NIGHT SHIFT
When they finally lifted the tarpaulin
I couldn't explain the footsteps,
the irregular trail of barley white prints
we found winding round office desks
and orthopaedic chairs, lingering before windows
and passing through partition walls.
I spent the next three nights alone, cutting
the paint out with nail scissors and a blade,
trimming the shag pile into flakes.
Soulmining vibrated in my hands and knees.
Outside, a running commentary of rain
I could hear between tracks.
The street below shone like elephant skin.
Soon there were holes in the carpet.
Footshaped holes I tamped down with fluff and dust.
Until by the morning of the third day
my footprints were invisible again.
Only faint ghost footprints remained
that if viewed from a certain angle
gave a dappled effect like melting snow.
That morning was Bicentennial Day.
George Street was closed to traffic.
Thousands were making their way to the bay
to see Prince Charles at the Opera House,
the long ships arriving in the harbour.
Only I seemed to be going the opposite way,
weaving through crowds, clinging to the shade,
drifting through air-conditioned stores.
My trousers, tee-shirt, shoes, hair, and spectacles
smeared with whole galaxies of stars.
OUT-TAKES
That film I laboured over, perfecting,
was only an excuse, of course,
to look my luck in the eye.
Now, it's the out-takes that fascinate;
hearing someone impersonate me
with a Yorkshire accent,
telling you to turn your head
a little to the right, left,
down a bit, up again.
Don't blink for eight seconds, he says,
sixteen years ago.
Still you get it wrong.
Then the kiss I staged.
The screen flickering as you hold me
with my face to the camera,
yours turned away,
until the tripod tips over into mud,
burying us both.
(This poem appears in issue 29 of Smiths Knoll)
PROVIDENCE
Wanted: blue raincoat.
Left behind in the Harold Park Hotel
with a borrowed paperback, -
The Air Conditioned Nightmare, -
torn at the corner,
fitted the pocket just so.
I'd drape it over the barstool
like a magician's cloak,
black felt hat curled under it.
Lean on the bar and dream
of the Paris restaurant
where Henry Miller, in his wilderness years,
threatened to dance
if the waiters didn't feed him.
The corner table he and Anais
made love under with their toes.
The barmaid I went to see
brought me a pen and paper.
Set a schooner down with a smile
I could make last all night.
She never asked me to pay.
(This poem appears in issue 29 of Smiths Knoll)
INVISIBLE
For three weeks nobody disturbed me
reading Life is Elsewhere on the seventh floor
of Professional Transformations,
making appointments on behalf
of the Master Builder I never saw.
Seventy cubicles to choose from,
each with a directory, pad, biro,
and a black dial telephone that never rang.
A view of Parramatta suburbs,
and the sundial of a yellow crane.
Twenty-one days before a cleaner found me,
and told me I'd been sacked a week ago.
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