THIS GREAT, GAUNT CITY.
These things I see,
each day,
as I wander round this great, gaunt city.
I.
Mornings I hear her.
and the wail of those hungry tired children,
shadows beyond the frost cracked windows
of her battered Toyota.
When its rusted rear door swung open
as I passed by,
I glimpsed her, with sickly kids
in ragged clothes and shoes unpolished,
that sudden pale of fear, flitting like the shadow of a bird
across her face,
all of them shivering in the dull morning chill
amidst bright multi-coloured rugs,
hues of stark red and green and purple,
some yellow,
reminders of happier days,
and the scent of stale chocolate milk cartons,
hitting the day from the car's inside.
I've seen that fear before on women's faces,
as some man stands not far from them across the street,
the clenched anger,
old hopelessness,
the bitter eyes of blasted hope,
refugees from clenched fists,
a face of fury,
memories of dinners late-prepared
flung across the kitchen table.
I do not approach.
I am a stranger, male,
and doubly dangerous.
In the bright, cold sun of the later morning
the car is empty, locked.
A passer by, not a woman,
tells me, "She's been there for months,
with those kids, too.
Somebody should do somethin'."
And I think,
"Why don't you?
Why don't I?"
II.
Beggars don't walk up to me.
I look like one.
Tangled hair, long unkempt beard,
battered country hat,
cracked glasses.
There's this bloke,
a young fella,
dancing with sores on his bared arms,
bugs crawling along his veins (he thinks),
flesh torn through days of tearing, trying to make them come out,
Come out!.
People run from the park to get away,
to run, to hide,
to not see the dancing pain,
fingernails ripping across the skin,
terrified he might strike out,
but he sees no one,
not the sun, the bright breeze.
He's trapped in the blaze of his own mind.
Once, in the night,
I heard him screaming,
but I was well-hidden, and sort of snug,
behind bushes,
and did not come out.
III.
He sits alone on that city park bench,
every day,
week-ends too,
shirt ironed,
suit trousers pressed,
with some mysterious iron,
tie neatly knotted,
tailored coat pulled tight across his shoulders,
sleeves beginning to fray,
always clean shaved,
his despair growing with every evening's
five o'clock shadow,
shoes polished like a mirror.
Not old,
home gone,
wife gone,
kids gone.
He was a money-man.
That much I know.
Once those computers with their profit graphs crashed around him
life and the dollar-signs drained from his eyes.
Some days, there, on that park bench,
he sits and weeps all day,
clutching a paper-bag of cheap fried chips,
his only food.
Some days I sit across from him,
legs crossed on the heat-blasted grass,
a ragged reminder of what he might become,
feeling a strange compassion
for this one faded capitalist.
We never talk.
IV.
Some days I sit in those vast open planned offices
in Centre-link, somewhere.
(On days you have to pretend you're human,
and somebody out there in Internet-land
will want to give you a job.)
They were close to closing, close on four,
or was it five? It doesn't matter.
No home, no television to tell the time by.
Who cares?
Outside the rain was falling down like rats.
Truth be told, I think that's why I was there.
He was six foot tall,
thirty or thereabouts,
come through those magic glass doors,
hair wet across his face.
And he had no beard - I do remember that.
There was something odd about his teeth.
Maybe he didn't have any.
He was, I suspect, a man from the Bush,
Not quite out of a Henry Lawson poem,
but he did have a swag.
There was something he wanted at the counter.
The jumped up clerk was saying no.
(I tell yer, these places are worse than banks.)
Think it was a counter check.
Usually is, but you s'posed to come in
In the morning, if you want it that day.
And you got to have a good yarn.
Anyway, they weren't gonna give it to him.
Comes across to us. There were a few of us,
sitting there, out of the rain.
Sits beside me.
Picks at the cords of his furled sleeping bag.
"Bastards!" I say.
He gives me a smile.
I knew something was up.
It was one of those smiles people give yer.
when you know they're gonna cause trouble.
He stood up, shaking out the sleeping bag
"Move back," he says, "Move back."
So we shifted our chairs and gave him some room.
Blow me down if he doesn't put the sleeping bag
down on the floor and jump in it.
You shoulda seen that Centrelink lot.
They'd seen a lot of things,
but nobody'd ever done this to them before.
The clerk comes hurrying over,
(he was a bastard if you got him in the interview room),
He says, "You can't do that here."
The bloke from the Bush was polite,
Didn't do his block or nothin'.
He just says, "Well, where else am I gonna sleep?
You blokes won't give me a counter cheque."
Then he rolls over, on his side, like,
closes his eyes and goes to sleep!
Clerk goes back behind the counter.
Those clerks, they stood around talking a bit,
staring at the clock, pointing at the bloke
on the floor in the sleeping bag,
pointing at the clock.
I thought they were gonna call the cops.
But ten minutes later, they come back
with a bloody cheque.
The bushie leaves happy.
Well, bugger me, mate,
who woulda thought it?
V.
The old men in their great-coats
sitting in the gutter outside Matt Talbot,
waiting for the night to fall,
never rooves above their heads.
They're used to the winter chill.
They look for corner shops
that keep the metho in the fridge,
behind the soft drinks.
Their flesh is paper-thin,
and bony.
They wear a different rage,
eyes clouded by the sun's glare.
You hear the rattle in their throats,
the rasping of their damaged voices,
that voice that no-one else has.
Sometimes they're in a cheery mood.
"G'day. mate," they'll say.
And bite you for a smoke.
More often they brawl,
rolling across the gravel,
drunker than you could ever imagine,
one on top of the other,
turn about,
punching weakly at each other's faces,
no breath to fight.
I saw them as a kid. I used to think
"I hope I don't grow up like you",
and something in me, child-like,
thought they were romantic.
(Well, you can't get everything you want,
can you?
