Melaleuca

Number 25: July 2011 Table of Contents Stuart Barnes Stuart Barnes Phillip A. Ellis L. S. Fisher L.S. Fisher Gary Langford Gary Langford Gary Langford Margaret Owen Ruckert Margaret Owen Ruckert Margaret Owen Ruckert Flora Smith Flora Smith Flora Smith Lara S. Williams Lara S. Williams Lara S. Williams Lara S. Williams Paul Williamson Paul Williamson Paul Williamson November's Love Letter 3 Paragraph 175 5 Nocturne of Wandering 20 Address t'th' 2011 AFL Gran' Final Bustfast, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne by Tony Abbott 23 Who Is Tony Abbott? 25 Crazy Women 26 My Favourite Enemy 28 Quake Road, Christchurch 29 her wet mahogany childhood 32 jackpot economy 33 a window in anger 34 four years old 35 Mangroves 36 Streetscape 37 Out of Clay Vessels 38 Sitting on the Highest Branch 39 Street Smarts Wont Keep Out The Cold 40 Wintering Place for Swans 41 Cherry Blossoms 42 Post GFC Mall 43 Survival 44 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2011; the arrangement of this collection is copyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2011. 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/>.

Novembers Love Letter Frieda and Nicholas: set gold watch, new statue in a museum: slow nights flicker and whiten; try your handfuls of notes the clear vowels rise, balloons; (Words? Ascetics? A ring of gold with the sun in it? Lies, lies, a grief.) Frost, crackling, a disturbance in mirrors love, love, my season (, a place of force. Gagging, I tasted its black spikes, the extreme unction of its yellow candle-flowers. They had an efficiency, a great beauty, like torture. Simmering half moon, half-brain luminosity, your amputations crawl and appal spidery, unsafe. What leatheriness has protected me from the buds.) Stop crying. Open your hand. Shut your eyes and dissolve sorrow. You have a hole, its a poultice, you have an eye, its an image; marry it, marry it. I imagine myself with a great public, Mother of white (. Instead, the dead injure me with attentions. The moon lays a hand on my forehead.) My heart? It really goes. I am your opus, I am your valuable, the pure gold baby (that melts to a shriek; I turn and burn), your great concern. Herr God, Herr Lucifer Beware Beware Out of the ash hair, air. (The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. I have lost myself, I have let things slip; I am flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow. And I have no face, great African cat. Will it show in the black detector? Will it come out wavery, indelible, true through the Moroccan hippopotamus? The rattler of keys Ive been drugged, raped, seven hours knocked out of my right mind into a black sack, foetus, lever of his wet dreams.) What would he do, do, do without me. (O my homunculus, I am ill the thin papery feeling. Saboteur, the stain on your gauze Ku Klux Klan babushka tarnishes the heart, its small silence, the rain now, this big hush: tin-white, like arsenic. I am terrified by this thing in me, its soft, feathery turnings.) A smile fell in the grass. I shant entirely sit emptied of the drenched grass smell of your sleeps, a spread of hot petals. (The comets have such a space to cross, such coldness. There is the smell of polish, there is the sunlight, playing its blades in a red room where the wireless talks to itself, an elderly relative.) Stasis in darkness, pour of tor Gods lioness, how one we grow, pivot of heels and knees! Shadows, air. Thighs, hair. Godiva, I unpeel dead hands, dead stringencies. I am the arrow, the dew that flies. (It seems perfectly natural now he tells me how badly I photograph, he tells me, simple Ionian; he doesnt smile or smoke, bastard masturbating. The dead bell, the abstracts hover like dull angels, vulgar, loveless as the multiplication table.) Evil is less than a belly ache, Love the mother of milk. (Viciousness in the kitchen! Potatoes hiss, schizophrenic.) The bastards doped, thick (, venomous); I am silent (, hate). Speak. I am packing. (Is my life so intriguing, is it for this the air motes depart. They are corpuscles, open. Whats that bad smell? Its your knitting, your sticky candies. I have your head on my wall, red. O moon-glow, o sick one, the stolen horses, the fornications circle a womb of marble.) A pearl, a rich pretty girl, Ill live in Gibraltar. Poppies O my God, what am I that these late mouths should cry open in a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers! The Courage of Quietness Shutting-Up, of the shut mouth,

in spite of artillery, the black discs of outrage, the outrage of a sky, the bastardies, usages, desertions. I am a miner. The light burns blue. (The icicles even the newts are white, those holy Joes. What cupped sighs, what salt in the throat! On a striped mattress in one room an old man is vanishing. There is no weeping wife. The clouds go high and a little flat.) It is Russia I have to get across, untouched and untouchable (. The train is dragging itself, it is screaming incoherences. Escape? My mind winds to you, old barnacled umbilicus, Atlantic cable, always there, tremulous breath at the end of my line, red paralyzing cobra.) I am sick to death of hot salt (. Your wishes hiss at my sins.) Agonized Adam, I smile, enigmatical, shifting my clarities. The grasses unload their griefs on my feet as if I were God. (My house, a row of headstones; the yew tree points up, its a Gothic shape. Quiet, I think is this the elect one eye-pits, scar, surplus the one for the annunciation? what a laugh!) I am ready for enormity. The clouds are like cotton, pure and clean. The world turns color Tawn silk grasses babies hair. Theres a green in the air, soft, delectable; it cushions me lovingly. I am flushed and warm, I think I may be enormous O love, O celibate, nobody but me walks the waist-high wet. Bleed and deepen, begging mother Sweet Lethe is my life I am never, never, never coming home (! a mausoleum ; you are ticking your fingers on the marble table, spiteful, dying, dissatisfactions white and blank, expansive as carbon monoxide.) You (do not do, you do not do, you do not do any more, black root, panzer-God, Fascist boot, devil-man with a Meinkamph do.) re clown-like, happiest, vague as fog, Australia; snug as buds, at home in a jug, creels of eels, Mexican beans. (Pure? Whats it mean? The tongues of Cerberus trundle, choking the meek, weak leopard.) Clean and pure lantern of Japanese paper, I am led through a beanfield a sea of flowers to the circle of hives, very clever cells. The new virgins dream The old queen does not show herself. I am the magician who ordered this clean wood box square as a chair with the most intelligible syllables. Tomorrow I will be sweet God, I will set them free; the box is only temporary It is almost over. I am in control. I have a self to recover, a queen, the wings of roses. Shh, Shh, French bootsole, red tatter, Napoleon! Bees have a notion of honor. Wintering is the time of hanging on for the bees. The smile is white, a mile-long body. What will they taste of, Christmas roses? the bees are flying; taste the spring a remix of Plaths Ariel: The Restored Edition, Faber and Faber Limited, 2004 Stuart Barnes

