was built on the site of a massacre.
Never talk about it
folks in the town don’t
especially the oldest because
they know silence is a lid.
The Town Hall’s piano
is made from real elephants.
Steel strings ate up a lot of air
but the sweetest excuses are forthcoming
at the Meeting, every third Tuesday.
There was this story about a wild girl.
1983 the pub was a Friday frenzy
some blokes in from the outlyings.
THEY had families too &
you couldn’t gaol boys for Inevitability.
Town has a woman doctor now
& “real-proper” late-night security.
There’s a little gallery with Native art,
Aunty Anne is a regional treasure
(tourist numbers up each year).
There are plans for murals
pertaining to be reconciliation.
The town weirdo took too many pills.
Atrocity hangs around
long after the date.
One can still pass it in the street
& be slightly changed.
Civic Fathers know the score,
build fretfully but a subtle accretion of
half-hearted remorse & refusal
enfeebles change — for good or bad.
This is how it goes
in the field.
Judgement is complicated.
At the end of George St
three houses
folks been there all their lives.
One is hate-filled,
fireplace ablaze with perceived affront.
Next door the widow will nervously give bread
then shoo you on
to the third where you’ll be invited in.
Mary understands risk
its paltry weight
alongside such need.
Into the Snow.
Having packed all his wayward organs Justin was a duffel bag of failure.
Away from government & the kids
he thought he had tried.
The whole world may be dying
but he took it personally.
To near a little town to drown
in Vacancy.
Life rode him down
the last lasso of the last rodeo.
Hit hard, hit early
ambition frays the rope.
Still wore the hate badges
despite being told they were not medals.
Hacking through grasses
as those notions of path sniggered from the margin.
Up to the peak which was really
just another peak. Undeserving of a name.
Winds howled about Justin’s head
the final consensus.
Somewhere in a snowstorm
a person’s mind turns to regret.
It’s glacial.
Justin will be remembered, episodically.
Perhaps for a year.
He’s newly created space on a bookshelf or
promotion opportunities snatched as merited, overdue.
So many bodies preceded him
rot by rote, we too.
Backtown Boys High – Strength Through Struggle.
I had a glide, man. Me, never had it
but was a happy drunk —
perhaps the only time I was loose, free.
Outer suburban — the Backtown Inn was so slack
Toby had to stand on his schoolcase to see & order over the bar.
My first massages, Oliver opened up shoulders
then other parts, come on in
. Never discussed sexuality
in our forest of want. I was 15
& everything was illegal.
Spun the bottle, played
grown-up with god
but it was just another coat.
Guilt was too much work
the only ambitions I had
were to get the hell out
& out-of-it.
I was a huge disappointment,
worked my way down. My Good parents worried.
There was a war going on
burning children
anyone could play.
That dirty world needed change
but Freedom was expensive. Still is.
Up for anything. No idea about girls
but heard they had things going on too.
There were so many moons
their scabs & pedagogy.
Flying past an unplanned murder attempt
my bike couldn’t stop. I heard one piece of news
from otherwise inexplicable migrant hostel folk.
Someone from the Intervention Bookstore came to the school
talked about Mayakovski.
Our French teacher implored
we may one-day go to La France.
She was guffawed into submission.
Hare Hare Krishna too young
for peripheries, my beard was in Arabic
but the meaning was clear.
Jim’s best friend’s mum
had been fucking him
since he was 11. Don’s parents
took me in for a few weeks…
can’t believe there were no questions.
Ronnie started lighting fires,
was inexplicably moved to a selective school.
Johnno was all string & attitude,
pretty vague back then what “aboriginals” were but
heard he became a hippie.
Special Branch took photos outside the SYA1,
their brown sedan was always polished.
Can’t forget an ethereal revolutionary there,
she painted placards with her fists.
My history teacher
never forgot to laugh or care.
I was too mystical to play sport anymore.
Jim’s up from the south coast
enjoying his retirement.
He’s big, lost his hair
but can still get a hard-on.
We sip our drinks on the balcony
of the Seabreeze Hotel.
Politics & loss makes one thirsty.
The school closed down in 08…
then arson said it all. A facebook page
is enough immortality.
With so much achieved
so little has changed.
There’s still a war on…
we continue to fight
us relentless old men.
1 Socialist Youth Alliance
Over 45 years Wicks has performed widely across the globe. Published in over 450 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 38 countries in 17 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 15th book of poetry is Time Taken – New & Selected (Puncher & Wattmann, 2022).
leswicks@hotmail.com
leswicks.tripod.com/lw.htm
