Kit Kelen #1006 - Olsen's 'Sydney Sun (1965)

1006

Olsen’s ‘Sydney Sun’ 1965

ekphrastic

I remember it

grass clippings and two stroke

same suburb

but who would have thought

Mr Whippy could come?

(Tudor song of the jolly wife-i-cide)

That Hillman was a minx

religion

a struggle uphill

you could measure in horses

and don’t know how I get home

look – no seat belts

column shift

kerb and gutters

red roof dripping

Qantas bad was a kind of maroon

and you could be jealous of that

or clutch pencil

there wasn’t any darkness or winter

this was all close to the chest

a hoist outside to sing

elsewhere the little bombs are falling

here?

life brighter than a thousand suns

the hottest hot hot hot water you’ve ever seen

and still

seas run dry

no black stump here

though there will be a chain of them yet

then something split level

all fits in a school case

Globite – that’s a whole world in

fire edge of elsewhere

a map begins to appear

still on a sheep’s back golden

with wheat stalk still

slouch for hat

and burnt

till cancer come

ache

M-E-N-T-H-O-I-D

£ l d would change

into something

rich and strange

bindy eyes

cracked lips

and zinc

you could park anywhere then

you cann hanna man a granna spannah

see faces from a dream

has whiskers

and the thing is signed

tentacle city

the bush retracts

still bites where you will

they say you shouldn’t stare into it

I see teeth too

someone lost with a bottle

a little lie down

for

backache, rheumatic and muscular pain

will not

and will never be undersold

don’t wait to be told

and I stand in time too

before such an outpouring

numbers in paint

he’s still wearing it

you know you’re soaking in it

can’t shield the eyes anymore

and on the sunny side up

dreamt all

like the sails of a singing house

waiting for decimal day