We went to Zephyr Quartet’s Cocktail Hour (and a half) last night at La Boheme and I was honoured to be asked to perform my poem dunes, perlubie beach before the group played Belinda Gehlert’s musical response Dunes.

 Thanks to Zephyr for an evening of beautiful original music and letting me be a small part of it.

ANZACS

and when he came home from the war at 21, walked back to the familiar laneway between his little cottage and the factory in Trembath Street Bowden dad left a lot back in New Guinea. he married the woman he loved became a cabinetmaker had two boys and lived in a redbrick war service home in Richmond

never worried about the RSL the marches the reunions rarely spoke about those years would rather do a crossword than have a cross word or drink with old soldiers preferred reading a book to joining an anzac march when I asked him why he said that was then and this is now

and when my grandpa came back from the so-called great war with an ugly stomach from shrapnel and only one wheezy lung from mustard gas he went on a TPI pension because for the rest of his life he could only ever do Light Duties and when I asked about his wartime experiences he said war’s bloody stupid.

so I don’t understand how anzac day has grown into a quasi-religious celebration in 2014  and all the talk of Sacrifice and Honour and Respect is used to justify subsequent wars and invading other countries or in the same week that our prime minister sits in a fighter jet beaming like a boy with a new toy he says 145 million will be spent next year on the centenary celebrations and by the way we may have to cut pensions.

Recent knee problems had me thinking about the last operation.

medial cartilage

first sedation

then the back of hand jab

backward counting

metal in the mouth

like sucking washers

or oysters with reisling

classical music as doctor &

anaesthetist

discuss a new bose sound system in the

white room

you wake elsewhere

armchaired with waiting cup of tea

wondering how they spent the two hours

you lost.

photo credit.

Monsieur Flaubert et Madame Bovary.

The critics were mean

(“zis merde is obscene!

In Literature’s mansion Flaubert’s built a hovel!”)

But he wrote le mot juste so much briefer than Proust

and thus Madame Bovary

was both virtual ovary

and the birth of the modern novel.

Thanks to Spoken Word SA for last night’s Dead Poets  Society tribute to Ern Malley at Dymocks in Adelaide. We had Malley readings and work by Amelia Walker, David Mortimer, Daniel Watson, Khail Juredini, Jennifer Liston, Dick Dale, Ian Gibbins and me. I read the letter I sent  to Cordite in 2005 (as Ethel Malley), Ethel Malley’s sonnet and Registrar of Births and Deaths (unpublished.)

The whole issue of hoaxes and plagiarism is an interesting one – as relevant in literature today as ever!

Thanks Spoken Word SA & Dymocks for organizing.