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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                         #4/thyla4c THE POETRY OF RON PRETTY Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Poet Ron Pretty by Chris Verheyden, 1998. "riding the instant - a million years of growth come to this pause, this wonder." I Angler I Bald Hill with Gliders I Whalesroad I Blacks & Reds I Lake's edge I Epiphany Perhaps I Piglet As Decadent Gibbers I Halfway to Eden I In the desert I On the Hay Plain I Paterson's Curse as Salvation Jane I Promise I stalking utopia I STUBBLE FIELD I The Map the Territory I The Thin Man I Vinespace I Water I Wombat I Angler Sunlight glitters off the river for the angler as he drifts, line between his fingers, easing downstream across the sandflats.                                            For the fish soon to drown, the shafts of sunlight beam down through the green water lighting the dangling bait like a blessing. Caught by sudden beauty sunlit, the fish rises into air where the angler rips out the hook, drops the whiting in the net, and forgets it as it drowns in its own element betrayed. He takes another worm, threads it, drops it beside the boat and sees it float away.                                            He succumbs to the beauty of the afternoon: the boat drifts downstream through the glittering barbs of the sun. Published in Halfway to Eden (Hale & Iremonger, 1996). Bald Hill with Gliders The Falcon's down there, see it there? Where they pushed it over. Here, look, the skid marks, the scrub's broken. There's the rock fall, brought it down too, the cliff is fragile, crumbling. Trees at drunken angles, uncertain in space. The car's nest halfway up the cliff - or down, depends which way you're going. Down, we're going down. I want the diff, the gearbox and the rack & pinion. That's all. But there's no way down from here - over Bald Hill then, and down, down to the Park, and round the headland. Below the cliff then up again, through the lantana. So we went down, around the hill, the hang- gliders hovering above us like vultures, like rainbow vultures, no hiding place, their nylon wingtips tight & quivering in the breeze. Thermalling off the cliff face, hanging on the wind's lip, whistling on the drop. While we on foot set off to find the Falcon in its eyrie, pushed off the ledge for the thrill of the fall. Joyriders bailing out, the car not flying, stooping. At the base, lantana torn, we glance up furtively at overtowering rocks, the car wedged precariously in the crumbling face. Bright against the sky the gliders, rimmed with a light that almost flickers. Hovering or swooping, climbing against the breeze. Joyflights colourful as threat. No hiding place, drifting past the cliff face where we cling and clamber up the lower slopes, clawed by spikes and sharp shards of rock. Scrabbling upwards, grabbing at shrubs that pull away from the wall, struggling for footholds, handheld. Halfway up we stop, the Falcon hangs a hundred feet above. A hand, a falling stone, perhaps a breeze is all it needs, or so it seems, to bring it crashing down upon us defenceless on this open face. A glider drifts down, curious, the disks of the goggles eyeing us blindly. The struts sing in the breeze, the shrubs wave as it passes. Then another drifts towards the Falcon, swoops across a foot or two away. We can almost see the body stir, almost feel it start its fall towards us. And here we are, suspended on this rock face between the Falcon and the air, the pinions of the gliders drifting past. Published in Bald Hill with Gliders (Five Islands Press, 1992). Whalesroad Whales roll in the shallows pilgrims at the end of their road, fluting. Stunned by the fist of the air, the unforgiving sand, they watch as the huge red eye of the sun floats on the gunmetal rim of the mist and they give themselves up to well-meaning rubber heaving in waves like sleek grey nurses tending or wet-suited priests at their rites. The beached whales roll in the surf, gasping attainment of ecstasy. Remembering that cold gospeller who promised them this gritty haven, they refuse the ministering nudges and insist their chosen destiny is on the beach. Published in The Habit of Balance (Five Islands Press, 1988). Blacks & Reds Now the rain heavy as a banker blankets the earth. The crickets shrill and the frogs, their deepest notes percussive, wind in the trees & the strings at the window. Do not go naked on this spring night. Starless and rainshadow, the ark inside us afloat, the couplings in the belly of the whale, the plankton humming. Here is no courting for young men; the old pump up the banknotes as they plump on the bed. The women sigh the sound of rain on good tile roofs their gowns are dream and the lingerie silk as a spiderweb. Their vessel aleak as it drifts with the tide the storms are all played out, the bed is damp with sweat and patience the Jaguar snug in the garage the double brick with water views of rain in