I Home I About I Contact I Guidelines I Directory I World I Peace I Charity I Education I Quotes I Solutions I Photo Gallery I Archives I Links I

Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                         #3/thyla3c THE POETRY OF MML BLISS Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of MML Bliss by Tim Thorne, 2002. "riding the instant - a million years of growth come to this pause, this wonder." I erzuli I blistered I come closer / rockabye I the poet with a famous name visits an outback town I in with the new I the trees grow taller every day I auntie rose's reality I to be a dancer I later I reaper I wind I Ravo: 1. dream on I 2. luck I 3.sunny hill I 4. bus stop I 5. walk tall I 6. busted I 7. the ravo blockie I green I garden walk I erzuli if you believed in a totem's charm, i would make a mojo on the first full moon of autumn, cut from the article of clothing i found at the bottom of the bed after you left at three in the morning & dogs howled at the cold place that your absence left beside me when i woke. the note you scribbled on a napkin placed inside, a veve & a captured sunbeam moondust, lapis lazuli & leaf root & seed whose names cannot be spoken to one who has never wept within a bloody teardrop. there'd be a shadow, flesh blood bone to make you whole should you ever be fragmented mistaking lust for more. you'd wear it next to your heart & it would guard you from false promises, the illusion that love does not matter in the long stride we all must run from moonrise to sunrise, & reverse, season to season. in this world, faith is a gift, & gifted i'd give you a place where no gris-gris could reach you, no loup-garou could track you down, our lady, freda, would protect you but it's all conditional & you can only wonder at the statement of intent i offer, a poem from the mojo of my voodoo heart blistered there were no panty-hose when i was a child there were ankle socks in summer in winter, thick woollen stockings held up by garters that cut into baby-white skin mid-thigh, so the tops didn't show when you sat down. i was given a suspender belt & nylons to replace the hose & ankle socks at the same time the rubber-buttoned cotton liberty bodices were superceded by much smaller, thinner bras. it was a growing-up thing, like shoes without laces or straps. the first time i went to the ballet at christmas instead of the panto, i wondered why the dancers stocking-tops didn't show, their tutus were knicker-showing short & their legs weren't bare. it was a good thing my aunt was in the seat next to me & not my mother who was very strict about dress & learnt about what was what from queen victoria, aunt blanche laughed. she told me about tights & said she'd buy me some. ridiculous, a young girl constricted by ironmongery & what year did my mother think it was for goodness sake. acting like she's a little old lady, she's thirteen & these are the swinging sixties call-me-blanche took me shopping for op-art mini-skirts cubular ear-rings with flags of britain on each dangling box we listened to soul music & tamla motown & i learned dances i'd never learned at school. we went to clubs where dj's spun discs & in textured tights we jived & mashed potatoed until our hair-spray sent us off to the ladies with sore eyes & we had to re-glue our eyelashes on. everybody wanted to look like twiggy. my mother raised a single eyebrow (which was a neat trick i never managed to copy). i loved how the tights stretched & my legs showed through the mesh in bubbles. my toes blebbed from the dancing & walking round shops that smelled like nouveau elegance. call-me-blanche & i talked french in front of my mother until her temper blistered all the air within earshot. call-me-blanche opened up pandora's box for me all hell broke loose when dad saw the hair i'd worn in long plaits cropped to a vidal sassoon bob, my eyes made-up like mary quant's & the lacquer on that box ridged like the belt-welts on my backside from the hiding he gave me after that, we moved to australia, away from call-me-blanche where everyone had bare legs & my skin burned from the bright sun & the reflection of it off the white sand there's still a scar next to my big toe from the blister that a couple of days in thongs gave me. it festered, dad shrugged told me it served me right. i never did find out what i'd done wrong. it's a blight on the past that i'd love to stick a pin in as if there'd be an answer in the clear fluid oozing out in the seventies i left home, learned to love my pale skin & i still wear textured tights that make my skin