and back again. Why write? Clarification, compulsion, ambition, faith, money, fame, proof, motion, communication, calligraphy, entertainment, messaging. Books on the subject prove it’s no idle question, and that their opposites also apply: obfuscation, indifference, obscurity, doubt, charity, anonymity, work, solitude, privacy, cacography, boredom, confusion. X is for X, for in some sense all writing is anonymous, examples of humans writing what they will write, regardless. Is it important, in one hundred years, in February, who wrote what? Their words meet our wants. Writing, the great leveller of up-and-down up-and-down.

W (September)

In the last century I constructed online an interlinking site called ‘Search Engine’, an acrostic wonderland, thought lost. This September I uncovered one of the old notebooks for this escapade, which included 42 acrostics for the thing called the www, then a toy of unforeseen dimensions. This miasma of double yous is self-definitional of the World Wide Web: worth.waiting.weeks wonky.windscreen.wiper weft.warp.woof wrong.way.warren worldy.wise.wrangle what.white.whale wakey.wakey.wakey wimbledon.wombles.wednesday woop.woop.whodunit whosie.whatsit.whatdyacallit white.winged.warbler wanton.willing.woman wang.weis.wash wild.west.won waikiki.water.wall world.weather.watch walt.whitman.wired willow.whacks.wickets western.wailing.wall women.want.women walking.wounded.write-in winsome.wangaratta.wahine wrist.watch.work willow.ware.winkles washington.watch.word wily.wicked.witch wishy.washy.wimp-out willy.wagtail.waltz willowy.wine.waiter wanking.window.washer wink.wink.wink watching.wim.wenders wondrous.whiptail.wallaby wiry.wicker.whatnot white.water.wipeout words.winning.ways wire.wheel.wallah wadi.wagga.wagga wonderful.wet.weekends women’s.weekly.work william.wordsworths.wasteland worst.world.war