ellison, shepherd, yule, hemensley, trimble, gruenz

current & ex Melbourne Writers

Dave Ellison


These words
Dead leaves
These lines
Dream boughs
Rustling
Through time

The Way Of Bop

Wears a badge on his saffron robes
It says, ‘Kung Creole’
His message is spreading fast
Through Balinese rock’n’roll
Now he’s opened up a coffee den
Where his Temple hang out
Snitches fall for the Trapdoor’s swing
When the regulars shout
Who-who can stop
The Way of Bop


In the darkness before his shades
Drifts a junk from the border
Gotta meeting with Desperate Joe
From an outlaw order
Turns to Koolie who digs the den
Rode the sky with honour
Gives the promise of a getaway
In a rickshaw bomber
Who-who can stop
The Way of Bop


Now the Warlord’s G-men pounce
Down on teenage losers
Tells the band, keep the entertained
Chanting Blue Suede Sutras
Gets the Joe to the Temple roof
Wait for pedals in motion
Taken off by Koolie’s wings
Clear over the ocean
Who-who can stop
The Way of Bop
Who-who
Who-who

No Hideaway

Next day

Darling turned away
Gone since
He lost the fight
Undone
By those upper-cuts
No more
Mothering lies


So loud
Now they run the town
He’s just
Something to buy
No deals
When their wolves appear
Gangland
Won’t cop denials


Too soft
For a witness box
No speak
Gets pushed around
Pale girl
In a darker world
Stayed clean
All the way down


(2010)


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David Shepherd

The Holy Tree


Once noble
still venerable tree
your innocent arms are dark and dead
giant and brittle
with no sap muscle
in the middle
only your abdomen
bears life
your open slit trunk
bleeds through
the menstrual blue of sky
your tortured limbs threaten
the firmament with twisted fists
but only manage
to scratch and claw
grey arthritic fingers
at empty air
tired tips
of twisted twigs
grate and crack open sores
your hollow trunk
grinds out a baleful warning
of impending doom
creaking and moaning
like the ancient mast
of the Hesperus
soon
you will fall
but leaves still grow
on your shiny side
down low
industrial insects
and hotel-lobby wattle birds
wallow in your green spindly hairs
and still
the mercenary wind
tests your strength
for a time.

(Blackall Ranges.2004)

The Indigo Swift: Song for Shelton Lea


I watched you,
In the Brunswick Street neon night
Dancing across El Fresco tables
Singing Be-Bop
Balancing in the dark
Like a poetic fool
Then falling onto the pavement
Walking stick and legs akimbo
You damaged your foot
Again
That night
It’s a wonder you didn’t kill yourself!
But fortunately you had
A bird on the hand
And two in the bush


Next morning
We meandered
Down to the licensed grocer
For a hair of the dog
Feeling dirty and seedy
With ashtray mouths
You waltzed along
Walking stick and legs akimbo
“What a beautiful day!
Look at that fucking sky!
You wouldn’t be dead for quids, would ya!”
You proclaimed
Smiling at the weak
Early Melbourne sun
I just sneered at you
“What’s wrong with ya,
David, me old China?
The sun is shining,
The birds are singing,
And we’re both alive and free!
What else could you ask for?”
And we both remembered
For a second
What is was like
Not to be free
And we assumed
We were both still alive
So I gave you ten points
For undying optimism
Persistent positivity
And a cast iron constitution
With a bird on the hand
And two in the bush


If Sonny was Nebuchadnezzar
King of Babylon
You were Belteshazzar
The Revealer of Mysteries
Deciphering the writing on the wall
Daniel
The Interpreter of Dreams
Standing alone
Unscathed
In the company of lions
Shelton Lea
The Larrikin Picaresque Poet
Voice of the lumpen proletariat
The Cant Chronicler of Fitzroy
Grafton, Redfern and beyond
You ripped the writing off the wall
And read it in pubs, clubs, schools and gaols
Now
You are beyond words and time
Your Indigo swift
Transformed into the Phoenix
Soars above
The smouldering ashes of Babylon
No need
Now
For that walking stick and legs akimbo
No need now
For the bird on the hand
Or the two in the bush
Farewell, me ole China

(May 2005)


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Fran Yule

 

Clouds Over Meherabad, Photo by Geoff Whitlock, 2009

The Speech


most of my life i dwelt
in a parallel universe
on a lonely planet coloured blue
completely alone

I had thoughts
not mathematically correct
brimming over
with shapes and forms and colours and voices
born of my imagination
all as solid and existent
as if they were real
and good company

i knew what i meant
even with my fractured
day dream speak

scattered with
unfinished
patterns
sibilant sighs
i understood everything
that came out of me
all my life alone on planet blue

until you came along
formed perfectly
and i found myself struggling
with words and feelings
spoken and written
formal and informal
involving complex gestures
using a rough voice alien to me

two of us on planet blue

romance blossomed
faded
into common relationship routines
you demanded
i finish my sentences
tell the truth
in facts and figures
and i didn't know how
but i'm learning
practicing daily
to precisely utter
with my dying breath

‘most of my life i dwelt
in a parallel universe
on a lonely planet
coloured blue
completely alone
until i learnt
far too late
to love you’


♣


Tell The Truth


with impugnity
is how we live our lives
an interesting view
through a moral eye
just stance
fair word
mental acrobatics


with impugnity
is how we imagine
we account for our lives

Bullets


spare change on the desk
won't buy a packet of cigarettes
or soft drink


seven library books
piled on top of the printer
only two were interesting
need returning
today


forms to fill out
for free public transport
and cheap state housing


Avatar's prayers
printed out
and left in a neat pile
rarely read


he's in bed
avoiding the heat
or avoiding
everything


i'm dodging bullets
aimed at my brain
from a .38
held in my own hands


and the telephone bill
for two thousand dollars plus
sits on my bed
disputable but unchallenged
and way overdue