Paragraph 175 after Gad Beck, Albrecht Becker, Heinz Drmer, Annette Eick, Heinz F., Karl Gorath, Pierre Seel, Jo, and Manfred
An unnatural sex act committed between persons of the male sex or by humans with animals is punishable by imprisonment; the loss of civil rights may also be imposed Paragraph 175, German Penal Code, 1871

East Germanys version of Paragraph 175 remained in effect until 1968; West Germany retained the Nazi law until 1969. After the war, all those persecuted by the Nazis under Paragraph 175 were classified as criminals. At [20th] centurys end, not one has received legal recognition as a victim of the Nazi regime.

We have to see this romantically, because in such drastic times one tends to be romantic. When bombs fall and explode nearby one looks to others for closeness and one forgets the bombs, the war and the stalled train One is just close to others. One does what everyone does when they are close. Thats what one does. Youre not going to tell me that while the bombs were falling you made love on the train? But of course I did, but of course. You didnt get that? You are slow, darling.

Half a century ago the Nazi regime set out to rid the German nation of homosexuality. Close to 100,000 men, most of them from German-Christian families, were arrested. An estimated 10 15,000 were sent to concentration camps. Today fewer than ten of these men are known to be alive.

I grew up in Germany and I never ever heard about the persecution of homosexuals in Nazi Germany. I did not know anything about the generation of my grandfathers my gay grandfathers 5

I did not have a past at all.

I swore never to shake hands with a German again And here you are. Its terrible, you cant understand this because youre not from the same generation. This is the difficulty between us today

This is the Schwanenburg. It was a dance club. A normal bar but on certain days it was rented by homosexuals. Then there was much joy, and even more screaming. There was homosexual dancing and once in a while, just to get the queens going someone would shout The police are coming. Everyone would hike up their skirts and run. But the police never really came.

By the 1920s Wiemar Berlin had become known throughout the world as a homosexual Eden [that] largely ignored Paragraph 175. But as long as the law existed so did the threat of blackmail and prison. A movement arose to abolish Paragraph 175, led by a Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a scientist and pioneer in sex research. He was also a socialist, a Jew, and a homosexual. Hirschfelds Institute for Sexual Science in Berlin drew international acclaim. Growing numbers joined his campaign for homosexual emancipation in Germany. It seemed that a new era of freedom was dawning.

Sports became the centre of my life. I had an athletics teacher, a blond Jewish teacher Oh my! So slim and strong and beautiful. One day we were showering together and I jumped on him I ran home to my mother and said Mother, 6

today I had my first man!

For decades the Youth Movement had beckoned to restless young Germans. From nudists to Socialists, from Zionists to German Nationalists, thousands answered the call. Far from prying adult eyes and Prussian discipline, they proclaimed a romantic vision of the world, celebrating nature, friendship, and the human body. Some vowed abstinence, others gloried in their sexuality.

I was the regional leader [of a Boy Scout group until my] arrest. My group and I could only exist for another six months. Then the Hitler Youth moved in on us, with brass knuckles and other weapons. There was a lot of resistance. But they were stronger And in numbers they were superior.

The Nazi Party, founded after Germanys downfall in World War 1, had its own plans for German youth. Aryan purity would rescue the Fatherland from the shame of defeat, and unveil a glorious future.

My mother came from a Christian family, my father is Jewish. My mother converted. When Hitler came, things began to change. German boys in the Hitler Youth had to have uniforms. Within four months the entire class turned brown, with little black shorts and brown shirts. After four months of Hitler someone would raise their hand Can I sit somewhere else? But why? It smells like garlic here. That was the first insinuation about the Jews Jews are garliceaters. Can I sit in the back? It stinks of sweaty Jewish feet here. And within two months I was sitting alone in the first row. They had all withdrawn from me In the truest sense of the word.

At first we didnt believe it. We laughed about him. That such a person like Hitler That the people would stay behind him. Promises. Promises. They believed it

I remember one speech I heard on the radio Do you want butter or guns? and the people cried

GUNS!
and at that my father became afraid.

When I came back [from New York in 1934] the Nazis reigned. There was an officer, his name was [Ernst] Rhm, he was a homosexual Everybody knew it, but the homosexual people were quite sure that nothing would happen because one of the government men was like them.