pop up like hundreds of tiny wind-swept dunes in a pale desert through the mesh. i still go to the ballet at christmas & shop in tiny stores where everything smells of patchouli & fashion outdates as fast as teens blister into twenty come closer / rockabye death is all around him, in the shadows of the flat with one lightbulb. the blinds down, curtains drawn like the flat's already mourning. death hovers over the unwashed clothes, rumpled bedlinen. death is a smell, pungent as sanctity, rank as drink dried into carpet, stale as old shag smoke in overflowing ashtrays it's the sound of a bottle opening, scotch or bourbon, death's head on the labels. death on the cardboard circle of a wine-cask, its face the plastic tap. death is in the bottom of the glass raised to pale lips & staring from the drinker's yellow eyes. death was never distant for this man, my once husband who turned his back on life, on hope. death tapped him on the shoulder, told him it was not long now. he welcomed that. a certain outcome. old ramones albums on repeat spill memories of better times, the bottle shop delivers, bills settled by internet account. his meals on wheels uneaten in the fridge where food with months old use-by dates fills the shelves. the death smell's there, too, in the spoil of rotten chill. nothing is emptied except the bottles piled in the shower recess, brown paper bags & boxes crumpled at the back door. next-of-kin, my key turns in the lock & every time the front door swings in i see death sitting in my husband's red chair like a mantis praying over undead prey. death's maudlin, today hank williams on repeat, the glass moves mechanically from tabletop to lip, its smell stronger than yesterday. no mirrors, "come closer / rockabye" the shell of my marry-me man croaks & i watch him bridle into the honeymoon arms of death's cold stinking embrace Published in Moonshine (PressPress, 2002). the poet with a famous name visits an outback town the regional arts co-ordinator, came up with an idea, a drawcard, a showcase for what a good organiser she was. she brainstormed with members of the arts council writers' group & district high school. over casks of wine & nibbly things in the back room of the local art gallery, a committee was formed & a volunteer instructed to fax sydney for a visiting poet "somebody with a name". sydney faxed back, "we have one for you". champagne-type for the members & the volunteer the poet had a name & better, it was familiar, "but i thought he died." "can't have, sydney knows everything." press releases & mailing lists fluttered through the postal system & feathered into mail-boxes & on to desks. everyone was interested the committee held the ball & ran with it. "there's more to us than footy," the committee members congratulated themselves & prepared to display their trophy. in exchange for a signed copy of one of his books the best hotel offered free accommodation tv & radio would attend his reading, a soiree in the trendiest bar in the district. a volcano of excitement threatened to erupt in farm kitchens as wives read poetry to their husbands over the breakfast table & students felt the earth shake as the drama teacher spouted lava-floes of de-constructed verse unnoticed by the reception committee, the poet stepped off the train & took a taxi to the hotel sydney was faxed, "where is he?" "have you tried the hotel?" phew! at the soiree where bottled wine & bits of things on trays replaced the customary packet of milk arrowroot, tea & coffee people stood around in their best clothes instead of perching to attention in regiments of plastic seats "he's younger than i expected" "he's shaved off his beard." the poet with the famous name read poem after poem to polite, bewildered applause he was not very good when he finally finished, the regional arts co-ordinator said, "you've changed your style, allan ... but thank you." "allan? oh, no. i'm adam. don't tell me you expected allan ginsberg? didn't you know he died?" & the champagne-type flowed back to the kitchen trays of food were swept into doggie-bags. "the waste!" the co-ordinator snuck out through the back door & drove all night to sydney for a refresher course in poets with famous names. she runs a booking agency for rodeo stars, now anybody can fall off a bull, after all in the district, "what poet?" in with the new our old washing machine was musical, it went ggrungnadiddlum ggrungnadiddlum like a didgeridoo every monday for several years it went ggrungnadiddlum ggrungnadiddlum load after ggrungnadiddlum load sometimes it danced round the laundry