Month: January 2022

Sacrifice

What does she want but to charm
the swallows and make the trees dance,
Almost Orpheus, but a woman
with an instrument,
not from heaven, but Hades.

A sacrifice is needed.
Take them. An ovary and an eye, she whispers,
Let me hang beneath the banyan tree
Almost Odin, but a woman,
I am used to hanging
I am used to bleeding, she says.

But first suspend her from that leafless tree, 
With grandfather’s beard draped upon 
Its branches, like chain mail of fallen soldiers
Where currawongs perch, crow-like but flightless
Dismember me, she says.
I am used to it.
In time, I will reassemble.

If you stay too long in the sea (poem in progress)

If you stay too long in the sea
The mermaids will take you, her cousin said,
a bored babysitter, fourteen.
Reluctantly, she exited, four and in love
with wave texture, 
sand texture
in love with all that
reliably rose and fell -

If you walk on the cliff rocks alone
The men will take you, her mother said. 
Instead, she brought a kitchen knife
and clambered along capricious cliffs
Seventeen, in love with all that was
Predictably harsh, in love with a
A cadence of crest and crash.

If you bring a towel, 
We’ll be more comfortable, the boy said.
Twenty-one and agreeable, 
She lay in the private cove 
Hidden but exposed.
Twenty-one and watching beyond him
Wanting the salt on her skin
Her body submerged
As the shallows caressed her. 

If she leaves now, she thinks,
She will arrive before the families 
Thirty nine and sensible she arrives at dawn
Seeking solace, she wades into the rock pools
A hermit crab peers from its jagged crevice,
Watching, not judging
as she floats on her back
as the rising sky blinds her
and the ocean holds her.

Beware enforced merriment

I hate this time of year, particularly the time of year between Christmas and New Year. It seems to be a fallow period, where nobody is expected to do much of anything. Either that, or we’re encouraged to party, lest the incoming year be worse than the last.

I made the mistake of taking time off. A non-writing writer is a recipe for madness. Hopefully, I am beginning to emerge from such madness. Before Christmas, I finished the 3rd draft of my novel. I decided to take a week off to let the novel rest (kind of like letting bread rise overnight), but I found myself cast adrift without a project to anchor me.

So thank goodness it is now the 2nd January and I can walk away from the week of enforced idleness and the pretense of merriment. This week off has made me think about how important creative life is to our souls. I have certainly sacrificed for my art, but in many ways it is not a sacrifice at all.

This morning I found myself spreading half my toast with vegemite and the other half with jam. Don’t try it, it’s not a good combination. But over the past six months I have only been working in paid work for 2 days a week, so of course I am broke. I worked 7 days a week, 5 days writing and 2 days in paid employment. While not having enough money to buy jam, or pay for bus fare, I don’t think I’ve ever been as fulfilled.

Don’t get me wrong, sometimes I would happily return to an age where a wealthy benefactor paid writers good money to compose sycophantic plays or too long poems in their name. It is difficult living in an age (and country) where the arts gets little funding, and the choice is often one between financial comfort and artistic expression. Hopefully, I will find a balance between the two one day.

But I guess my message here is, don’t take time off from your passion/obsession/project/opus/campaign just because people tell you that you should rest over the holidays. Of course, recharge if you desire it, but don’t rest for the sake of resting. If you are a mad obsessive like me, work is rest and rest is work. For mad souls like me, we need our projects in the same way that we need water.