Thursday, June 19, 2003
It's been a good weekend back in Sydney, catching up with old friends, and remaking the acquaintance of the sea by going out for a paddle under the Harbour Bridge. Oh, and eating a lot of seafood, of course.
This poem from my writing splurge a fortnight ago:
Dusk, Sculpture Symposium
The moon is up early
a fingernail clipping the sky
impregnated by sunset
each night she will swell
floating with increasing heaviness
among bubble bath clouds
Stones become seers
hoods thrown back
to the full beauty of the moon
now terrible in her luminosity
exulting in the chant
of her priests:
the wind rising
sand transformed by magic
into puddles of light
the song mounts
the goddess labours
stretched on her gauzy bed of stars
Clouds hide her modesty
at the ultimate moment
and the cough of gravel
bids us turn away
back to the town of mortals
whose lights beckon below.
Speaking of the sea, here's another, written a year ago, which expresses how I feel about it:
Replenishing the basket
I’m a rockpool voyeur
sea sliding slyly
snuggles at my feet
Child-discovery all around
as sunset subsides.
Gull rockets crazily above
To where waves toy
with human matchsticks
bobbing like hopeful slugs.
(I see one now, tossed
carelessly feet-up…)
Water and sea-sand smell
come: fill me.
I am all emptied out.
The basket is yours to fill.
Mona Vale, 10/8/02
Piokiwi 7:43 pm
Thursday, June 12, 2003
Two "medical" poems I wrote last Saturday. The opening line is taken from a real report, but the rest of the poem is not based on any one patient - but those who have worked in rural communities may find it a familiar scenario. The second poem is a real patient of mine, though the name has of course been changed.
Accident
“her life was a train crash in slow motion”
this is what they said of you
when they finally found you hanging
but did they stretch out their hands
to stop the locomotion
or did you simply not see
their eyes screaming, stop!
as you plunged
Through the angry words of your childhood
you grew a hard shell around your innocence
so when the blows came
they did not find that deepest part of you
yet there was no safe hiding place
the beds and houses constantly changed
They were wrong when they said
you drank to oblivion
it was not for solace, but for survival
glue was a cheap way out
you figured your brain was already stuffed
and from there, a short step
to weed, the only way to decent dreams.
When your belly swelled
at fifteen, it was no surprise
others had done it too
Your child your double
eyes fenced by dark lashes
tiny hands clutching at shadows
as they stole her from you
You ran from rehab
the rope was thrown too late
blinded now, you hurtled
to where fate lay waiting
holding open the door
to your childhood dreams
BH 7/6/03
Piokiwi 3:01 pm
Ryan
Frozen in a time before words
Your eyes stare at a reflection:
Fullback’s frame bunched in a wheelchair
Baby bottle suffocated by giant hand
Lemonade melting the last vestige of teeth
Tracksuit swollen by nappies.
An infant’s mind in a man’s body
You lean on your frail nan
Though she can no longer bathe you alone:
You chase bubbles every morning
As the school bus waits in vain.
What thunder stole your mind
As you lay sleeping before the start of time?
What accident of gene, what poison
Denied you intellect
And robbed the world of your adulthood?
The secret drowns in your empty eyes.
BH 7/6/03
Piokiwi 2:59 pm
When I showed this to my writing group, several people identified with the first poem. The process of writing - particularly poetry - is often a display of emotion at great personal risk : but if it connects, it becomes something far more valauble than just a poem.
The other two poems describe Poets in the Pub and the Community Markets poetry reading.
Poet
I
I reach down my throat
draw out my innards
splay against a white page:
You read, and turn away
precious glitter in your eyes.
II
Guffaws, friendship
warm vinyl on red velvet
chink of ice on glass:
eyes quieten, then still
as my voice makes foray.
And then brighten
as I invoke the stars.
This is no desert,
but a shared feast of minds.
III
Paintings
held captive by chains
flutter in sunlight
Man in a suit
voice rounding up the foraging crowd
beckons: Come hear the poets!
The herd continues to graze
but some lift their heads
ears pricked to the lilt
of words in mysterious rhythms,
chanted by a circle of seers.
Piokiwi 2:56 pm
Got peed on by a baby this week - first time they've managed to get me for two years, though there have been a few near misses. ( I've learned to move fast). The kid was on the weighing scales beside me while I was talking to the mum, and stupidly I wasn't watching and he managed to squirt me sideways. He gave me a big innocent smile afterwards - grrr. Think the child has a career ahead of him - previously he's managed to get grandma in the face with a poo......
Piokiwi 2:52 pm
Monday, June 09, 2003
A painting I did a few weeks ago- Papanui Beach on the Otago Peninsula.
Piokiwi 1:13 pm
A poem I wrote last Saturday.