before it broke down & my brother fixed it again it'll be ggrungnadiddlum right now he said & it went on ggrungdiddlum week after week one day suds poured out of it & drowned the floor ggrungdiddlum twirling round like a ballroom dancer until sparks flew out of it ggrungadid… our new washing machine isn't musical at all it's fully automatic it goes sshhoosh sshhoosh sshhoosh very quietly & mum bought a new folding chair so she can sit in the laundry with it listening to how quiet it is sshhoosh sshhoosh sshhoosh Published in Legend! (Cornford Press, 2002). the trees grow taller every day i learn the provenance of each dish & bowl we place in corrugated cardboard this a wedding present that from auntie ida the dinner setting for eight kath carried round melbourne, like a trophy a decade of nights by winter fires making plans for the snow-cap years, (cattle & a dog on an acreage for possum kath's house built the way she wanted it big enough for grandchildren & entertaining, a view out over the banca) are already folklore over the coffee, served in cups bought two states, a strait away in the blue mountains. i wonder how many times she's done this we talk the way women do when they've known each other for years & never talked enough, as secrets are pulled out & examined wrapped in paper & shifted she shows me where stars perch on the hill like risen cream in a milk-bucket over land planted with radiata needle drift sours the cup the trees grow taller every day the bluegum windbreak's gone piggery stink hovers over denuded earth a grader on the hill at the back levels bird & insect song we raise our voices we sort clothes & lay the woollies in a suitcase roll skivvies into bags & I say "i've seen you wear this, you look good in this". "if you knew how long i'd had that." outside the trees grow taller kath says they'll apply for compensation for the dead dog & rank water & the shadow that lengthens daily for the death of dreams, chipped china & the juggernaut of progress the trees grow as we label cartons & it's done! & they're gone! leaving the empty house & blocked-out sky for people who'll grow smaller watching the trees grow until the sawmill takes them away & someone else's dreams go with their secrets into cardboard boxes & the trees grow taller every day Published in Legend! (Cornford Press, 2002). auntie rose's reality day or night you can safely bet auntie rose will be on the internet follow the links, scroll down the lists & double click she says, "virtual reality's the place to be my games partner comes from the Zuyder Zee my chat room host's in central africa his cybertag is King_Cophetua all the tea in china, all the gangsters & their minders can't give me the hit to feed my addiction i've given myself a netucation world wide web dot com / html if you want a web site then i'm your girl that stuff's not downloading fast enough it's times like this that i really wish your uncle would buy me a broadband dish. my hours have run out i'm calling my server, i haven't ordered dinner yet i'm halfway through this music mixer & i'm worried i won't have finished it". later when she's back online, i sit beside her surfing the tide of a virtual magic carpet ride. she tells me she's computer literate delete this, double click that virtual dieting's the way i like it have you noticed that I'm losing weight? Published in Legend! (Cornford Press, 2002). to be a dancer there were four kinds of dancing that i knew, my parents walzed, quickstepped & foxtrotted at anniversaries, wedding receptions & the hunt ball, mother kicked her high-heels off in the early hours dad let his dickie-tie hang round his unbuttoned collar ice chinked in glasses as they stood barefoot on the slate-flagged kitchen floor in the early hours at school, miss loseby played piano & we stripped the willow, made arches and skipped under & out before london bridge fell down in the dust-trap sunlight made through the assembly hall windows. "we glide, girls, we do not bounce." we concaved our chests under uniform jumpers & changed our partners. tried to be more swan than ugly duckling on tv the lionel blair dancers high-kicked a chorus line in heels like stilts, wore shiny strapless costumes & fishnets tights with seams so straight they might have been painted on. they stuck their chests out they did not glide & their smiles were wide as the stage of the london palladium. we linked arms behind each other in the playground shouting "kick & kick & kick" until we were told to stop behaving like hobgoblins on my eleventh birthday i went to see "swan lake" on condition