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Try to remember: things go wrong in spite of it all. I listen to our daughters singing in the crackling rows of corn and wonder why I don't love them more. They move like dark birds, small mouths open to the sky and hungry. All afternoon I listen to the highway and watch clouds push down over the hills. I remember your legs, heavy with sleep, lying across mine. I remember when the world was transparent, trembling, all shattering light. I had to grit my teeth against its brilliance. It was nothing like this stillness that makes it difficult to lift my eyes. When I finally do, I see you carrying the girls over the sharp stones of the creek bed. When they pull at my clothes and lean against my arms, I don't know what to do and do nothing.

The clouds shouldered a path up the mountains East of Ocampo, and then descended, Scraping their bellies gray on the cracked shingles of slate. They entered the valley, and passed the roads that went Trackless, the houses blown open, their cellars creaking And lined with the bottles that held their breath for years. They passed the fields where the trees dried thin as hat racks And the plow’s tooth bit the earth for what endured. But what continued were the wind that plucked the birds spineless And the young who left with a few seeds in each pocket, Their belts tightened on the fifth notch of hunger— Under the sky that deafened from listening for rain.

You see, they have no judgment. So it is natural that they should drown, first the ice taking them in and then, all winter, their wool scarves floating behind them as they sink until at last they are quiet. And the pond lifts them in its manifold dark arms. But death must come to them differently, so close to the beginning. As though they had always been blind and weightless. Therefore the rest is dreamed, the lamp, the good white cloth that covered the table, their bodies. And yet they hear the names they used like lures slipping over the pond: What are you waiting for come home, come home, lost in the waters, blue and permanent

They’d been warned on every farm that playing in the silos would lead to death. You sink in wheat. Slowly. And the more you struggle the worse it gets. ‘You’ll see a rat sail past your face, nimble on its turf, and then you’ll disappear.’ In there, hard work has no reward. So it became a kind of test to see how far they could sink without needing a rope to help them out. But in the midst of play rituals miss a beat—like both leaping in to resolve an argument as to who’d go first and forgetting to attach the rope. Up to the waist and afraid to move. That even a call for help would see the wheat trickle down. The painful consolidation of time. The grains in the hourglass grotesquely swollen. And that acrid chemical smell of treated wheat coaxing them into a near-dead sleep.

On an island of music in a city of drumbeats the drum dream girl dreamed of pounding tall conga drums tapping small bongó drums and boom boom booming with long, loud sticks on bit, round, silvery moon-bright timbales. But everyone on the island of music in the city of drumbeats believed that only boys should play drums so the drum dream girl had to keep dreaming quiet secret drumbeat dreams. At outdoor cafés that looked like gardens she heard drums played by men but when she closed her eyes she could also hear her own imaginary music. When she walked under wind-wavy palm trees in a flower-bright park she heard the whir of parrot wings the clack of woodpecker beaks the dancing tap of her own footsteps and the comforting pat of her own heartbeat. At carnivals, she listened to the rattling beat of towering dancers on stilts and the dragon clang of costumed drummers wearing huge masks. At home, her fingertips rolled out their own dreamy drum rhythm on tables and chairs… and even though everyone kept reminding her that girls on the island of music have never played drums the brave drum dream girl dared to play tall conga drums small bongó drums and big, round, silvery moon-bright timbales. Her hands seemed to fly as they rippled rapped and pounded all the rhythms of her drum dreams. Her big sisters were so excited that they invited her to join their new all-girl dance band but their father said only boys should play drums. So the drum dream girl had to keep dreaming and drumming alone until finally her father offered to find a music teacher who could decide if her drums deserved to be heard. The drum dream girl’s teacher was amazed. The girl knew so much but he taught her more and more and more and she practiced and she practiced and she practiced until the teacher agreed that she was ready to play her small bongó drums outdoors at a starlit café that looked like a garden where everyone who heard her dream-bright music sang and danced and decided that girls should always be allowed to play drums and both girls and boys should feel free to dream.