Saturday
High on the hill
I peg out weekly washing:
below
an audience of palefaced houses
crouched like a congregation
before a brooding slag queen
who wears a tiara
a temple to coffee
and broken miners
sends trains her heralds
willing sacrifices
swallowed by the long dry plains
terrible in their noonday beauty
gentle in the afternoon sun
fingers of light dance among saltbush
in twilight
ravages of kangaroos
will ring this town
impossible to escape by night
and yet, it is strange:
I can love this place
Where light is so tangible it can be held
where life can spring from the sands
but now
the sea calls me
BH 7/6/03
Piokiwi 1:09 pm
Sunday, June 08, 2003
Been up since 3.30 am with a sick babe. (it's now 11.30 am BH time). This baby isn't going to make it - part of its brain is outside its skull (a birth defect) and it cannot breathe for itself because its brain does not function. We are waiting for the father to get here from Melbourne so he can say goodbye before we let nature take its course. In the meantime I have to stay here in case something goes wrong with the ventilator.
This night brought back a lot of memories for me, but I was surprised that it wasn't as painful as I had expected. It was still very sad though. I really can feel for the grandparents who have a nursing background and already knew what was going to be said to them in that interview room, and also know what an autopsy means. And I know some of what the father is going through, with a long wait before the next planes (at least two separate flights) can take him to Broken Hill - in the meantime he is all alone, without friends or family.
However, I was able to intubate the baby and stay in that room with the ventilator without getting too stressed, so I have hopes that I won't find my upcoming Paediatric Intensive Care term too hard to deal with. How many times though in the next 6 months will I see tragedy and loss like this?? I still think it is amazing how people seem to cope.
Piokiwi 2:25 pm
Friday, June 06, 2003
That was me showing the nice folks at the Aboriginal language centre in Bourke how to BLOG as they want to set up a website for their radio programming and Language studies. I'm back in Broken Hill today, better rested and less bitchy. Hoping the weekend on call won't be too harsh.
Piokiwi 2:43 pm
Thursday, June 05, 2003
hello from the language Centre
Piokiwi 2:41 pm
Wednesday, June 04, 2003
Muse by the Darling River (sketch)
Under muddy skies
the river glances
at the belly of a pelican
skimming cloud mirrors
A heron glows
en pointe on weed
pirouettes and dips
for fish
An ant
scurries across my page
escaping my poetry
later the sun will dip
into red gums
stretched languidly
among moody cows
and fish will splash
teasingly at birds
sailing through the sunset clouds
Bourke 6/4/03
Piokiwi 6:38 pm
Hello from the Back of Bourke, Aussie slang for "middle of bloody nowhere, mate". I'm here doing a Well Kids Health Check which takes a school full of primary school kids and checks eyes, ears, skin, blood, growth, urine, vaccination and teeth. It's the first time something like this has been attempted on such a a scale and it's a bit of a trial run. We are doing it at a small Catholic school with predominantly Aboriginal kids. My role is as the Vampire Lady taking blood - I bled 30 kids today and frankly, I'm exhausted. Not really from the kids or their parents - they have been lovely - but from the constant pressure to get it first time, and also the constant sniping from the nurse who is helping me who favours soto voce (?sp) comments as I'm trying to get the vein.
Despite the comfortable accommodation and all expenses paid meals I'll be glad to get out of here, back to the privacy of my own place in BH (Sydney or NZ would be better) and away from the company of the 40 -something year old catty women that I am currently expected to socialise with. (this is a good place to bitch about it, since I can't talk to anyone at the moment - Bourke also has no mobile phone access). I am trying to avoid gossip trips with them to pubs or cafes, and have found a nice spot by the Darling River, though yesterday they sprung me at my spot!. Though Bourke is not a good place to be too solitary, esp after dark. I'm also a bit wary of being hard to contact - after what happened with Casey I am no longer so blase about being uncontactable for days at a time and get very nervous with phone calls in the middle of the night when I'm not on call. Hurray. Only one more day to go, then I can get back to my gym classes, my internet, my painting and my music.
Piokiwi 6:27 pm
Monday, June 02, 2003
It’s been a hectic week, but exciting at times. Thursday I went on my first Royal Flying Doctor visit to a small service town called Hungerford, just across the Dog Fence on the Queensland border. In just under two hours I saw a phenomenal 50% of the paediatric population (4 kids!). Then we did a quick tour of the town, including the Dog Fence, which is the longest fence in the world. Built along the NSW border it is supposed to keep rabbits, dingoes and “other vermin” out of the grazing lands in NSW, and is still patrolled by boundary riders. Personally though I think that sheep are the biggest “vermin” destroying land in NZ and Oz.
more photos are at: http://au.photos.yahoo.com/piokiwi
Yesterday I went on a walk across Lake Pamaroo. The Menindee lakes not only supply water to Broken Hill, but are the subject of many iconic photographs showing tree trunks rising moodily out of the water at sunset. I had set my heart on taking some of these photos, but due to the long drought and some burocratic stuff-ups there is very little water left in the lakes (thus the undrinkability of water in BH). So I took some photos of a dried-up lake bed instead.
Speaking of BH, I wrote a quirky poem:(which is one of the first not on the subject of Casey)
Xmas in May, Broken Hill style
Santa drives a sky-blue Volvo
He dropped by the hospital today
Blue eyes hiding behind straggly brows
Stained beard bursting out the window
Mrs Claus was in the back
wearing a floral housedress
her day off I suppose
She christened the garden
with a fairy-like wave of her cigarette,
then creaked open the door,
squeezed out, and
handed Santa a crutch
as he got out.
He only had one leg.
BH 8.5.03
Piokiwi 12:30 am
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