Ernst Rhm had been Hitlers ally from the beginning. In the early 1920s Rhm built an unruly band of street fighters and embittered veterans into the SA, the stormtroopers, a private militia to provide the raw muscle behind Hitlers grand vision. Opponents, eager to denounce the Nazis, publicised Rhms homosexuality. Hitler stood by Rhm [The SA] is not an institution for the moral education of genteel young ladies, but a formation of seasoned fighters Private life cannot be an object of scrutiny unless it conflicts with basic principles 8

of National Socialist ideology. Hitlers defense of Rhm was the exception; the Nazi Party had always forcefully condemned homosexuality.

The [gay] bar was still open only open to round us up. They [the Nazis] did this again later with the Jews. Theyd let them keep their meeting places so they could snatch them up.

On January 30 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor, with the strong support of German voters. Within a month the Nazis ordered most of Berlins homosexual and lesbian nightclubs, dancehalls and bars closed. Four days later, on February 27, a German legislative building the Reichstag burst into flames. Hitler blamed the Communists; the Communists blamed the Nazis, and spread false rumours that the man arrested was Ernst Rhms secret lover. Taking advantage of the crisis, Hitler demanded and received emergency powers from the government. Within a month the first of many concentration camps began to receive prisoners near the town of Dachau. Ten days afterwards Hitler declared a nationwide boycott of Jewish businesses and services. On May 6 Dr. Magnus Hirschfelds Institute for Sexual Science was destroyed. Hirschfeld was abroad and escaped arrest; he would die in exile. Four days later the Nazis burnt Hirschfelds library, as well as thousands of books by Jews, intellectuals, leftists and other so-called degenerates in massive bonfires throughout Germany. On July 14 1933, six months after coming to power, the Nazi Party became the only legal party. Most homosexuals saw themselves as Germans first, and thought their national identity would protect them.

I didnt fully understand the situation, it didnt register; but I also didnt take it seriously. And then there were my parents. I couldnt abandon them.

My mothers family was Prussian. Devout Christians. Evangelicals. For my aunts and for my family it was terrible. They said O my God, hes Jewish, and hes gay 9

 either way hell be persecuted. This cannot end well. We once had a plan to go to Shanghai. It cost $1000 each. Where would we have gotten $4000? The family was sure they could take care of us. No one knew what was coming

By 1934 Hitler had forged powerful alliances with industry and the military. Ernst Rhms ambition to further strengthen the SA at the expense of the army had become a threat. On June 28 Hitler ordered the execution of Rhm and three hundred suspected enemies of the Reich. This massacre the Nazis first would be called The Night of the Long Knives. One week later Hitler cited Rhms homosexuality as justification for his murder and vowed to cleanse the entire Nazi Party of homosexuals. The German opposition once again branded the Nazis as homosexual. The Nazis did more than denounce homosexuals they stepped up persecution. Gestapo headquarters established a special department for the crime of homosexuality. Roughly 7 8% of men in Germany are homosexual. If that is how things remain our nation will fall to pieces because of that plague Those who practice homosexuality deprive Germany of the children they owe her. In 1935, on the anniversary of Rhms murder, the Nazis rewrote Paragraph 175 to broaden the definition of illegal homosexual behaviour. Party leaders considered including lesbians in the law but decided against it they viewed lesbianism as a temporary and curable condition. Women were seen as vessels of reproduction. A new government agency was formed the Reich Office for the Combating of Abortion and Homosexuality. 10


[Our farm was] invaded by the Nazis and [we were] brought to prison. But not all Germans were aggressive and nasty. The wife of the policeman left the doors open on purpose and we all escaped. The farm was partly burnt down. I went in and a miracle! I found my passport in this muddle and glass without hurting myself. I went on the bicycle and off I tried to go to Berlin. And this is where it happens, that the postman came on the bicycle from the other side and said Frulein, I have a love letter for you. I opened it and there was the English papers which let me come over to England. I could hardly believe it. Had I ever missed this letter then I would have gone with my parents to Auschwitz.

Lesbians were spared mass-arrest. Researchers have uncovered no more than five cases of lesbians who were sent to concentration camps. But the social world they had created was destroyed. Some chose exile; others married homosexual men; most quietly disappeared from public view. While lesbians seemed to pose no threat the Nazis saw male homosexuality as a contagious disease that corrupted and weakened the blood of the German people.

One morning the police called. What could this have to do with me? Nothing 11

I told them I couldnt come, I was too busy working. Ten minutes later, the police called again. I repeated that Id come by soon. But they said it was very urgent. I thought What could they want? So I went to the police and they showed me a letter. Here, read this, they said. Bavarian Political Police. What did that have to do with me? You are suspected of being homosexual. You are hereby under arrest. What could I do? Off I went to Dachau, without a trial. Directly to Dachau. I spent a year and a half in Dachau without really knowing why

The Germans came to Alsace in 1940. I dont say the Nazis the Germans. And the Germans found the police files. They saw our names on these lists, lists of homosexuals. They were probably watching us, how we live, where we go, what we do. And one day I had to go to the Gestapo, with twelve friends. I ended 12

up at the camp in Schirmeck. At the time it was the Schirmeck Internment Camp, a protective custody camp. If, for example, someone got drunk and sang the French national anthem in the street this is during the German occupation hed be sent to Schirmeck. There were also Communists, resistance fighters, and my twelve friends, who were arrested in a round-up in May 1941.

Under the Nazi version of Paragraph 175 gossip and innuendo became evidence. Men could be arrested as homosexual for simply a touch, a gesture, a look. No one knew how long hed be held, or where his arrest would lead him to prison, or a concentration camp.

