ABPA - Australian Bush Poets Association

Hal kindly referred to this poem in his President's Report in the latest magazine. It, along with Brenda's Snowy - The Reflections of a River, was selected for inclusion in Award Winning Australian Writing 2015 (Melbourne Books). I thought it might be of interest because, apart from being free verse, it has an unusual structure, and it also shows a use of italics, something we discussed recently in another thread. It won the free verse section of this year's Freexpression competition, which was judged by our own well-known poet Ron Stevens.

Cheers
David

Every story must have...

an end…

arriving home to bury the old bastard, hammer
the casket shut, convince myself he is
dead. The town is eviscerated, slumped
in the idle dust, scavengers picking the carcase
clean behind a phalanx of wind-blasted hills,
defying wasteland. Here I can learn to hate
anew.

Imagine he has only gone to the next room.

Death’s artist has sculpted his face, carved
the pitted canvas sandpaper-smooth,
chiaroscuro in the stained-glass afternoon
light. That it should come to this: a heart-attack
is escape, not vengeance. It should have been
my hand, the knife sliding sweetly
through to the heart, his eyes finally
fixed on mine.

Do not stand by his grave and weep.

My mother will not look at me. Her hands
flutter at imaginary birds, pluck
soft words from the vacuum of piety, dart
momentarily at memories cremated
in irrelevance. Until only her voice remains,
still feigning ignorance, mouthing
a fog of platitudes.

He shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old.

Bury the devil deep. I want him to know Hell,
the weight of earth, the dank press of cold clay
on flesh, internal gases rupturing the violet,
buttery skin. I want him to feel
my pain.

For everything there is a season.


a middle…

in the lost years, kaleidoscoping
a rainbow of stars against a gunmetal sky,
smoke thick on needled skin. Laughter
bubbles in lamplight licking
the buckled edge of a silver spoon
upended in the ash.

A daughter is a gift of love.

Time is elastic, space a four-dimensional
hologram shimmering just beyond
reach. Days are ephemeral
ghosts, nights the intoxicating
fuzz of diamond voices glitter-bright
with revelation. I am ecstasy’s
acolyte.

Angels are often disguised as daughters.

There is only the moment. I am breaking
the bones of memory, sucking the marrow
from childhood. No forward, no back,
just the torn school dress
tossed among the pizza boxes
and empty bottles.

A mother’s treasure is her daughter.


and a beginning…

with a silent shadow
in the bedroom doorway,
fornicating fingers busy in suffocating
darkness. I am stripped
of life, dreaming of sunshine days
on a swing in the park before
my awakening.

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye.

I am struck dumb, rendered mute
by a horror that has no name
in the cement-sheet suburbs
of the blind.

Four-and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie.

Outside, the faces at the table
joke and smile, innocence
crushed by the jackboot
of disbelief.

When the pie was opened the birds began to sing.

For there is always another night
when the door opens…

Wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the king?

© David Campbell

Oh my! I can see why that won David - what a strong write that is and on a disturbing subject that most people would be heistant to discuss. Very well crafted and good for you for writing it. I really like it.

I could be wrong but I see this piece as having a sort of fractured or fragmented feel, a bit like the flashbacks of depression. Maybe that's not there, but it sounds like it to me, and I think that approach is well suited to the theme and the mood of the subject.
I don't know much about these things but I believe a more structured measured style might miss the disturbance contained in the theme.

It raises the old question of justice. Do the evil just bundy off and get away with it or are there inescapable consequences, an accounting for all. That's another discussion I guess, for another place and time.

Wow David. This poem is incredibly powerful. It brought home the panic and fear, the resentment, the bitterness and a whole lot of other emotions. And all the time I was reading I could hear the words of a friend of mine whose father abused her as a child. She was still afraid of him even as an adult and said she would never have peace until he died. Well, he died earlier this year and she went to the funeral to do her duty as a daughter - there's still that sense of "doing the right thing", even after everything he did to her (and another sister). She said tears poured down her face at the funeral - but not for any loss but because she was so grateful he was finally gone and because she had to listen to all the platitudes given at the funeral - what a wonderful man he was! Yeah, right. She went to make damn sure he was really dead and she was at last safe.

I agree with Neville. The style suits the topic and I doubt it could be done with regular meter and rhyme. You need to say what you feel and think with this poem without a strict structure dictating where you go with it.

Unfortunately, Heather, the disturbing story you relate seems to be far too common. It's hard to know how people cope with something like that.

Maureen, my interest in this issue stems from a series of relatively minor (non-family) incidents when I was a kid, the significance of which I didn't realise until many years later. And yes, as Heather and Neville say, the fragmented style is deliberate. I considered it the best way of conveying the anger of the first part, the despair of the second, and the helplessness of the third...three stages in a shattered life.

The italicised lines are a second "voice"...the trite platitudes, the idealised counterpoint interspersed throughout to emphasise the tragedy of the main story. I was asked to read the poem at the book launch at the Melbourne Writers' Festival, which I did, with my wife providing the second voice. A woman, very emotional, came up to us afterwards to say "thank you" because it so closely reflected her experience.

David

Fantastic!

Thanks, Marty!

Cheers
David

Wow indeed David - this is an incredible write, and the style in which you have written it is inspired, as it makes it doubly powerful. No wonder it took out the prize and has been included in the book - Congratulations!

Thank you, Catherine, that's much appreciated. And I hope you're well and truly over your recent ill-health!

All the best
David

Great poem, David.