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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                         #4/thyla4j THE POETRY OF KERRY SCUFFINS Selected by Coral Hull [Above] Photo of Kerry Scuffins and friend by Martin Scuffins, year unknown. "riding the instant - a million years of growth come to this pause, this wonder." I Reflections I Some distance past Kennett River I Rat City Blues I Killed Instantly I Blues for Renee I Your House Coburg Dogs I The Green Dream/(Kizzy's poem) I Strange Things I Your sister saw a boy I The second month of Spring I Tears are wine I Night. sweet city I Love, I don't understand I Come back romance - all is forgiven I Laika's Run I Here Today I Chernobyl I Melanie's corner 1 I Fishbowl II (black fish) I Reflections wind in the sky, sky in the river, river in the wind woman on the bridge i don't believe such violent red hair      its mirrored image drags parallel & below her in the water like some giant exotic goldfish the moon lurks also in the river in the sky     an old grey brain it sails in endless aimless circles belongs to nobody standing on the bridge i am a long way above the water      i think      down there, some river beings live      swaying with the tides as the river rocks & weeps they are old, & softer than Neptune & doze in the green depths, beneath the uneasy reflections sometimes you can hear their voices late at night/black sky broken up with insane scatterings of stars black river sometimes when the ice winds blow in from the sea thin & empty & the clockworks are slowing the edges blurring/a dreamscape/the bridge becoming a springboard for some final step you can hear their voices, beyond you or within you calling Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Some distance past Kennett River We drive a long way before we find this lonely cove      more rocks than sand more sea than anything       The edge of the planet is blurred      tilted bowl, ocean curving into sky On this side the boulders are sculpted, definite and each grain of sand shimmers There are no gulls     cormorants hunched on the reef supplicant heads thrown back     one: two     they dive Carefully we spread ourselves we have only one towel the waves incite you to sleep    the sun meanwhile fills my head with new colours I watch them dancing through shuttered lids            You      and      I I with my rope ladders to the stars you with your eyes from the desert, your deep brown eyes      closed now I envy your sleep      Still      I am here We lie naked in the sun       a pale day moon lurks in the comer of the sky like a scrap of tattered lace There is a man gathering shells furtively swinging an orange bucket I watch him through a fringe of hair, spy on a spy He finds many shells here Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Rat City Blues Ballarat this wind eats my flesh from my bones I can hear the miners' ghosts in its throat and the Chinaman's curse hangs goblin shapes in stripped branches Ballarat I run but I can't hide There's someone watching wherever I go whatever I do Ballarat stories get back and I'm a paradox in your odd pocket Ballarat Queen Victoria frowns down from the dead centre of town 'Round peg in a very square hole, young lady!' but the soldier from the Boer War tips me a grin as though to say, In Ballarat you take it on the chin Or get a haircut that blends you in . . . and his stone horse eats the wind looking into it and out towards Black Hill where some say gold is lying still reefs and pockets with no corners with nothing but the crumbs of my wild youth, come back to haunt me taunt me with all I'd forgotten 'Lost some weight . . .' ten years too late I try to smile, try to give it a while but Ballarat I'm freezing over stuck like your railway clock in your endless dusk Ballarat the wogs are coming and the Vietnamese You've got to keep on your toes cos they won't stay on their knees Ballarat I'm careful crossing your roads There's an army truck behind the odd mesh fence A hint of paranoia disguised as self defence and the time I counted driver's smiles came up with one in five - there's something there but I despair of keeping it - and me - alive And a man I loved with once in some green velvet time plays pool now like his life's on the line with a curl in his lip and a sneer in his eyes a haircut     a beergut     what's to recognise? Ballarat the boys call me slut playing eightball in bars sometimes beating them only a sheila, but But, but, Ballarat winning is losing here and youth is booze boredom speed insanity rough stuff tough enough mindless vanity quick thrills on the shores of Lake Wendouree and cars, wrapped round dead men's trees on the highway west, the last driving test . . . Falcon, aloft on the icy breeze takes the updraft and leaves the rest lifts her wings to the wind and flies looking for brighter skies. Published in Live Sentences (Penguin Books Australia, 1991). Killed Instantly The driver kneels feeling for the carotid pulse behind the slack jaw the hands     blood-studded badge of age. Death sits on his chest and the men in blue rest, no longer hurrying. Dead spoor. Gone away. The second ambulance draws alongside, the white bride of the reaper. Her veil floats over the closed face of the finished man. Her arms open for the last embrace. The crowd, who for a moment were sociable as crows wander back to their separate lives. I sit in the car watching the old man disappear and take out my pen, to keep him here. Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Blues for Renée Daughter oh daughter what have you done? Let go of land and put out the sun. Your own right hand has taken you down. Your own right hand has taken you down, hung on a wall, what a picture hon. Let go of land and put out the sun. "I'm trying to hang up!" your final pun. Daughter oh daughter, what have you done? Your own right hand has taken you down. Let go of land, and put out the sun. I watch you lowered into the ground. Your own right hand has taken you down. Daughter oh daughter what have you done? Your own right hand has taken you down in a lonely flat, in a distant town, let go of land and put out the sun. Your pain is ended, ours just begun. Daughter oh daughter what have you done? Your own right hand has taken you down. Your House Your handwriting your books your pen your pad                 unfilled your empty chair this quiet, quiet air Never before would Satchmo have sung in this room at this hour I can hear shooters in the forest but I can't hear you say Oh no. The bloody - Aren't they Dad those killers in one form or another aren't they everywhere Coburg dogs Coburg dogs behind steel mesh gates learn to bark all night, learn to pace out hate. Coburg dogs, stress and neurosis, a jail existence, a cruel hypnosis. Lost from their packs, stopped from their running by beings with worse things than animal cunning. The Green Dream (Kizzy's poem) Well old cat There's the last stone placed, the last flower planted. Little Tommy danced on your grave and Kim threw the frisbee on it. Of course they didn't know you were under there wrapped in my black lace dress after seventeen years never far from my side. I swear Tom said your name today, for the first time, and sooked for ages on my lap when he saw a cat on T.V. saying Mow mow mow all soft and sad. Kizzy you were the best little mate a girl like me could've had and I had to be the one to take you out. Cradling you as you purred and went to sleep then life left you and I lifted you, boneless and light, for the vet to check. Sitting on our front step where you liked to snooze in the sun crying and saying goodbye. And my stepdaughter Renée who grew up with you weeping too and helping me dig, and wrap your black-and-white in black, and cover you with earth, then rocks, then flowers. Tracked grave dirt all over the house in our big boots, bawling and drinking beer. Bye Kizzy, bye old dear. Strange things Boys strange things rather smash a door down with a hammer than say please let me in boys             let themselves just want their own way want to      win won't let it go make it stop won't             try - shatter a thousandyearold vase in a splitsecond of No! and I! big     child boys strange things run out of words when the blood sings cry in the dark cave where no-one ever walks or talks, and no bird calls, and no bell rings boys strange things in each football boot brute     a flute a violin         string boys             how I'm wondering how I'm looking in best mate of dogs and small boys and big noise, inventor of gods wiser than themselves who are to blame such clever games such deadly toys and yea didn't we walk with them through the valley of the shadow of our own disappearance? or death? or eternal damnation? boys strange things we all dwell in the shade of the black wings come take my hand, we are dancing come, take my hand       we are dancing Your sister saw a boy Your sister saw a boy swallowed by the river. She was walking her dogs Tory and Sally across the Murray Bridge where two fifteen year old boys were drinking beer and mucking around when one of them fell in. Your mum Dinga rings with the details - how he came up twice then didn't appear again, how the 000 service referred Pat to the Bendigo ambulance, how the Echuca police took thirty-five minutes to come, how someone suggested a net across the river, and a cop said Who's gonna do it, you? How the other kid kept saying That's me mate in there. How his mum was at work no-one knew where. How the SES were still searching. Bit of excitement says Dinga, and somewhere a boy lies cold and swaddled in river, the surface calm again, the night coming down. The second month of Spring Into this mystery the spring winds come Night breathes at the window, stars dance and leaves whisper. I could almost be dreaming lying in the same space I occupied when you began to be born remembering the kick inside, the storm that swallowed me to free you. Melanie, in cries and screams and laughter your head came out and your arm waved I knew at once you were a little girl and the song of your name. Writing through pain like breathing through contractions. The mists of vision trail a web of darkness. The door will never close on that quiet room. There I am again, holding you nodding to sleep over you. Your father kisses your face in wonder, in stunned grief. Subdued nurses bring morphine remove the drip, the monitors, pathetic last bastions. Still you glow, you watch me till the drug closes your eyes and the wheel of time turns into your final day. My forehead touches the velvet of your hair and I blink awake to this loud silence of your not-being. Are you somewhere friendly? Are you free and warm? Photos, Melanie, and helpless words and images that won't be put away all the changes, all the love and pain of those three days between the birth push and the goodbye look.                  