(For all children who wondered about the tragic event of April 4, 1968 at Memphis.) My children, my children, remember the day When the Drum Major of Freedom's parade went away. Stop crying now little children and listen And you will know for the future what really did happen. You will know why your father was solemn and grim And why mother's eyes were wet at the rim. You will know why the flags flew at half mast And why all the buildings were shut tight and fast. The Drum Major was down in Memphis that day Helping the workers to win a raise in pay When an evil assassin's bullet Snuffed his bright young life away. That's why we were all so saddened that day When the life of the Drum Major was taken away. Who will come forward to stand in his stead? Who'll be the Drum Major in the Freedom parade? My children, our Major was such a good man Whose life was based on the divine plan. He loved this country, its people black and white And believed that all should be imbued with the right. That's why we were all so saddened that day When the life of the Drum Major was taken away. We are looking for someone to stand in his stead We now seek a new leader for the Freedom parade. Do you know my children that he bore the brunt, He marched unafraid right up in the front He marched for Justice for children like you And a bountier life for your parents too. That's why we honor Martin Luther King He tried with love to make Liberty ring. He wished everyone in our tortured country To live together in peace and harmony. That's why we were all so saddened that day When the Drum Major's life was taken away. Do you know someone who can stand in his stead? Do you know someone to lead the parade? I hear you my children. I hear what you said. That you children yourselves would lead his parade That you'll carry the banner of the Drum Major dear And march on to full Freedom without any fear. Our spirits are lifted, our sorrows subside. You children shall lead us with Dr. King at your side. You children of Freedom will stand in his stead. You children of Freedom will lead the parade. March on my children to his distant drumbeat. March on my children, keep alive his heartbeat. When this Peace and Freedom is finally won Then will Martin Luther King's work be done.

A drunk cadet had hit them on a bad bend near the river, two broken necks. On the notice-board there’s an A4 page with a blurred digital photo of Beck laughing, leaning into her friends in a nightclub and below that, writing: We Love You Beck – from Kristin, Colette and Mandy. I sit like an automaton in the big lounge room my back teeth snapping against each other, rocks in my gut. That night we watch on an iMac a video of Beck, an eight minute film Colette had taken on her phone. Two of the men are crying. Kristin and Mandy are numb. I move to the noticeboard, reading anything: ‘Live-in nanny required Balmain 5 min from city’ ‘Experience life on an outback station help mustering mobs of 2000 animals on horseback or quadbike’. Near me two women are whispering. Talking about their first-ever girlfriend. One says, Other people are always either versions or not-versions of her. Fourteen, it’s an age to break your heart. You know nothing. On the edge of knowing too much. I lean forward, my head on the foyer koala. Voices travel to me from distant realms: I hear again the singer’s plea for his wife. Blurred from too much experience I prowl around the leaflet racks, groaning. Late that night on the vinyl lounges the people remaining are Kristin and me, alone. My eyes are swollen, my ears still buzzing from the headphones at work. We talk over Beck till no more can be said. Now Kristin begins to tell her own story how her uncle had his boat down the back of their block, and one day he said he wanted to show her something, took her down the lantana path to the boat, something she might like, he said – Kristin was raped at times twice a day or sometimes not for a week and sometimes after it he gave her pocket money once a twenty dollar bill which down the gully later she tore into thin red strips and buried. Back at the house her mother bashed her for lying about the uncle, who was her brother, and who had loaned them the deposit on the house where Kristin and Odette her sister were fortunate enough to live. When Kristin grew up, her mother apologised to her. The uncle was still alive. He had sent her a Christmas card this year. She sat on the lounge, looking down at her runners, her mouth closed. Behind her the stereogram and Elvis, a silent witness. The uncle had said she was a rude girl, she should keep quiet about their secret otherwise he’d give her little sister a taste of the same. Kristin was quiet from then on. The reason she was telling me now, her hand on my arm was that last week she’d had a call from Odette who was living in London. The uncle during those primary school years had done the same to her, tricked her the same way, used the same words. I feel the weight of my empty useless arms. But later I hold her – hug her goodnight. She touches my shoulder. I was convinced, she says, I was saving my sister. My head clatters: Virgin, May I help you? Back in the Furies’ bunk-room it’s beauty night, they’re whisking egg whites for a face mask … After they’ve done each other they sit me on the bed and paint my face with their fingers the egg white sets quickly and they tell me not to smile. I dream of Alecto’s iron tower and bloody clothes – then I’m on TV being interviewed: So, the oldest Fury – and who is your god? I am asked – I once served Artemis, I say. And before that? – Athena, I say – Anath, Isis. I do not mention Dionysis or the Thracian women.