my bottom stayed still on the seat no wriggling. the ballerinas pointed their toes splayed their feet (exactly as we were told not to) & the music swelled inside my chest like a tutu in too small a space & i breathed out like a balloon emptying to make room for a bigger breath, my eyes felt bright as spotlights following each lift & pirouette this led to dance classes, with hair screwed tight into a bun black leotards, thick pink tights & soft slippers mrs. hallum, wrinkled & tiny with a voice like a cockatoo screeched at us over the music, "positions one to five" as she twisted our bodies & pulled at our arms & we looked at ourelves & each other in the big mirror during barre work. we were nothing like ballerinas a bunch of awkward girls who tried too hard. i was bewitched by music, heard john lennon sing twist & shout later driving. rain beats the windscreen like an angry husband with no respect wipers slap & clear a half-moon the shape of an eye blinks away tears as a gale rocks the car like a blow, a fist-strike it's all concentration on the next punch & like a battered wife there's avoidance, apology & scream grip the wheel tight as a snare as the rain's rhythm pounds the roof syncopated as jazz & the car clings to the road's surface like a melody holding its own this wife stands her ground, moves on rolls with each random back-hander & there's no fun hitting someone who has no fear, who takes control & makes a fool out of ... it's only a cloudburst not the end of a marriage a life-as-we-knew-it there's the promise of a clear sky ideal driving conditions sunglare on the rear-vision mirror later reaper they harvest forests at night so that in the morning it looks like the trees took off all by themselves Published in Legend! (Cornford Press, 2002). wind when the wind roars down the mountain setting the trees talking & the river growls like a pack of dinosaurs as it crashes down the valley this tiny house feels like a boat as walls & rafters stress & creak the wind sends branches flying trees fall. you can hear them smash in the forest like waves breaking sometimes i wish the home was a kite & could catch the wind Published in Legend! (Cornford Press, 2002). ravo 1. dream on one teatowel courtyard here serves fifty two-room flats one person inside each. no hanky-panky. couple. park bench. early morning. they sit, shoulders touching, familiar as shared pegs on washing-line underwear his & hers. under the gum tree they watch the gardenettes no bigger than tubs, grow daisies & marigolds. it's almost summer nearly christmas, splintered seat warmer than a heater, & cheaper puts roses in their cheeks, they kid each other as the sky echoes in their pale blue eyes. sipping tea from china cups saucers rest in their palms like dreams hanging over a bed after the sleeper's risen from the crumpled sheets. & they smile the secret smiles that lovers share, knowing. so what if the world doesn't end outside the breeze-blocks it's her eightieth birthday, a youngster, he is eighty-eight. a tardy cat slinks past after his night, petals in his fur her fingers dip into marmalade honey toast on his lips   happy birthday, love 2. luck you're my rainbow's end   my four-leaf clover lover, my popstar   fish'n'chips on friday   burger with the lot   my kitchen sink   draining board my blender, egg beater   brand new car   boy/man batman spiderman superman silver surfer incredible hulk my tag man   spraycan   custom built pool cue eight ball in the pocket   my ken doll   action man transformer   beanie babe   new jeans   disco top you're my pay tv   discovery channel   backyard dish playstation   dvd (that's dead vicious dude)   my music centre   home & away   my soap on a rope   swing set my dole   all the days of our lives she's fifteen   left school a couple of years back after she'd had the tatts   together forever   & I wanna be your bitch   inside a rose wreath   one on each ankle & gone on the pill. she can't say the words afraid it'll be too much for him to handle & she'd never be that game the growds are gettin' to me, man she whispers. the old girl found me pills & dope & me dad belted me. look!  displays the bruises, sunset on her back let's find a place & just be two (under her breath, three or four) & they make a date to see the housing  about the vacant unit down the road while the marks still show   she crosses her fingers   hopes he holds her close   their matching ink   his arms   he nods she's pregnant   she'll tell him after they've signed the lease she finds a four leaf clover in the new backyard magnets it to the