Martin Christmas
Father and SonListening to some Philip Glass piano
flowing from the car’s CD player I drift away at the top of the Small Boats Ramp Outer Harbor. Time passes. Yawn. Upright the seat. A father and son are standing on the Small Boats Ramp below. The boy is tossing stones into the sea. The father shows him how to skim them further. I think of dad. The tears well up. I wonder why he never taught me how to skim stones across the sea. Skim or sink, either would have been just fine. He did once try to teach me how to play cricket on an oval next door. I said emphatically, ‘No’. Silly boy. A seagull looks at me with one eye, ‘Silly man’. The father and son move to the top of the ramp. The father continues sharing knowledge with his son. My father lately, although dead past twenty years, is on my mind again. He shares his knowledge freely from the grave. He teaches me to be a man as I stand and talk with him, visit by visit at the edge of the water lapping the Small Boats Ramp at Outer Harbor. My silent sounding board. I guess that’s as good as learning how to play cricket or skimming stones. A pelican floats by and seems to stare, ‘You got that right, mate’. These days I often think of dad and... but that’s another visit, for another day. Gum Tree DownNight.
No wind or storm. Gum tree down. Not yet prime of life so much potential. Gum tree down. Soil, dry, very. Climate change? Borers? Didn’t see any. Gum tree down. Climate change on the edge of, slowly sliding into, gum tree down. Gum tree down. Trees either side wait their turn. Gum tree down. Tree down. Down. The seagulls, seen it all before. Their dinosaur ancestors before them, seen it all before. But ? |
Beard FixationWhat’s this beard thing
anyway? Everywhere, defining a generation, overflowing to the one before. Started small, sudden explosion. Not seeing one’s the anomaly. Sports, bus stops, ordinary dudes, everywhere. Males connecting thing? Sub-species marking? But not me? Until last week. The urge not to shave irresistible. I didn’t. Rebellion. Primal instinct. Male instinct. Viking. Pillage, plunder, rape (figure of speech only). Still stubble. Resolved to go the distance. Stick it out. Glorious release... till itch or food gets lodged in hairy follicles repeatedly. Or Summer. I’m sweating like a pig. Such is life. Ned Kelly would agree. Chatting with FelliniRocked up early for a meeting with a friend
at a wood oven pizza place, warm in Winter, on the road to Adelaide. This little man with over his collar grey hair sits in a corner, by a flashy gilded mirror, wearing a fedora hat and black rimmed glasses. There’s Marilyn and Elvis and Charlie. Audrey and Harrison and Clark and Vivian (Leigh), tomorrow is another day, 8½ weeks from Spring. The place near empty. Well-used tables, chairs. Wooden. If they could speak, what stories to tell, but for another time, or maybe after midnight. He flashes a serious smile. We talk. Italian. I once emailed to Barcelona University in Google Spanish, re-translated it was rubbish, so keep my side to "si" and "si" as he emotes. His name is Federico, seems he’d made a film or four. He knew his stuff. Those earlier spoken of, certainly knew him, though I doubt they’d ever found their marks on his film sets, and certainly not Elvis, pretty sure. The King and Marilyn were busy anyway, as they flirted near my table. Harrison the voyeur, had his whip out and was raiding a lost ark. My friend arrived. M, E, C, A, H, C (Gable) and V, stepped back onto the walls. Gone with the wind. I turned to Federico, but only an empty chair. He’d left the room before I could convey how I had enjoyed his films Satyricon and 8½, all those years ago, when life was simpler. Fellini’s, great cappuccinos, pizzas. |