A night address The world is wasted on you. Show us one clear time beyond childhood (or the bottle) you spent your whole self—hoarding no blood-bank back-up, some future aim to fuel—or let yourself look foolish in reckless style on barstool, backstreet or dancefloor, without a dim image of your hamming hobbling you the whole while. Voyeur to your own couplings, you never did come with them, did you, even when you did? You said Hell is details, when Hell was just the cave, the concave- mirrored skull you dwelt inside, your left hand polishing while the other shook to clinch a deal— Provide, provide! Sure, in the end, like any soul you were endless and yets—brave, deft with phrases, kind— three cheers for you. Too closed to want what others love you vetoed life— were there other worlds to crave?

The function, as it seems to me, O’ Poetry is to bring to be At lang, lang last that unity ... But wae’s me on the weary wheel! Higgledy-piggledy in’t we reel, And little it cares hoo we may feel. Twenty-six thoosand years ’t’ll tak’ For it to threid the Zodiac —A single roond o’ the wheel to mak’! Lately it turned—I saw mysel’ In sic a company doomed to mell, I micht ha’e been in Dante’s Hell. It shows hoo little the best o’ men E’en o’ themsels at times can ken— I sune saw that when I gaed ben. The lesser wheel within the big That moves as merry as a grig, Wi’ mankind in its whirligig, And hasna turned a’e circle yet Tho’ as it turns we slide in it, And needs maun tak’ the place we get. I felt it turn, and syne I saw John Knox and Clavers in my raw, And Mary Queen o’ Scots ana’, And Rabbie Burns and Weelum Wallace, And Carlyle lookin’ unco gallus, And Harry Lauder (to enthrall us). And as I looked I saw them a’, A’ the Scots baith big and sma’, That e’er the braith o’ life did draw. ‘Mercy o’ Gode, I canna thole Wi’ sic an orra mob to roll.’ —‘Wheesht! It’s for the guid o’ your soul.’ ‘But what’s the meanin’, what’s the sense?’ —‘Men shift but by experience. ’Twixt Scots there is nae difference. They canna learn, sae canna move, But stick for aye to their auld groove —The only race in History who’ve Bidden in the same category Frae stert to present o’ their story, And deem their ignorance their glory. The mair they differ, mair the same. The wheel can whummle a’ but them, —They ca’ their obstinacy “Hame,” And “Puir Auld Scotland” bleat wi’ pride, And wi’ their minds made up to bide A thorn in a’ the wide world’s side. There ha’e been Scots wha ha’e ha’en thochts, They’re strewn through maist o’ the various lots —Sic traitors are nae Langer Scots!’

IF ANYONE KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON EVER THEN HEY I AM HERE IT WOULD BE NICE TO TALK SOMETIME INFOMERCIALS HAVE STARTED AND I KIND OF WANT TO DIE I’M PRETTY SURE THIS ONE IS ACTUALLY FOR A MORGUE OK SO ACTUALLY IT’S FOR THE BIBLE OR SOMETHING SO IT’S A COMMERICAL FOR TRYING TO BE HAPPY OR SOMETHING BUT I AM NOT HAPPY TONIGHT NO I AM NOT JUST HERE IF HAPPINESS EVER WORKED THEN HOW—I DON’T KNOW HAPPINESS IS A LIZARD IN THE SUNLIGHT GETTING WARM AND THEN IN THE NIGHT BENEATH A ROCK EATING FLIES AND SWALLLOWING THE MEAT OF THE TRASH OF THE DIRT AH, SO TONIGHT IS A LITTLE DRUNK AND OK OK OK THAT IS GOOD SO LET ME BE—THERE IS NO LOVE TONIGHT GOD IS LIKE BONO—SOME DICKWAD NO ONE WILL EVER MEET OR LIKE