salvo   fridge 3. sunny hill it's all uphill on the way there, steep as the price of a drink or several &                                      down on the way back if you went as the crow flies it'd take five minutes but there's no crows so you follow the closes round the houses where the blokes live with their cars like bonnets on their heads & the women shriek at barking dogs bawling children & tv drowns it all out 'til he guns the motor & everything else                                      goes quiet some days a man could die of thirst   feet pounding a hot concrete desert-land  no-shade   oasis  a mirage on every corner & at the end the banjo babbling poetry to the bar the barman & the air-conditioning like a background choir filling the gaps. baldy like a bullfrog puffed up for the ladies never short of a mating call for his jam tarts & love bundles. no fool like... a fella could die dry if jim the jump has to answer the bottle shop bell again so i buy the usual two long-necks at half past four & me hat blows away in the car park   big as a blighted paddock & i put me beers down & go after it like a mad dog chases the wind   work up a sweat & the breeze off the hot monte sets me neck & arms a-tingle                                                                              downhill to cook a feed & watch the news. hill's the name. sunny hill. 4. bus stop it must be payday   the single mums cruise up dolled out in their best clothes all branded & hair tortured into frizz feathers ratstails & sundry hello!  styles. they meet & greet each other, voices rough as snail bellies. hey bitch   fat see you next tuesday pull your skirt down   know of any good sales on? the recitations of the lists   a cute top or two   she needs some shoes she's grown   shaddup shania!   jaydyn give her the bottle back. she's ya sister. want a smack? i'll give ya one.   porschay!   i've had a gutful of you already.   sit. the bloody lot of yas. crackle of potato chip packets & poppersful of red wet   angel you're a little devil pick that up & eat it.   (bus mum. here it is.) flurry of folding emmaljungas  & children dragged by fingertips bundled into armpits, onto hips   hold her willya! by the time you're ready to drop she'll be walking. mykayla. bylynda. rychyd stop hittin' each other i'll break ya bloody necks. a new generation sits four to a seat   mum's a teenager three kids   three dads   nineteen today. you take them to the movies while i go round the shops. there's a sarah lee  in the freezer & i'll ring up pizzas later. it's me birthday   i can hit the salvos next week if the cash runs out or leave 'em at me mum's 5. walk tall when a suburb needs an association called walk tall it's a safe bet most of the residents don't   half need walking frames, well that's ok, the rest all have poor posture. overweight slouched couch potatoes. junk-food videos drugs it isn't safe to walk the streets leave your washing out or park your car. who'd want to live in ravo anyway? no work. everyone on benefits   even the walktallers. stuck up here in the crater on the hill   we're invisible out of sight   out of our tree   that's how we survive walk tall ? how do you do that when the soles of your joggers flap like a busker's open guitar case    or in thongs   even when they're pink with flowers on. don't look like you're up yourself you'll never score   don't stick your tits out it's asking for it.   still they put a pool table in the neighbourhood house. that association mob don't know what it's like to burn up the bush at sunset with a barrel & barbie   sun spilling fires in the sky colours like you've never seen   wanna go out later? smash some windows in those empty shops? 6. busted like a balloon i busted his face blood spurt like hot heavy air & then i gut-smacked the wind out of him doubled him up magistrates court thursday so why d'you do that bust him? he looked at me funny a bit like you're doing now 7. the ravo blockie i spend ten days a fortnight with a rag & shifting spanner in my pocket, head in the engine or under the vehicle every second monday i pay some off my new mags the stereo took twelve weeks but worth the wait it's so sweet. i'm a ravo lair with lay-back seats, impress the chicks, no worries. see. no front teeth either. they can stick their tongues right through & halfway down my throat before i give them what they really want. heh heh sat'day, my mates come round. all the chicks hanging in the carpark outside the newsagent's eating hot chips look at us, not the kids in the skatewave. you gotta start somewhere & wheels are wheels hey, man! cool moves.   