october

OK, it's the beginning of my month, cold inside but warm on the outerside. I saw a huge crow (raven) up the street chasing down outcast fish in the gutter, I saw two pigeons tossing around a huge scrap outside Woolworths. We drank medium Greek coffee and wondered about weather and art and letters that had to be written. How nothing stops. How far we'll walk this evening.

Still the cherry blossom has not burst with white or green. There are signs, two signs of petals, one of leaf. Maybe next week, it's been a long time coming. The bottle brush in the afternoon's west light is bright red, three branches have flowered and others almost. The first bubuls of the season on a TV antenna, the screeching parrots, a naked six year old kid running around a neighbour's backyard, some things forever young.

Coming up to this month, I wrote this quickly (on a day when it was overcast and raining, but today is warm and fine):

this rain
shivers on us
again

but again
that rare thing
extemporises

grey lain
among the green
or

orange lights
chase moving shadows
there

between road
and rotting rail
impasse

an action
of the state
anxious

sheeting
the lifting jet
fears

goes into
the seeded clouds
passing

we pass
as we go
into

[28 September 2005, 4.45pm]


And many years ago I wrote something about October. I've mixed with it on and off over the years. The latest is this:

October is a dream
running out
onto the hazy street
through other gateways
the sky.

Vicious winds dating birth
golden calm, a subtle time bomb
(time of the wheel
revolution).

Children play the afternoon.
News from the western plains
breathing out fire continent.

Day loosens
alien
with insects & dreams
brushed by air.

Born in a storm
in the afternoon
squalling sky to change.