After I was released from Dachau I went on a trip. I think I was being watched this woman was always behind me. I left my hotel to go eat and a hustler came up to me. I realised I was being followed. He pulled me into some bushes. I said Someone is following us. No, he said, no one is there. And thats when it happened You are under arrest. I was taken somewhere, to some prison, for trial. I didnt understand anything. While I was there almost all the homosexuals were transported to Mauthausen and nearly all of them were killed. Again I came to a concentration camp. This time it was Buchenwald. At first it was homo or rather Paragraph 175 written in big letters on the back of the jacket. As I remember. Later it was a pink triangle. 13


At that time the transports began. Every day we said goodbye to someone. Thats when I encountered the Jewish Zionist underground that existed in this great capital, Berlin. Those who remained joined together They understood [that] soon it would be their turn. I found them shelter. I even let them stay in my attic. I met this beautiful blond Jew. He invited me to spend the night. He said Lets play chess. We sat on his bed and we played chess. We did the other thing, too, of course. We had to. Then we slept for a few hours. In the morning the Gestapo came. They could have taken me. They took him and his mother to the train station and sent them to Auschwitz It had a different value then, a night of love.

By 1942 the final solution marked Jews throughout Europe for extermination, and transports began to death camps in occupied Poland. The official policy for homosexuals remained re-education. Since most were German-Christians almost all were spared the gas chambers. Instead, the Nazis selected them for slave labour, surgical experiments, or castration. Almost two-thirds perished in the camps.

There was a hierarchy from strongest 14

to weakest. There was no doubt that the weakest in the camps were the homosexuals. All the way on the bottom. I wasnt even eighteen. Arrested. Tortured. Beaten. Without any defence. Without a trial. Nothing I was all alone Sodomised. Being raped. It happened [in Schirmeck] in front of me and three hundred prisoners. Three hundred. The death of Jo. My lover. He was condemned to die. Eaten by dogs. German dogs. German Shepherds. And that I can never forget

I was just glad that I landed in a regular prison. That was a gift, so to speak. It prolonged my life. Had I been taken to a concentration camp Id no longer be alive [After prison] I went back to [my] village and [in] the shop where I worked there were only women. I didnt see any men well, not literally, but nearly. And so I said If I want If I want to be among men I have to go to the army. And so I got voluntarily to the army. I joined only the army because I wanted to be with men!

During that time I found my first big love Manfred. It was like a dramatic love. Then, one time, I went to spend the night at his house. His brother was there. 15

Where is Manfred? He said Our whole family was arrested today. So I went to Manfreds boss. I say Theyve picked up Manfred. His whole family is being held in my old school building. Do you have courage? he says, this great big German guy. Yes, I have courage! He says My son is your size, he has a Hitler Youth uniform. Put it on and get Manfred out. I went in and said Heil Hitler! I must see the officer in charge. So this Gestapo guy says Youll bring him back, right? I say What else? hes a Jew! and I walk with Manfred, out of my school building. After twenty or thirty metres I still remember the exact spot I give him 20 marks. Go to my uncles place. Ill call him and meet you there later. He stops, and he says, very calmly, I cant come with you, Gad. If I leave my sick family now Ill never be free again. I have to go with them. Im the only strong one. Without saying goodbye he turns around, and walks back into my school building. I walked in the other direction. I wasnt able to think, but I knew that something was forever broken.

The Singing Forest That gave us all goose bumps. In the ground there were holes Concrete holes. 16

Everyone who was sentenced would be lifted up onto the hook. In the Jewish barracks it was similar; but they were twisted in addition to the hanging. Thats what was prepared for the Jews. The howling and screaming were inhuman. The Singing Forest In.ex.plic.ab.le Beyond human comprehension And much remains untold

By mid-1944 the Nazi war machine began to collapse. The Soviets were advancing from the east, the British and Americans from the west. An aerial campaign of carpet-bombing destroyed one German city after another. The concentration camps, however, were spared. Half a century later some camps have been preserved as monuments to the past. Some have disappeared completely. Others have been restored and put to new uses.

In the beginning they were just camps. That these camps became death camps wasnt known in the beginning.

So now you see why I did not speak for forty years. I am 90 % disabled from the war. My arse still bleeds, even today. 17

The Nazis stuck twenty-five centimetres of wood up my arse. Do you think I can talk about that. That it is good for me This is too much for my nerves I cant do this anymore. I am ashamed for humanity

I added it up once [my time in the concentration camps] I think eight-and-a-quarter years When I came home I worked in the family store that my brother was running. My father had already died. I never spoke with my mother about it. I could have talked to my father, but Shame My mother never said anything. Its all about patiently carrying ones burden Maybe it was from compassion, so she wouldnt offend me, or make it even harder on me. Not even one word from her I never spoke to anyone about it. Maybe, maybe [I could have] with my father Now for me, too, its all over In September Ill be ninety-three. Thick skin, no extracts (transcribed and arranged by Stuart Barnes) from interviews by Klaus Mller with Gad 18

Beck, Albrecht Becker, Heinz Drmer, Annette Eick, Heinz F., Karl Gorath, and Pierre Seel, from Paragraph 175, director of research/associate producer Klaus Mller, writer Sharon Wood, produced by Michael Ehrenzweig and Janet Cole, produced and directed by Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, narrated by Rupert Everett, a Telling Pictures Production, 2000 Stuart Barnes

