Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Jennifer Compton
The Pines
.
I remember you driving the corniche past The Pines from Island Bay to Lyall Bay.
I was visiting from Australia, you had invited me to a party, it was dull. In spite of
the people toking in an upstairs room. I stood to dance and you hissed - Sit down!
The tattooed men who were arriving took a woman dancing on her own as an open
invitation. I sat down and whined that I wanted to go home.
As you ground the gears I became aware you had been upstairs and the green was
messing with your mind. The car was rocketing, lurching, hurtling. I glanced down
at Breaker Bay and in the extremity of my fear spoke as your older sister - I know
you THINK!!! you are driving slowly but you are actually driving very very fast.
You rolled a disbelieving eye, but slowed, above the cliff.
..
The party got out of hand and men were fighting in the street, swinging bike chains.
The Armed Offenders Squad took up positions in yards on the hills above, locked it
down. But we had got home with a final lurch and left the car parked askew, ajangle.
But that is all by the by, it had been in my mind. As if it was my only memory of you.
Today you fly in from Australia for a funeral at The Pines.
The son of your best friend was driving around in cars and came to grief as so many
of the young boy racers do. Our father and our mother would go to the cabaret there,
there at The Pines. The men secreted liquor in the women's beaded evening bags or
under their fur wraps. I remember one of the outfits our mother put together. A long
black pleated skirt and a 'broidered weskit in red and gold.
.
I think of you at the funeral at The Pines, a mother now, someone who has survived.
I would have gone with you, it would have been fitting, and apt, but through a friend
of a friend a private viewing of local artworks had been set up at almost the same time.
And I chose that. Because those local artworks are what have always saved me. From the dying fall.
.
.
.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Graham Buchan
Marta’s bike
.
Marta’s bike arrived folded up in a solid wooden crate
(the kind used for purposeful journeys)
and was unloaded at a dismal terminal on the cold wide Thames
with her books and dreams and leather coat.
.
Marta’s bike, which had been snapped up
by her excited dad
on one of the rare days
when there was stock in the sports store.
.
the valves were a different diameter,
the man in the shop was offhand
Marta’s bike lay down disconsolate in its big canvas bag,
remembering its teenage adventures,
and resigned itself never again to pedal the route to school,
the housing estate, the woods.
.
Marta’s bike would annoy me.
It took up room in the garage,
once it fell on the car.
It got dirtier and dustier
and seemed stubborn in its refusal - twenty years we’re talking -
to spruce itself up and zip along generous council byways.
The tyres flat, disinterested, as if bereft of self-esteem,
the little leather straps perished with sadness,
the mirror cracked in its longing for home.
.
I was shocked, the other day, when Marta said
she had thrown her bike out.
‘What, you gave it to the bin men?’
Image of its little metal limbs snapped and broken and devoured by huge
.........undiscriminating jaws. Chicken bones, peelings, packaging, polystyrene.
She gave it to the bin men.
‘What, you gave it to the bin men?’
She gave it to the bin men.
Was there a last anguished gasp of those that die in exile?
.
Marta brought her bike to England
but it didn’t take to
our hard-surfaced roads.
.
Subscribe to Posts [Atom]