get off the road, mongrel.   in here beautiful. i'll take you for a ride. & she does!   & i lay rubber scream those curves in third   eminem real loud   no points for a chick with a stroller & minus for chopper's dad or the old girl with the shopping ten if you waste the bags without touching her   in the back mate the princess rides up front   we go arm in arm   guy chick   guy chick guy chick   lambert st vermont & prossers forest road & the backblocks mornington drive pioneer parade & warring st where we do battle like knights of old. hit the k up there in four seconds, shit! nothing wrong with the fuel gauge babe. drop you off & fetch you later. now she's gone you can ride upfront, i saw an old commodore parked next to the primary school, gotta spare set of keys'll fit it. boost it, eh! take it up the bush bash it   burn it   good fun. hey! get your bloody fingers off my duco you're not from ravo, are you... green she presses mint in her fingers it smells green we plant eucalypts with leaves not green will become green & we'll call them bluegums see green all down the valley green see green blackwood   myrtle   sassafras stringybark   wattle   peppermint green on green see green listen to the wind green across the river if there were a thousand words for green i'd use them all & more. & one to name the eerie green that fills the air before rain turns green to mist & all the greens that play the light poppy & potato green & white wheat green to gold see green green see green see green garden walk monday morning, nine o'clock sharp cars circle st barnabas in search of a shady park it looks like the biggest funeral this district's seen since whatsisname's when the cortege stretched from tonganah to branxholm, right over the billycock in the hall the table's spread with morning tea but there aren't any mourners today a hundred and fifty women & two men descend like gobs of bright confetti on scones slices & a tea urn the size of a rainwater tank the major's wife silences the throng megaphone feeding back with the route around the gardens, it's a hundred k round trip & we'll meet back here for lunch we double up in vehicles. eighty three cars crawl country roads to the cherry farm where i for one vow never to eat cherries again unless they're organic "keep 'em blue all winter & watchout for pear moth i've got another spray for that & nets to keep the birds off" & off we go again to a mansion with a run down tennis court & ancient beds full of honesty & forgetmenots & an orchard of unsprayed cherry trees, as we're leaving, dorothy asks "where's the next one" & a woman tells us offhand "the devil's halfacre" where ghosty downs killed his wife & cut her into pieces "intense" breathes claire as we pull up next to a new brick venereal & landscaped beds red & yellow & white like the flag of a new country the garden walkers stroll the grounds keeping to the crazy paving not daring to tread on the too-green grass where no children play "they must be mainlanders" heather observes "a local would never build here" & we cram back into the car, drive walk admire until we reach the last one before lunch the house is an old weatherboard done up tuscan style, & surrounded by photos before & after, this is serious gardening more parterres than versailles, i quip precision trimmed topiary i expect the guy comes out & shouts it all to "tenshun" every morning, even the daisies are trained up poles, i wait for the queen of hearts to come out in search of knaves with tarts but the lunch is back at the hall & we're hungry soup sandwiches slices & the walkers decide whether they've had enough we want more, so it's off to lucky strike lane another garden, just like a garden we could see a lot closer to home & we walk About the Poet MML Bliss MML Bliss (Magenta Bliss) was formerly known as jenny boult. She changed her name for personal reasons. She was once told in the post office of a country town in the north-east of Tasmania that she might be jenny boult on the mainland, but in Derby, she was Mrs. Smith. Poems, stories and plays by jenny boult and MML Bliss have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. MML Bliss has been translated into French, Swedish, Norwegian, Urdu, German and Italian. MML Bliss was awarded a Booranga Writers Fellowship, Wagga Wagga, in 2002. She lives in Launceston, Tasmania. MML Bliss is available for readings and workshops in schools and community centres.    [Above] Photo of MML Bliss by Tim Thorne, 2002. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.3 (March, 2001)