Melanie Bay Phillips                  26/10/84-29/10/84                  Hypoplastic left heart syndrome Published in Live Sentences (Penguin Books Australia, 1991). Tears are wine I prayed to space, delirious and deep. A goddess whispered, in some sentient sleep - Go, and praise the road that ate your father. Love the earth that swallowed your daughters whole. Seek forever the answer always mystery. In the very throat of fear, fear nothing. Tears are wine. Love's divine. All forsake this place in time. Night. sweet city here is the void      the web      you spin network of city      of nothing known or remembered. symbols. the disappearance of what or who is recognised. reality's an idea a dust mote in the corner of yr eye. the iris grey as autumn rain. men surround you, like the DTs a multitude of spiders, almost you don't believe in them except when you close yr eyes and they will not vanish.     walk the street, wait at the red light, their eyes slide between yr clothes and skin, small exploratory daggers.       it's written on you or in you, they sense it      the new face, unfamiliar or no longer recollected. there are no old friends here      no dead friends.     alone. one man waits somewhere, behind the crowds, gone from you. the cobbled street is a chessboard. the moves end in stalemate. the chess men are tall and dark as ravens      even the sky folds down like giant bird wings, splintered black feathers spear into street lights. you're back, back in the black, playing the old waiting games.     trying to light a candle, trying to burn a vanished flame. yr black coat is yr shroud covers bruises      scars    etched arms      frayed jeans the worn shell of the spacecraft       idling      idling Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Love, I don't understand Here's another man who's fallen for you, love. He thinks I am you. Each small sound in the night outside could be him, patiently advancing towards the dream made flesh. In the twelve o'clock fog of a Melbourne midwinter lie vast unrealities - Paris in the 1930s or America, Broadway shadow upon skyscraper shadow bearing down on artists and dreamers changing the colour of their souls to midnight black and all that can bloom in such darkness are your flowers, love. Now he's plucked one, swears it wears my face why can't I see it? All I see are eyes hands      traps and games and the mind behind my frame       lost in your name. Oh love, I'd like to fit you like a glove but your picture's still not clear enough though god knows I've cried for you like anybody else tried to fit your face to those so close to mine searched for a meaningful embrace and eyes that see the inner space looked in dark for light to shine - where does it end? I can't pretend to find your call enchanting any more. Dreams end      dawn comes     and truth's an ache that won't let up but love, for all the cuts and the scar-hardened heart that hungerthump deep in the gut strums for another start: leave me     don't leave me make me believe you makebelieve me an angel, I'll see you drive away demons     move heaven and earth give this fantasy birth     and breath       and fever      and flying fearless of time, and death. Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Come back romance - all is forgiven the music grows weary      words     become moments      fading eventually into still light      there is little else to say             he leaves with the rain echoing through his head echoing through the soft hollow chambers of night falling as though the sky mourned the absence of stars choked by clouds into silence    street lights a poor imitation pulsate on comers      Back in the land of lampshades and JJ Cale she draws the curtains precluding night      and his image    steps back into the afterlove fragments      tossed sheets beer bottles and emptiness      tired of analysing she puts a record on to drown the insistent clock and      sensing morning curled like a cat beyond the chimneys - somewhere becoming dawn -      she crawls under the bedclothes to shut out light/thought/things that got lost      and draws the blanket      over her head like a shroud like that deepest sleep, which brings only blackness and silence. Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Laika's Run I think about you Laika when I get the blues I think of you so far away in the loneliness of space your curiosity turning to concern. What did you think and do floating up there in the blue? I know you waited for someone to come for company, for rescue. Did you miss the sun? Did you know the earth was earth? I think of you alone, your certain doom, crying in that endless night somewhere beyond the moon and I cry too. In Julian May's Intervention you are picked up by friendly aliens who adopt you as mascot, and take you. in their travels from planet to planet, and you laugh and play the rest of your natural days. Oh Laika can we believe that anyone saved you? More likely you suffered then died and your flesh fell into bones and your bones fell into dust as the shuttle - is there rust in space? continued on to no destination no new worlds no salvation Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Here today Murmured greetings they touch her shoulders and hair      moving around her like shadows      their eyes are veiled      they are all            strangers Not that it matters       they radiate warmth slow     stoned smiles flicker like candles like sudden thoughts      frozen      never becoming words                                           She needs no love no promises       needs only something to hold on to in the still cold hours before dawn       There are many to choose from       if she could still choose              but they press closer       insistent as sleep and their faces are one face (and that                    is fear)                   Narcotic images nibble through the hard edge of darkness and catch on the flat planes of light around the lamps      and the one who wants her the most      follows her into morning       fucks her       finds no path into her head                                          and when she wakes again the house is empty        except for a sad Alsatian crying by the dead fire She wanders through the rooms       whispering their names       the dog pads after her no-one answers not even the wind In the garden black crows settle, bumping in mournful silence through the weeds       Inside only some frail dust fragments stir around her             filtering through the shutters like misplaced memories or ghosts. Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Chernobyl (Three perfect ears) The government told us there would be no radiation sickness We were instructed to cover our heads outside wash our clothes daily and the women, if pregnant, were advised to have abortions but the sun continued to shine and we felt we were safe My uncle spoke to the American reporter Look at my niece, he said, is she not beautiful? She will be a doctor Come back in ten years to admire her She will be healthy and even more beautiful and Anya offered the man a round, red tomato The crops were fine, better this year than ever before This morning when I walked in the garden the sparrows talked of summer the child felt well in my swelling belly turning as though she heard the birdsong and I found, among the corn three perfect ears, in one husk Surely this must be lucky Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). Melanie's corner 1 having no faith in gods or miracles when the doctor says It's hopeless I believe him and so must watch you die and hold you down hours and kiss you and sing and feel time slip through my fingers and cry because it's hard darling the hardest thing all the years I thought were laid before you fled into a vanished October all the words I thought to sing to you are barbs in cut flesh, I rip them from me agony     ecstasy     rooms full of memories and Melanie, what's left to do but write you down, I guess a kind of life created in this corner where your cradle stood. Fishbowl II (black fish) That black fish with the fugitive mentality killed two of his wives. Now he's in the small tank with the other heavies the bleak, dark fish that creep from rock to rock, dragging their shadows. His second wife was a consummate digger filling her mouth with stones, creating refuge. Every day a great hand divided her sky and brushed the stones flat as a wall but she kept digging, even with him black fish, assassin, mad with confinement; and the hand, and the glass bottom of the tank all saying     End of the line. Published in Laika's Run (Five Islands Press, 1995). About the Poet Kerry Scuffins Kerry Scuffins was born Canberra, 1958 and grew up in Ballarat in Victoria. She scrambled through various misadventures to H.S.C., then left home and worked as a nursing aide. Ventured to Geelong for a B.A. at the only university with a creative writing course she could find, Deakin. Kerry has spent the last eleven years in the inner city suburbs of Melbourne and has taught at various high schools (Dip. Ed., 1983). Other employments include public servant, brickies' labourer, and salesperson - usually terminated by efforts to Live On Art and taken up again in the cause of simply living.    [Above] Photo of Kerry Scuffins and friend by Martin Scuffins, year unknown. I Next I Back I Exit I Thylazine No.4 (September, 2001)