sheets across the road and the hunched figure come looking for shelter, termite and talisman testing the locks and the will to denial. The ark is overloaded by this one drenched youth, shaved head and sackcloth, wasting his birthright on the needles of envy. Alone, adrift, his soles awash; on the concrete drive a spot in the lea of a wall. The banker comforts the lie-in caretaker to his fantasies and rings the police. Triple 0 on such a night, he thinks, the scum rises with the floods, king browns in the back blocks surfing the rivers while in the suburbs it's the blacks and reds are feared. Lake's edge leafless trees stare at their own reflection rigid in the shallows; scrubby ridges ring with a silence so deep it echoes - no bird wing stirs nor paw disturbs the coupling of the trees where they thrust at sky and water metallic limbs and reedbeds mat the shallows where another dawning shakes the startled quarry: a mallard suddenly driving upwards is also plunging down and feathers furtively drifting kiss their rising image before the mirror ripples into jaws to grip the bloodied morning like a vice. Published in The Habit of Balance (Five Islands Press, 1988). Epiphany Perhaps That pause, epiphany perhaps, between the lightning and the thunder, the moment of silence between the wail of brakes and splintering glass and metal, between crack of rifle and startle of blood on his shirtfront, the moment when the ferry pushed to the limit of list by wind and waves, ponders whether to righten, whether to turn again into the storm. That moment of waiting, when the ice cracks, the car flips, the branch breaks with you astride it: almost epiphany riding the instant - a million years of growth come to this pause, this wonder. A mountain at the peak of its upthrust a species at this apex of parabola the limit of its spread: the Roman empire meets the Goths, begins its slow retreat. How did we get to this? This moment in the song where the instant finds its infinity of monkeys, pauses, and one of them begins to type: In the beginning was the word, was a white flicker of lightning on swirl of gunmetal curtain, backdrop to your towers: Shall gods be said to thump… the instant of knowledge pauses in thunder the clouds swirl closer, the Thames Valley floods, the Seychelles go under, a million years drown: epiphany. Perhaps.. The Piglet as Decadent He doesn't know the knife as he trots around his pen on confident feet. Snout down and snorting feeding in the trough the day seems pretty good to him The sun shines, the blowflies sing and him squealing in play around his knife-bound brothers happy as a crab in a mangrove swamp. All the days of his litterage draw to this sharp point like a visit to the dentist or the doctor (scalpel ready) to slice away that problematic growth and leave him gentle, civilised, a credit to humankind. He lies on his side in the sun on the mud like Nero in purple robes and (the fire next time) growing bigger and slower while the singers hymn at his nose and his little eyes squint at the swell food like manna from the other side of the fence and the shiny black boots marching in. Gibbers He dreamed he started growing     again at fifty     upwards an inch or two a year      his friends     and they were many shook their heads     I wonder how long     one murmured soon     they found themselves     looking up at him the doctor     could only shake his head     perhaps a year maybe even two     there's not a lot we know     about growing     shrinking     yes     or getting eaten inside out we know what to expect     but this gain of stature at your age     there's not a lot we can do     the patient rose to leave     ducking under the door     before putting his hat on come back     when you're cured     the doctor said or when you need     some pain     killers stronger than rum in the street     the locals     nudged their friends     while laughing children     followed a mile or two     and then slipped back white     around the lips     with what they'd seen he loped on     into the desert     with only dogs for comfort they went home     tail between their legs     the second day and owners     wondered     at blistering paws alone     among the shimmering stones     he moved only at night     by day     from whatever     patch of shade he watched the desert ripple     and flow     lizards he saw on the hot rocks     and far above     the giant wings circling     nowhere to hide     I may be some time     he muttered between cracked lips     looking up     at the drifting wedgetail     by the fourth day     feeling ready at last     he ignored     the gusting heat the scorching gibbers     and simply walked out     into the nearest mirage Published in Bald Hill with Gliders (Five Islands Press, 1992). Halfway to Eden The road snaking through hills a silver chain between breasts the country green as granny smiths herself when young. Clouds of sheep white in their nakedness piebald cows against the blue. Through Mogo