THIS WEEK'S WORDS at Sundays Whirligig come from "Daylight Rain" by Australian poet Michael Dransfield:
daylight, drunk, hearth, forward, inside, money, fire, anywhere, words, sometimes, spacious, map
veni vidi
and decided it was not for me
none of them made any money
out of words
there was no map to success
painters and poets of the counterculture
lived in spacious dilapidated condemned mansions
with big fire places
mantlepieces piled high with mail
which was never forwarded
people would sleep anywhere inside
after drunken parties
stoned off their faces
on the stairs
on the floor near the hearth
sometimes awoken by the occasional crash
of a falling ceiling
amazingly
no one was ever killed
i don't remember
much daylight or sunshine about them
grit grey was the colour of cool
the dreaded bourgeoise existence to be avoided at all costs
suddenly became enormously appealing
But that was years ago and we grew out of that didn't we?
ReplyDeleteSomething about that last line, the shift from grey (and the attendant sense of disorder) toward order, makes my brain happy. :)
ReplyDeleteMainly in St Kilda and Elwood ... thanks for the memories! (I wasn't really part of the counter-culture but I used to look in on it now and then.)
ReplyDeleteI had to smile at the closing. Comfort wins out in the end! You painted the scene so well, I could see it - the dilapidated mansion, like it was a movie.
ReplyDeleteYes! A Landlord Was Upset That We Kept warm One Night Burning The Neighbors Fence In The Fire Place. There Were No Complaints About The Music Though. : )
ReplyDeleteTsk I think baby boomers behaved badly when they were young...agree the music was good:)
ReplyDeleteincredible.
ReplyDelete