19

A Nocturne of Wandering I had not thought, that night, when breezes stirred the stars to swim within the darkness, something might wait for me within the house I sought along familiar streets. The ways were strange with night and shadows: nothing gleamed beyond the moonless stars, the streetlamps, beetles' backs that seemed to swim within the air. The night was wet with warm humidity. I felt sponginess sop my back; my skin was crawling with sweat, the while I walked, this street, that street, a highway marked by brightly-lit, deserted garages free of cars, by shops whose fronts were shadowed, free from light. I knew enough. I walked alone, along the roads, within the middle, fearing clouds would come and swallow the sky, and, in the darkness, nothing, nothing would come, oblivion within the streets, not even breezes stirring trees to shadows, no houses, none at least that, darkened, barely revealed their form, no lawns with cooling dew, no oleanders, hedges, other plants nothing at all. And, scared, I knew enough. I did not need to count the houses; counting was useless. Other times I often walked these ways in light; now silence, pure and desolate. Nothing was new: I knew the lot, remembered I walked this way, from school to home, when home was hearth and havenand friends lived thereused to be a man I knew there; thoughts and memories crowding in. Still, the streets were still, and lifeless, with only stirring trees against the swimming stars in the sky, the beetles, thinner now, reduced to scattered sparks that swirled in ways my wiser mind identified as strange attractors. No: I did not need to count the housesall were quite familiar, seeing me walk on ways that seemed internal, dreamlike. I concentrated on the path to go: a corner here, a little way, then left, then left again, a longer road, and soon enough the house, familiar from my youth, when, in the summer of my final year at school, I sat within my westward-facing bedroom that broiled, that stifled, nearly drowsed, yet grew afraid and fretted; decades passed. And now I walked along these streets, alone,

a single actor in a play that words barely express, can barely build, except through poetry perhaps, and something moved me; the silence? Stillness? Solitude mayhap? I turned the corners, passed the hollow dip where the trees grew in rank profusion, hid a minor gulley, almost swamp or creek, and, knowing this, my heart had quickenedround the corners, through the stretch, my way was clear: the home was closer, close; I knew enough. And now my life was this, event, event, event eschewed, an odyssey of thought, the while the road I followed slowly, slightly had risen, this rise still familiar, something of comfort. When I walked from school to home, my legs would weary, time would seem to drag along this stretch, but as I placed each foot in front, the rise would slowly dim, retreat into the past, and, at the bottom, waiting within its wider yard, without a fence, the house of fibro, roofed with tin that rusted, under which sparrows scrabbled, nested, quarreled until the noise was driven into my heart, and so it seemed to me the night was dragging, the windows blank and vacant, save for semaphores, light in reflection from the streetlamps passing. The night was dragging: almost there! A sudden wind had arisen, roaring through the treetops, bringing a sound and tumult to my ears, and something woke, a memory of nights upon the hump at Towradgi, reading lights on Bulli Pass, between them roaring trees, with the same sound, and with the sound a coldness, an omen of appearances, apocalypse, bringing a wildness and tumult to my soul that waked, and seemed to me a coiled-up beast that scratched and sought release, to fly up, into the night around me, free, and weird and wild. My heart rejoiced; my eyes were brighter, smiling. My heart had quickened; there, before me, stood the house, with its green walls a grey of shadows, and I was glad, and, though I paused before it, I walked into its grounds, around the back, my mind a host of memories, it seemed, and the back stairs before me. Heart like lead, I went up, tried the door. It opened up: I went into the lounge; it seemed the same;

then through into the dining room cum hall, and turned and looked into my room: the same. It seemed that I'd come home. My eyes were tearing. I opened the front door that pointed west, and all around me darkness, neither stars nor streetlamps, only darkness, endless darkness. Phillip A. Ellis

Address t'th' 2011 AFL Gran' Final Bustfast, Etihad Stadium, Melbourne by Tony Abbott Its great t'be makin' mah maiden appeareence at this hyar great nashunal insteetooshun, th' No'th Melbourne Gran' Final Bustfast. Ladies an' juntlemen, th' supreme virtue of Aestralian Rules is thet its th' one football code thet wasnt invented in Englan'. Mah one an' only game was a defiant assershun of our nashunal identity: ah was playin' fo' Oxfo'd Unyversity Aestralians aginst Cambridge Unyversity Aestralians. Unfo'tunately, no one had told me thet a ball kicked out was thrown in by th' umpire an' not by a player, so ah instinckively grabbed th' ball an' tried t'fo'm a line out. It was at this hyar point thet ah realised a balls-up was not jest t'other way of restartin' play o' whut happens when politicians try t'address th' problems of th' nashun. Mah Aussie Rules ejoocayshun corntinued durin' last years eleckshun campaign wif Jobe Watson larnin' me t'han'ball, badly, at Windy Hill an' Harry Taylo' givin' me markin' prackice at Skilled Stadium, dawgone it. It was an expensive lesson: we made a $36 million commitment t'rebuild th' place on account o' Ole Man Frank Costa drives a hard bargain, as enny fool kin plainly see. Right now, thar seem t'be a few pareellels between th' AFL an' politics. In recent days we haf see someone called Swan labelled th' bess at his craf' in th' whole wo'ld, cuss it all t' tarnation. Wal so'ry, Wayne. Dane Swan is th' wo'lds greatess an' he tho'oughly desarved th' Brownlow medal, ah reckon. Ah unnerstan' thet Collin'wood

has a successhun plan thet involves Mick Malthouse relinquishin' power t'Nathan Buckley. Its jest like John-Boy Ebenezer planned t'han' on over t'Peter Costello. Lucky thars an Eddie McGuire t'make th' deal stick. Shet mah mouth! Geelong has done magnificently, even af'er sendin' their bess player t'Queenslan'. Its a bit like th' Aestralian govment af'er Kevin Rudd was put on th' transfer list. Thars a lot of talk at th' moment about ev'rythin' bein' too negative an' too aggressive wif all th' focus bein' on brin'in' t'other side down an' ah reckon thet means Cameron Lin''d make a great opposishun leader. Ladies an' juntlemen, ah's hankerin' t'pay tribute today t'two histo'ic clubs an' t'ev'ryone whos he'ped two great sides t'git t'this years Gran' Final, ah reckon. It might not make much sense fo' our clubs an' our pubs but, fo' politicians on Gran' Final day, thar is no excapin' man'ato'y pre-commitment. Mine is t'th' Cats: an' by 10 points. Finally, ah sh'd acsmarts thet thar will soon be an AFL team in western Sydney a place whar Aussie Rules suppo'ters were once as rare as Liberal voters. Ah do hope thet this hyar noo club might further initiate me into th' sacred rites of th' AFL provided Im permitted a bit of political evangelism on th' side. Thank yo' so much, ladies an' juntlemen, as enny fool kin plainly see. [ends] L. S. Fisher

