the nathan papers: 1

eucalyptus after rain, even this, trunks straight or sinuous, reminds of Sydney Long. art has made this environment, its pathways, marked, curve toward the dormitories

red mahogany (not ‘real’ mahogany, just a variety of eucalypt). and in the low-lying areas stringybark and needlebark. the path goes up the ridge. underbrush. a side track revegetating

forest on a hill
small brush turkey with undeveloped tail
furiously running

the science of this?            mound building?

I never wanted to be a poet. not like some people want to be one now. it just happened. and then it was too late to do otherwise

the template is buried (or burned), the elsewhere to this this for which I function (among others) as an as if. ‘imagine that all these things you’ve been taught are meaningless’. or slide into pure consumerism

iridescent bird shapes to scare birds off.
bolted shadecloth. fresh wind from the south

what if it were all like dejeuner sur l’herbe, those figures middle distance of cardboard, people passing in and out of substantiality?

my hands are foxed

we hear so many accents (at the Capital they hear only their own). in consequence, we are never sure of the sound of poems from elsewhere. this translates into an instability of our own soundings. if the sound of what we read as poetry bears not much relation to the original intent we may be less aware of poetry’s musical dimension

on the edge of sleep. black spiral binding, blue check bedspread

the great cake sails down the river

how approximate is this art?

an orange flies through the air en route to the dorms

 ‘you need a mess of help to stand alone’

rain in the atmosphere. the dampness of paper

driving to the Gold coast, the theme from ‘Get Carter’,
and back in the rain Mitch Mitchell’s cymbals hiss
on a barely visible road

poetry — the opposite of political speech? (that makes you think you can understand it)

crimson on the balcony against a yellow wash. a thunderous sky dims to bronze and cobalt, then pink and grey, then monochrome

the lit ferries and streetlights

David Roback’s effects pedal forces sustain into overtone

psychedelic verities

the rail track of mild techno. a music that says we are busy, we have things to do

small scented bushes fringe the cafeteria

Sky News: ‘alleged yob speaks’,
a panda walks on hind legs,
Saddam in underpants, Kylie’s breast ok

Mike Parr’s drawing. his painterly aspects
Ian Burn’s ‘value-added’ landscapes.

no matter how smart you are you can still be floored by Taj Mahal (with the Rising Sons) singing ‘2.10 Train’

the nathan papers: 4

the glare edging into summer. underbrush. what are the genes of words and what structures are we condemned to repeat? the machines write poetry, the poets build machines – or think they do. but the machines are smarter than the poets.

a certain redundancy.

Noosa, or Style over Substance. though I don’t mind.
at least the shop music is better.

maybe not.

a man runs with a block of ice.

we will be leaving all of this behind.

green sail, white sand, blue sky.

mountains up north. this is the Coral Sea.

lawn meets native grass.

Sheoaks – trees that give no shade.
Moreton Bay Figs – trees that do.

a peninsula (the Head), rainforest in the dips.

the notebook as a record of failure. I mean in the sense that only a few words of innumerable pages make it in any interesting way. not these.

what happened to the young man in that photograph? Petersham 1972.

the main problem for older writers must be boredom. But boredom can also produce writing . . . though not if you’re bored by the writing . . .

the words ‘bored’ and ‘writing’ overheard from an adjacent table.

storms that skirt the city

people are turning into product. their organized (for them) soundtracks. products that buy other products. capitalism would prefer a world of replicants.

the slight azure.

backdated milk in the common room.

the kookaburras are sated. and the shining owls have no effect.

Discussing poetry with W_____. His justification for writing it is — in a sense — that it’s not poetry. But he still wants it to be judged as if it were. If it doesn’t work in English he will say ‘but it’s not written in English’.

the differing textures of all these trunks. the strands and components of a world.

x & y, the pier
a screen of fish, a moon
over those washed-up planks
colour in a late sky
escapes edges of the paper

a tropic world
of night illuminations
as air is water
a searchlight swept through cloud
the landscape below revealed by lightning

misread: tall boy
for toy ball

there is too much philosophy

the language stumbles

already it’s summer. slight deformity of a crushed toe (impossible to ‘point’ on, but I never wanted to be a dancer).

my Florentine notebook

‘The sensation of needing to construct one’s relation to the foreign reality is one of the problems and pleasures of tourism.’  —Robert Harbison

 (what have I learned on the weekend? the ‘Oxford comma’, before ‘or’ and ‘and’)

a crowd panicked by difference
no better than its perceived enemies.