forest the motor coughed and died. Bellbirds in the tall gums a carpet of sound against the silence, a pizzicato flute foregrounded. - That's more like it she said making love, her breath against my ear, unless you make me a child again we'll never get closer than this - her sad arms, their soft down and bruises halfway to Eden, under the fading green of the trees cars on the highway switching on lights. In the desert In the desert the sun is hell on the hot rocks; only the nomads go there, nothing else moves but the slow folding of earth, and those tenuous trails, the songlines so faint the people learn them step by step from birth in songs and dance from water soak to dreaming of the ancestors buried there waiting to recreate. The genius of forest is staying to build against the cold - from hearth fire to combustion engine, the structure of the city, the fury of the football crowds and fuhrers. That of the desert is moving with few possessions or none towards a meaning hidden like a soak under the rocks with snakes and scorpions and the deductive mirage that draws you deathwards promising belief. Published in Bald Hill with Gliders (Five Islands Press, 1992). On the Hay Plain On the Hay plain. Twenty K to a bend. Fifty to a hill. Crows. Heat. Emus and crows. Rabbits & roos by the roadside, car fodder. Dust when the trucks blow past. Beyond the shimmering the sheep. Beyond the sheep a two day walk to water. But here's a lamb. Or the skin of a lamb draped over new bones. Lost & propped by the roadside. Still life with crows waiting; a threesome, their beady yellow eyes. They flop aside at our approach. The lamb turns & stumbles. On the Hay plain. This is the dust, the stubble. This is the death & the crows waiting. Rabbits & roos, soft targets for trucks at night. & the black wing marking the spot, flopping away indifferent. The walk across the plain, Hay to Balranald. Walking by night with the stars sharp to the rim the Southern Cross wheeling but the road is guide enough. The trucks on auto not dodging the roos or those on the wallaby. The endless plain. The mute sense of walking without movement. Dust that lifts to the ankles, drifts to the gutters. No life but the crows. We walk because the road is there, not because Balranald waits. The town dying in the heat and drought, shops in the main street boarded up the children gone, survivors going. That's no destination; hardly even an ambition. Better it almost seems to lie down under the weight of the sun, discard the boots, the dust encrusted blanket, to lie down in the straggling shade of the only bush this hour's march or so ... but the crows, the black wait of the crows & the lamb that stumbles eyeless, lost by the roadside It's the beak that keeps us going & the kangaroo pulp by the roadside & the emptiness of dying on the Hay plain halfway to Balranald. Published in Halfway to Eden (Hale & Iremonger, 1996). Paterson's Curse as Salvation Jane                                               So they set out again                                               the weary travellers                                               seeking the long vistas                                               the purity of sand away from the cluttered rim of town, the hessian shanties riddled with ants, the stinking creeks.                                               They crossed again the semi-settled plains, the semi-tamed cattle stampeding as they passed, finding the edge of the desert, the sandhills of the mind rippling and flowing in the antiseptic air - the Gunbarrel Highway, the Birdsville Track - faint first yearnings sketched in sand and almost buried.                                               They crossed again from south to north, from east to west back & forth, seeking the centre, the transparent core and finding it sand. Knowledge too dry for some to carry, who laid themselves down in the shade by the dried-up bed to wait for relief or death the same whichever came.                                               From that dead centre radiating, the desert ripples and flows, the inland sea swamping the vision, the desert now and always on the move. In the path of the blown intentions lashing the skin like sea-spray, the settlements go under: outposts crumbling, out-grazed pastures rising in windblown sand drifting east, drifting south; exploring the towns abandoned in its path the desert comes                                               to the centre of town again                                               choking the fountains, the hillsides                                               like Paterson's Curse or                                               Salvation Jane. Published in Halfway to Eden (Hale & Iremonger, 1996). Promise                                                  From high on the blade of the escarpment we watch the thin mist falling, the droplets glitter on lashes, the cuffs of your coat. The green of the washed gums, the dark rocks and you with your