Who Is Tony Abbott? Tony Abbott is right. Tony Abbott is right: intellectuals are irresponsible and contemptible moralists. Tony Abbott is wrong about poverty. Tony Abbott is an embarrassment to himself. Tony Abbott is correct. Tony Abbott is all of these things, and when the going gets tough he wont be found wanting. Tony Abbott is a strong local member. Tony Abbott is blaming working people for being. Tony Abbott is up to his old tricks, and spreading misleading information. Tony Abbott is taking sides. Tony Abbott is our leading primordialist. Tony Abbott is always walking away. Tony Abbott is concerned about our "work ethic". Tony Abbott is a complete goog whose greatest talents are in the gentle art of biffo. Tony Abbott is very intelligent. Tony Abbott is no pushover. Tony Abbott is driven by political ideology rather than industrial reality. Tony Abbott is. Tony Abbott is across those issues and for that reason. Tony Abbott is undoubtedly a good person and committed Christian. Tony Abbott is relying on paper. Tony Abbott is up to his old tricks spreading misleading information. Tony Abbott is wrong. Tony Abbott is serving them up again as a political stunt. Tony Abbott is right. Tony Abbott is to be effective. Tony Abbott is in. Tony Abbott is yet to confirm his attendance. Tony Abbott is evil. Tony Abbott is evil and must be stopped. Tony Abbott is fricking ten times worse. Tony Abbott is clever and media smart. Tony Abbott is very unstable in these areas. Tony Abbott is currently serving in the US military and is the 1999 Utah State duck calling champion. L. S. Fisher

Crazy Women To those I have known They sew the seed. They grow the thought, singing love under the lyric tree. They wear thin dresses. Others wear lies. The moment is framed. It is I. It is I. Voices echo in the salty air, out of the rafters of body wear. The world occurs, sticking them together with glue. You are your own label. I am fifteen. She is skimpily dressed to go to a school dance, humming to herself. Mad as a hatter flies in the clouds. I pretend she is my aunty. She believes my lie. She is that crazy. Loneliness grows under the lyric tree. The mind is dark. The light is white. Anti-depressants. The women fall a long way, blindly staring out the window, convinced there is nothing they can do, a scream in the dark and a camp like screw, sharp as a tongue, it is you, it is you. My mother leaves early, unable to accept she is a crazy woman with a crazy son. I see black comedy. Her past is nailed on rotting wood, held over her like stone. Be careful what you think and say, I am back in the ghostly month of May. Crazy women dance in the night. It is their music. It is their moment. They know this in the clocks arms. I write them down. I paint them close. The crazies exhibition opens up secrets. A canvass skin crawls into mystery. One of us is right. The other is wrong. Crazy women talk to themselves in pain, opening up the unforgettable to names, as weathered as a cats claw. Days hold us close in Memory Hollow. Stats are in darkness. We try not to follow. They sew the seeds. They slow in thought, 26

singing sad under the lyric tree. Gary Langford

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My Favourite Enemy My favourite enemy is at a poets meeting, My favourite enemy forwards a weak 5/7/5: Youre as thin as grass whatever is said to you pleasing nobody. I fold up the haiku as a small paper eagle, hitting my favourite enemy between the eyes. Words shake themselves out, running away as youthful autumn leaves. My favourite enemy wrestles with emptiness, trying to be the figure we inherit, whose words are valued beyond money. I ring the moment of a cheerful bell. Youre my favourite enemy. Gary Langford

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Quake Road, Christchurch The foundation came to Unit 7, 1 Quake Road In the early morning we come out of our bodies. The core is raw on the expedition of the unexpected. 4.35am, September 4, 2010 but who is counting? The earth opens up its fragile skin. Hollow chambers of sound batter down. Do we dive under the bed or position ourselves under the door frame? Do we run outside to risk a tree falling on us like an axe? There is no defence on the fuse line. We are in the house of casual occupation. Lights go off and hearts beat hard. The bed calls us back, fear tempering down. Eyes of the hills close. Night soldiers are led to their deaths. Voices rise: Are you alright? I think so. Its a bloody earthquake. Shit, youre right. Sleepless birds fly over the Canterbury Plains. They are just as startled. For a moment I rise out of myself to fly with the birds, free of the earths gas before falling. Is that a siren? It sounds lonely, poignant. Nerves set themselves up and prosper. I hold them close. They seldom listen. Water pipes part without argument. Electricity happily turns itself off, selecting suburbs and houses at random. Sewage leaks in the bowels of the province. We cannot tell. After effects is that bad. Journalists come in the days slow rise, too early for the sentences of bourbon thought. X no go X Quite a virtual reality. Quite a little charger. Thelmas bones exposed for all to see. We ride in the thin hours. There are people worse off than we are. Time passes before the earths pulse steadies, beyond 2000 tremors in the fallout of spring. You have space, says the politician of Quake Road. Each tremor is a knock against the province. We concede victory without a ball being bowled, or kicked. We are struck over the fence anyway. 29

