Melaleuca

Number 12: June 2010 Table of Contents alice street glissando impossible to doctor Blue Petals The Cavalier Midday Gig at the basement Ashley Capes Ashley Capes Ashley Capes Justin Dent Rae Desmond Jones Jocelyn Ortt-Saeed Sonia Tubb 3 4 5 6 7 8 10 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2010; the arrangement of this collection is copyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2010. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License <http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/au/>.

alice street dawn is a weight against curtains, bright at the edges like a nuclear holocaust and feet are thick, hands seem to wash the air

grumbling and buzzing a television from next door pulses through the wall and far below the gardens stir

leaves curl round spiders and their dark twitching while water dragons with super-glue tongues dance after butterflies

in the street taxis line up to purr and wind carries petals down to bake on the tarmac, sunlight sinking into the veins. Ashley Capes

glissando the cello is alive its bulk is like a wall or a door into which sounds disappear then reappear as someone elses, the skin of a finger sliding on gut the slow scuff of stool-legs on floorboards and even, uncertain vowels from the musician, all are sucked in and performed anew as it slides you from one place to another as if carried on water. Ashley Capes

impossible to doctor I wash ink stains from under my fingernails and fish for notes caught in drool, the dream still warm on the pillow. the sky is thrust up against my window but there is no music, no grace shot through the bone of my hands only an ache impossible to doctor and spring with the lightest footfalls now distant, like half-remembered dance steps taken on smooth grass. Ashley Capes

Blue Petals for Isabel In the breath of one sorrow she made room for the dawn. A cracked mountain assembled twelve stars in a jar. Above this tall midnight time no longer spoke. And a nimble-limbed lake bird drank stones dropped by sleep. Then a swan and a virgin tore straight through the moon. And your fallen blue petals crushed nymphs in my arms. Justin Dent

The Cavalier For Helen The self portrait of Dutch master Frans Van Mieris was stolen from the Art Gallery of New South Wales in June 2007. The 20 cm X 16 cm small painting, worth an est. $1mill +, was taken from a room without a guard and without a camera. It has not yet been recovered. http://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/dutch-masterstolen/2007/06/13/1181414383922.htmlhttp://www.smh.com.au/news/arts/dutch-masterstolen/2007/06/13/1181414383922.html It was her hesitation as she stepped from the escalator almost tripping: She adjusted the blanket across the pram & paused, confused, Before the Brett Whitely scrawled across the wall. She looked so guilty with her starched blonde hair & thin hunted face As though she was stealing lollies in that pram, (She was remembering the last time, When a shop detective pulled her in just outside the 2 dollar shop & all she could say was the boiled lollies looked so lovely With all those stripes rippling, some deep gold, some dark, Silver & blue. The detective was small in a dark plain suit & his eyes were cool Although his voice as he asked her to come, please, Was not kind) so she was waiting for another man in a suit But there was no one Except for three boys clustered around the anal end of the giant Whitely With their elbows tight as though theyd like to take her home Or make her their own with a stubby texta, But there was someone coming up the escalator behind her So she tightened her fingers around the handle until they were white The shiver was a deep knife inside Although she kept pushing the wheels wobbled on the granite floor Past the middle aged attendant who was watching the boys While speaking on a mobile phone They are about to touch the private parts better get someone here but he glanced at her then nodded at the wrapped baby So she smiled & kept walking With her own tiny masterpiece still sleeping in that blanket. As she bumped down the stairs onto the path she knew Through the clear winter light the painting was breathing at last Beneath the blanket the sky the free renaissance air Rae Desmond Jones

Midday In an hour-glass held for an instant, memory is sunlight on glass and the inarticulate between is dialogue which does not pass. Silence is for the sake of speech to catch the tone of time vibrating through the sound of meaning recurring in each borrowed rhyme. In ballad, psalm and liturgy, I go back beyond birth searching a self to inhabit as summer scorches heart and earth. I take stock by the desert shoreline where sand acquaints my bone with traces of each seasonal change where blue comes like rain or leaven to make in me another mountain range. Suburban bred were my first visions life touched by light behind a cloister wall, where one could go like Abelhard for absolution in unswerving faith that masters all. Sometimes, then, birds about St. Francis came with threads of peace 8

to line my breast. And eyes closed on Veronicas fair linen opened in my depths the timeless quest. Time chose me, swept me high to heaven where John is Donne and day is night in the all consuming brightness where life learns loves paradox of light. There sun and moon prostrate on water as time stigmatas joy and pain in loves last vow to sow itself where heart and earth cry down the rain. Jocelyn Ortt-Saeed

Gig at the basement Hes 31, but looks about 18, wont look at the crowd, tiny smirk, fiddling nails, notes, notes, notes. Root girl. shuffling feet. [lyric insert ask Simon Kelly for set list.] funky beats. Swaying dreadlocks. And fingers. Monkey chant. See that guy there? plays with his dick. - J.B these are the days, we are the moments sang the stall door. cant hold on her own feet. Take my hand, take me home, till my days are old. Sonia Tubb