tent of hair after the day's wait, watching the sky thicken and pale the brittle sun fade into haze the first drops drifting like dust rising and floating (and the albatross caught in the long lines dying) and you turning to me, knowing the long dry, the parched need in the silence, the gulls drifting the mist in the fading light, you turning to me with droplets on cheeks and lashes, the drought unbroken but the drifting rain soft as a promise. Somewhere in the gloom the frogs begin their parlay with the reeds. That broken column set beside the wharf Reminds the villagers of World War One, Truncated youth, decapitated life; The clichés tinted red with martyrdom. The Corso sports a large memorial, A marble pillar with a globe on top, For ceremonious displays with all The rhetoric of beer, ribbons of crépe. The smaller monument has dignity Though placed beside a pier that displays sharks In an aquarium for all to see How big feeds upon little; how war slakes The old communal thirst for sacrifice In universal terms, not once, but twice. stalking utopia braking by the wide verandah    a pall of dust behind the ute    dogs slouching towards the driver    waiting to be borne aloft    loaded on the tray    no-one walks to the shadow of the pub    stalking utopia a string quartet    isaac stern on first staring into the dado    jackie on cello brushing at flies    with her beau (call him dan) waiting in the parlour    utopia this is despite the dusty space    that swallows sound (a plucked string    sends the pullets clucking and scratching in the dirt    laying eggs for the king browns to swallow    and the taipans)    inside the ladies    lounges the pianist (call him dan)    displays his charm muscular crescendo    spent diminuendo as the schubert    swells in utopia    and fades if only the rain    flooding down the diamantina    or the train up from the big smoke    perfection here is all too dry    (if musical)    and lonely despite the van    its loaded dogs disappearing up the road    towards the diggers weekly shaft    the golden sunset as the quartet    saws the evening into dusk    into dust    settling on strings and sounding board    tomorrow we paint the stump black    pure black back of utopia    the camel lies down with the dingo    the potbellied children (their thinness stalks)    agog with the music wanting nothing STUBBLE FIELD for Rae Sexton \MICROLAB2\SYS\MAIL\40000001\LOGIN Starlings like quaversprint their black messages on Could not set the default drive to drive. Intruder detection lockout has disabled this account. The EXIT command followed by a string is not supported on this machine. Usage: Login [/Options] [Server/] [Username] [ScriptParameters]Options :              Clear screen             Private     Global             No attach             Script Would you like to change your password? (Y/N) You are attached to server. Enter your login name: Starlings like a string of Control characters not allowed in command. Enter your password: Starlings Unknown, but correctly parsed, command found in login script. NetWare shell not loaded. Could not find label "%s". No known file server. Line too long. Access to server denied. Attempting to login from an unapproved station. Attempting to login during an unauthorized time period. Attempting to simultaneously login to too many work stations. The supervisor has limited the number of active connections you may have. like quaversprint their black messageson Password has expired and all grace logins have been used. You have %d grace login(s) left to change your password. This account has expired or been disabled by the supervisor. You have exceeded your credit limit for this server. You do not have an account balance for quaversprint their black messages This server charges for file services. The file server has reached its maximum number of connections. Unknown file server. No response from file server. The supervisor has the bindery locked or SYS volume is not mounted. Enter your new password: Starlings Retype your new password: black messages Line contains no end quote. New password not retyped correctly. Your password has been changed. New password is too short. The new password has been used previously. Would you still like to change your password? (Y/N) Y (Private) The number of script parameters exceeds the program limit of %d. Drive Error setting workstation date and time. Can't get connection information. Some identifiers are invalid. "LIKE" statements nested too deeply. The nesting limit is %u levels. Attempted to divide by zero. Strike any key when ready. Could not interpret line. Invalid path specification for carand am gone Car drive does not exist. Not enough room in DOS environment for pages of bleached land Could not execute external program. Not enough memory. We are all old fossils. We're ad©proof TV immune video©ignorant computer illiterate. Do you ever think of getting a job? Sometimes I dream of it, he said. Starlings like quavers/print their