Earth murmurs constantly to itself, as if it might forget promises. We are called from the river of dreams. We are grateful. The current becomes lower, without question. This is classified as strength in the rise and fall of the temperate: Well work it out. What about the uninsured? Bugger me down, mate. Burglars are the final straw. The earth wheezes. We count each one with precision stars. Some predict steam will run out. Others announce there will be a follow up major they do not want us to get too relieved. We are hung out, hung dry in the sky. Hours collapse without being noticed. Rain falls in tenderness. We walk blindly. Things are getting better, and then we forget them. Tremors keep us in the earths hands; day-sweat. We are stroked tenderly in troubled moments. Our bones stop rattlingmost of the time. Our nerves even out, or so we tell ourselves. We become selective. We tell different stories in the smallness of times hand. The noise and disagreement came from Unit 6, 3 Quake Road We are as startled as trapped boars, about to be shot through the head or heart. Lunch and a punch to the core. We can hear each shudder like a saw that grows to stretch us beyond the breakage point. Eyes are boarded up, centred in Lytteltons stomach, the hills elbow. Clifton Hill shakes in the bombing raid, in reverse order to ours. Casualties grow. CTV. Japanese students stop learning English, caving in, floor by floor, on the worlds news. Colonel Quake tunelessly rides on a horse, indifferent to riding through buildings. There is a dismembered fire engine in the burial pit. Gas bloats. Oil spills time. And us. One syllable lines. Aah, shit, what the. I wish Id told you that I. I dont d... Bones stop rattling, blended in night and day, held otherworldly now. I get sillier, saying, 30

most babies die before they have been procreated. I am as cheerful as a man-hole. There is no regret, pulse broken in hopes ribs. Cars forget to nose home, sliding on grease, petrol bursting out in the engines explosion. Bodies are buried by the concrete undertaker. The Colonel chuckles, the costs are on me, feel free. Thoughts are flattened before truth is found. It is that quick, that unpretending. An army of rats burst out of the citys pipes. Noses press against the windows of air, hurriedly decapitating each other in confusion. The underworld floats forth. Mud swallows rat-corpses, streets, cars. The Colonel eases and blows. He is on the go. Stories grow down Quake Road, witty and savage: a joinery engineer helps many up the Bridle Path, texting his family he will be home in ten, Major Hornbrook boulders him down; the end; a wife leaves home for not being picked up on time; historys statues have their heads lopped off; the cathedral spire collapses inwards on the faithful, frayed flags in the graveyard. For some only a few can choose life or death, white ants at the citys throat, the curving spine of a question mark, steadier than time. Nothing is out of bounds in the earths torso. It boasts about death. It buries souls. Sing says the earth, how shall I sing? My lungs are clogged in heavy rings. My arteries split open desire. I am on fire. I am on fire. Dear Sorrow, insurance companies never fail to get payments, nor do they fail to pause to argue over claims, profit margins down, we cant have that horror. Earth eats it all with self-confessed aplomb. Quakers are those who have survived, sort of. We are in the lost and found, waiting to be claimed, relatives we never knew we had, haunted by the spectre, that there will be more, tremor to tremor, the unselected moment that changes us all. Events bring out the best and the worst in the pall. Did you whisper to god, or blame god? The Colonel is galloping over the trenches. Summer calls us all in. We are at the cutting line. The clock has a heavy load. Unit 6, 3 Quake Road. Gary Langford

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her wet mahogany childhood these deluge days in Australia call out like rainforest birds for recognition I am unique they remind us, dont ignore me and yet we head off, no head-gear, dubious shoes as though optimism water-proofs our day we slip into half-jackets drawn and sold by a rogue, a company downsizing, and when foresight reigns we take miniature umbrellas of miserable metals cut by computers with no sense of wet my memory of rain is mostly black water from living in a house with indoor puddles my desperate escaping the raindrops of childhood in a plastic coat and chunky rubber boots those retro artifacts of families before cars Sydney in the 50s, drowned like a valley a neighbour was a brickie and drove me in his ute for the first weeks of kindergarten, fumes and wipers, I couldnt swim the rivers running down our street my mother once described the interior of her childhood, of rooms behind a shop the mahogany of her England, along one wall a long chaise lounge in deep-red upholstery dining-room chairs in the same fabric lighter wood in the bedroom upstairs her mother, my grandmother, told stories of rain through the roof, even after repair of icicles inside, a waterfall in the cellar they sailed to Australia, saying their goodbyes to icicles and rheumatism, waterfalls and asthma sunny Australia, sand and surf, land of droughts they brought umbrellas but no-one expected a deluge Margaret Owen Ruckert

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jackpot economy a joker Wednesday dripping with the good fortune of global warming best July rain in sixty years residents huddle in the basement caf of their local RSL picture window onto the carpark red-welcoming carpet warm as the voice of a favourite machine they sit around tables sized for intimacy weaving between chairs and other patrons balancing trays of unrationed water serviette supplies a fistful of sugars eat away a private afternoon in public with a half-serve of roast (the ladies) and a slice of lemon meringue pie the new chef cut into 8 instead of 12 its offered with a badge of proud cream and a sorry for the battleship portion slicing through the deck of marshmallow the pastry hull with its generous lemoncustard cargo sweet/sour as the weather a smile trumps the wrinkles sun shines its brief blessing no need for a flutter today Margaret Owen Ruckert

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a window in anger money doesnt come easy on a fixed income he believes in a tenants right of revenge his landlord fixed the bedroom window with the lowest quote his winter starts in autumn storms are a bums rub on a wild night while the moon shrank he smashes a window in anger no gloves, no witnesses and no noise courtesy a heavy CD stitches later he feels like a winner, but hears himself saying to the nurse in emergency the guy had it coming let me tell you what he didnt mr landlord took him to court where the judge remarked you used the lowest quote you had it coming Margaret Owen Ruckert

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four years old im taking my boomerang and my train set but its so heavy my red dragon and my blue shorts garfield my donkey and the baby elephant but i couldnt fit in the blue fish and my wellies im running away to gran and grandads house only i dont know if its number one five or five one and i cant ask mum so i dont know what to do if you know you can come too Flora Smith

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Mangroves Mangroves where roots breathe and mud sucks up to the thigh a clicking of crabs small fish jumping soft grunt of a crocodile sweetness of decay detritus of leaves in water all things rotting in the tropic sun. The mangrove bittern that silent assassin stalks and stabs. Flora Smith

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Streetscape We stepped over him, walked round him judgement nipping at our heels. Why should he have our space? He's sleeping it off knuckles blackened from fighting last night's demons. His the forest floor safety comes camouflaged in dirty pellage, low submissive lurch. Dark means wakefulness he must guard his own strange fruits guerilla-raid another's. Jungles are safer by day so drugged dreams may sprawl diagonal on busy city pavements at 11 in the morning. Let's see the compliment forget the grubby trousers, soiled shirt this city can encompass him. Flora Smith

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Out of Clay Vessels A landscape with urn people is embedded in a photograph. Under my fingers the paper collects prints of skin tender-young and warm. There are memories in this land ready to be dug free. I've never been there but I smell the stench of their wood fired feet on the earth and milky plaster homes with ceilings of tar pressed hard by ancient hands. With trowels and picks I ease them into pieces: dated, catalogued, sold to museums of human conquest. At the end of time they will exhume my body to find it, this photo, and wonder if I had lived in its depths with the people out of clay vessels. Lara S. Williams

Sitting on the Highest Branch They cut down the high school's sycamore on my twenty third birthday. It had shallow notches where the branches met the trunk; perfect for footholds and the rounds of finger tips. Carved near the top crouched the initials of my brother and those of a girl he knew from church. She wore yellow knee-high socks and once read from Revelations before forty Catholic house wives. Her carved 'M R' never faded despite the many hands that crossed its face. When the council workers brought it down I found a shred of bark escaped from the chipper's mouth. It bore the thick curve of her name, Ramirez, and when I gave it to my brother he threw it away. Lara S. Williams

Street Smarts Wont Keep Out The Cold These streets werent always grey. We once had rain that turned gutters to shining steel and weakened the walls til they chipped, underneaths bleeding chalk. Heatwaves stripped the city so thoroughly that you, forever hungry for colour, drank no more from windowsills; I offered you my throat, welcomed your fingertips to its hollow even if you sucked my flush canescent, like these streets, hot in their dying lives. Your gravel-studded nails left cerise scars like blood-clots in my skin. These streets have roots that tangle in our tongue and crawl through words made magic and cruel, selfishly shared between you and I. I wish for things impossible yet tangible because they smell sweeter than any rough callous peppering your hands. I beg to speak volumes but you withhold, never realising that a single word could build a girl, shoulders flayed with chalk, standing on grey gutters waiting for rain. Lara S. Williams

Wintering Place for Swans Their necks point north in one-question curves that dip below their bills and bracket every long swept stroke from minnow to hand thrown crust. Web feet waft like molasses furious and quick, though the heads rock to a slow pace tune; a samba or quiet bolero would not be out of place amongst these eyes. Fear of sweating air drives them to these low-lying waters in sunset hours when children float paper boats into their reed-sewn nests and scream songs that drive the longest neck and most sublime feathers deep into the mud. It's cold on the water but cream down keeps out miserable wind and fingers of curious royals. Lara S. Williams

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Cherry Blossoms The hotel is hemmed with colourful narrow streets where bright red sashes hang between lanterns. Proprietors in lunchtime stores speak English better than I speak another language. Passersby direct me to Paddys Market when I ask the way to a mall. I seem the unusual Westerner again as when I travelled in Asia and earnestly learnt the customs. Sights and smells in mind streets linger from bustling Hong Kong with crispy duck kimchi and chili meat in heroic Seoul stately Tokyo with the theatre of tempura regal waters of Bangkok where breakfast was fruit filled omelets floral Singapore with raw egg on rice porridge Djakarta sunsets through spice filled air. It is fresh spring again - in autumn light as cherry blossoms. Paul Williamson

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Post GFC Mall In the Post GFC Mall some are aiming at style but clothes are mostly functional. A Somali girl smiles behind a counter that sells coffee. People straggle through the sliding door into air laced with grease from the barbecue chicken stall. The man with a ponytail fusses with empty shopping bags. One young woman wears worry on her face but stress has mostly eased here in Brunswick. Trolleys of groceries are guided by automatons or young parents with droving eyes for wandering children or impassive faces and extra infant loads. Shoppers have dodged the financial crisis and carefully drift in its echoes. Paul Williamson

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Survival Dark white-capped seas cling to windy mist. Winds surge to Force Four; Waves and swell grow high - the horizon is still there. Gear is hauled with nervous glances at freezing eye-high water. The ship rises on cue - sailors dont drown; they think about safety lines. Winds rise to Force Eleven. Sky blends with ocean. The storm torments - waves and swell loom before they combine to sweep over deck and bridge. People have died here lashed to the wheel or ridden storms to be shattered on coasts with names like Shipwreck Cove. The helmsman steers into mountainous seas. He aims to calmly ride out with prayers that steering and power hold. He knows that taking the storm sideways invites disaster; if damaged, stay with the ship; if the ship dies, man the lifeboats; cling to the wreckage. Paul Williamson

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