black messages/on pages of bleached land/I read it all from a fast car/and Drive does not exist. Invalid path specification for carand am g The Map the Territory We open the map. Empty. A thin black line joining dot to dot across the creases, the square states of silence. The red silence and flat. The dusty road the pitiless horizon whichever way. A car dead by the roadside, bones of a bullock pale against the red earth and the sun knifing down. We stare at the map. A broken wavering floodtime creekline crossing the road an hour's drive away. A homestead ditto with its watertanks and windmills. Don't worry you say, there'll soon be a truck. We look both ways to the edge of fear, the sun with its knives at three o'clock. Don't leave the car, rest in its meagre shade. Wait. A truck or car. At five o'clock the shadows begin to stretch. At six in the silence, in the desiccated air, a whisper of movement. You stand and do not mention your thirst. I open our only can. Soon a car or the radiator: it's not yet time to wonder what mixture's there. You fold the map. The earth stays flat, the scar of the road in the twilight. I shiver in the cooling air, the earth; the map the territory. Perhaps at last a car or truck. We listen to the silence and watch for dust. Published in Halfway to Eden (Hale & Iremonger, 1996). The Thin Man The mosquito has no pity for the thin man - African proverb the thin man, harassed by mosquitos can never escape the swamp. the frogs at their chorus salute him even as they mock and the dragonflies flirt above the surface the thin man, his bones aching by the creek fishing for yabbies with line & piece of bread slaps at his arms & legs in the still air & the crays disappear in a puff of soft mud daily he comes to this slow moving creek to sit & to feel his heartbeat jumping at the black oil gliding over the rocks or the sudden thump of a startling wallaby lighting out through the brittle scrub or the call of the frantic bird, hysteria rising to match his own. in the thin shade he sits his heart pump erratic, his humpy half a mile through scrub, another mile to town his last refuge & loneliness he sits alone by the side of the pool heart beating, slapping at mosquitos hating the scrub, the heat, the sudden snakes & unsourced noises of the bush because it offers silence: he's lost the art of speech with bosses, mates, or fellow workers is dumb before them all, & all women he knows he has nothing to offer, nothing to say & if he remembers a wife & children - two girls the morning sun shone out of - it's only dimly it's only now & then, wondering vaguely where they are, how old they are, he knows they haven't thought of him, not since he built his rough shed in the bush from purloined iron & hardwood posts he found beside the road he hates the shed, the bush, the life he leads the hot mosquito silence in which he wastes his days but he's lost the art to dream of any other only at night, when the campfire flares he sees in its leaping shapes the bluish edge of possibilities foregone, of other lives he might have lived, if only the mosquitos would set him free. if only one night in fitful sleep on the sapling and canvas bed he's built if only one night when the wind is up & the smoking fires drive the mossies away if only dawn through the scrub could have come as some nubile nymph to rekindle his fire but even as he dreams, he knows that if she came a youthful body at the borders of his mind he'd snap & snarl & send her back to town without a pleasant word. better that than she should pity him, his quiet incompetence his fear of snakes, his panicked misconnection the yabbies nervous creeping to the bait tied to his piece of string. a thin man, his brittle limbs brown with the years & the mosquitos that seek him out. Published in Of the Stone: New and Selected Poems (Five Islands Press, 2000). Vinespace If you take a tree and sketch it                as it is, it's an outline,                an image of the tree: there, you say, that's what it                looks like, feels like, is like -                tree and attendant vine; but if you abstract from it                the bulk of the trunk, you say                it's a symbol: of strength                solidity, stubborness                inability to adapt ... or you take the vine                writhing round the buttress                looping from the lower branches and                that's an image. Until you say                there is the reaching into space                of Henry of Sagres                sending ship after ship southward, southward                watching them, year after year                returning in failure                year after year looping homewards or a spider trailing silken threads                out of itself, floating them on the breeze                (as these skeins of wood float delicately in space)                till it finds a place to anchor, to build                towards its trap, as Machiavelli                with his labyrinthine threads                curling them outwards, calling them in                with a prince attached, or a state to ransom ... here in the rainforest the tree                its solid bulk                its trailing wooden loops and the vine that clings and climbs                parasitic on that honest trunk                strangling it in the century-spanning                instant: the python vine,                its victim held in loving embrace                till the sap dries, the solid wood                rots; and the spiral space                (the host melted like wafer,                the empty steeple) writhes in its own twisted beauty. Published in The Habit of Balance (Five Islands Press, 1988). Water                           Not in any dream of seagull gliding or ocean tumbling not in any cloud of plankton drifting or calm seas sighing beside a road run sandy, curving into seasons constant as mirage                           in none of these nor the soft down between the thighs the rounded buttocks, the grave breasts, their aureoles knowing the first lips and the last, the tongues of some passion;                           not in any sense of the taylor's polished teeth spinning its line, the gulls' cries in the waste, the waves cure of green water dumping, the bodies rolling together,                           never in these nor the late spring coming after a winter remembering coral & some thoughts of summer, the crowds wrapped in towels & hands in their costumes;                           not in any memory of green water or glassy swells passing the innermost cape the swimmers feeling for curves, the strings of blue pain floating or waiting on beaches,                           nor the shiver in the night wind, the moon at your door and the window glancing at stars in their showers & cliffs in the sunrise;                           not in any of these, nor any dream of pelican, but in the night and the desert, sandy wastes stretching to stars sharp on the rim, silence and cold and only the knowledge you carry like water, a ration to wet your parched lips; or to freshen the temples, the dust soft as talcum you breathe Published in Of the Stone: New and Selected Poems (Five Islands Press, 2000). Wombat for Nicolette Stasko Shivering with the fear and need of love is apt to make the boy forgetful. So when we returned from the grass beyond the road in the Royal National - or Pasho Park as the schoolkids called it - I wasn't surprised to see the doors left open. What did surprise were the trusting yellow eyes staring out of darkness in the back. Cats are dumped miles from home as alternative to drowning. Tamed wombats after they dig up the potato patch and novelty has given way to smell are returned to the scrub they came from. This one had kept his faith in humans as the easier way to food.                  Made generous by natural pleasures beneath the trees I shut the door and took him home. There was some difficulty in explaining how I'd come by such an unsuburban acquisition; and my parents, the joys of love long lost, soon tired of uprooted glads and holes beneath the steps. Apparently angry, but secretly pleased once the girl moved on to indoor pleasures with someone else I took the great brown smelly lump to the local backyard zoo. Old Man Martin gave me a tenner for my troubles which I spent as consolation playing the bandits at the local club. Every now and then I go to see the wombat comfortably housed in his neat wire cage. I even saw the girl there once but she only rubbed against her mate and smiled. Published in The Habit of Balance (Five Islands Press, 1998). About the Poet Ron Pretty Ron Pretty has been publishing his poetry for more than 30 years. He has published four books of poetry, the most recent being Of the Stone: New and Selected Poems published in 2000. His book on the writing of poetry, Creating Poetry, was first published by Edward Arnold and was reissued this year in a revised edition. He was editor of the literary/arts magazine Scarp from 1984 until its demise in 1999. He has taught writing in schools, universities and community groups throughout Australia and in the US, England and Austria. From 1983 until he took early retirement in 1998 he was head of writing in the Faculty of Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong. He is the director of Five Islands Press which has published over 130 books of contemporary Australian poetry. With John Millett, he has set up the Poetry Australia Foundation, a non-profit organisation promoting the writing, reading, reviewing and teaching of poetry in this country. The first issue of Blue Dog: Australian Poetry, sponsored by the Poetry Australia Foundation, will be launched in May this year. He was awarded the 2001 NSW Premier's Special Award for Services to Australian Literature.    [Above] Photo of Ron Pretty by Chris Verheyden, 1998. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.4 (September, 2001)