(2009/10)


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Kris Hemensley

On The Road Again (for Karl Gallagher)


on the road again (whose rep I am) Melbourne to
Shep -- that's over the road again -- Economy
Car B seat 34 window overlooking
long clean highway -- never a driver always the
passenger navigator sidekick affecting
pillion (Easy Rider) -- on the road again
with Kerouac's wry caveat from Big Sur : who'd
believe not hitchhiking but comfortable with
wine in 3rd Class Sleeper coast to coast? -- what happened
to dharma bum? he imagined fans demanding --
Hit the Road Jack dial-tone on two back-packer
German girls' mobile-phone -- as close as I get to


universe poking me in the chest -- "and don't you
come back..." -- Wallan Wandong Kilmore East -- blond shorn stumps
on bleached shaved acres -- unless misled by fancy
a heart could break for less -- abandoned carriages
rust rotting in siding at Seymour for decades --
last home for birds rats & their human counterparts --
broken window in shape of a dark cloud over
the station -- cloud-like shadow across face of
derelict which would spell 'doomed' were a reader of
clouds or shadows on hand to translate -- idiot
joins the train -- requires conductor explain why whole
journey is cheaper than the aggregate of short


trips -- "purchase your ticket or..." -- "are you dismissing
me sir?" -- "let's just say : you'll be walking to the next
town!" -- bails up two adjacent boys -- same questions --
"if it's $8-80 Concession from Melbourne to
Shepperton and it's $6-60 from Broadmeadows --
what is it from Broadmeadows to Melbourne?" -- "dont know"
they say -- dont know either if there's motor-racing
in Burma & Botswana -- but yes their joggers are laced not velchro --
he's head in hands crying "no one wants to talk to
me" -- from out of what stew & heading where? -- on the
road again -- mind hauling the world's inventory
through consciousness's endless contexts -- forever --
train be my confessor -- blue sky grant my pardon

(January 3-8, 2010)


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Ken Trimble

Carlton Nights


And we would sit under the Lebanese night
and discuss politics and literature in the darkness.
Shrouded figures sat at tables talking
but not seeing.


Because of him I read Burmese Days and heard of Trotsky
and the perpetual revolution that remained
still born.
Later we would amble over to the Albion and drink our beers
and talk with gangsters, philosophers, pimps and junkies.


In that night when chaos reigned
a girl jumped on stage
inviting all the thieves to a party
somewhere deep in Carlton.


The night was empty of stars
save for the neon popping lights of streets
that left our minds smouldering in the incendiary haze.


We smoked hash
and the night
blurred like a carousel.


Inside the old house we sat around with young men and women,
uniformed police smoked from a hookah,
stoned
immersed in
Cairo nights
and apocalyptic visions still to come.


And my heart pounded
and my head exploded
with the colours of a million covenants
lost somewhere in Carlton.


%%%


Anna Gruenz

The Massage Parlours (circa 1981)


Brunswick Street blisters in the heat.
Newspapers and dust devils
blow through a Fitzroy afternoon.
The pub doors burst open
with a gust of hot fiery wind
exposing detached boozers
in the dark green glow of VB signs.


The click clack of stiletto heels
rings loudly in the afternoon heat
as she makes the impossible journey
to an improbable storefront brothel.


A steamy brown Asian face
presses against the security grille
pricing carnal pleasures.
"HOW MUCH HALF AND HALF?"
he screeches to the accompaniment
of excited giggles from his sidekicks.


Distaste rises in her throat.
But the Simian devil on her shoulder
seductively suggests sexual services
while the TV blares from the backroom
where Diana and Charles
are making the blunder of their lives.


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The Indigo Swift: Song for Shelton Lea
previously published in All Travellers We: Poems for Shelton Lea
Eaglemont Press. 2008

The Speech and Bullets previously published on Fran's site
http://franyule.spaces.live.com/default.aspx

Carlton Nights previously published on Ken's site
http://www.henrylawsonsotherdog.blogspot.com/



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Ken Trimble

Melbourne Writer: Ken Trimble


prose n poems . . .




Notes Of An Idiot Inside The Whale.


I entered the Gatwick with a walking stick and a $100 in my pocket. After spending three months in India I came back broke and homeless, all my dreams of becoming a monk were shattered from a fall on a Calcutta Street.


And now I entered a world as foreign as India and I was as scared as a man facing time in prison, lost inside a sea of darkness. I was forty-six and for the most part my life was like anyone else. I had worked in good jobs and got good pay and lived in nice homes, but this all fell apart when I discovered that I could win by gambling. If only I had lost that first time, instead I won, and won big, and I was hooked like a fish that was to be gutted and used on someone's dinner table.


I worked for a company in the pre-press industry and I decided to take the redundancy package that was on offer. In relative terms it was a small one and I decided to travel to India to live in an ashram in South India. The reason was, when I saw the life story of Father Bede Griffiths, I felt the inspiration to become a monk, and I thought it was going to be easy. A walk in the park, a piece of cake.


I am an addict, a gambler, drinker, smoker, you name it I'm addicted to it. Like a man dying of thirst I entered the Casino, desperate and looking for a hit. The madness of that night is still etched in my brain because I won. It was always the pokies, an idiot’s path. I never could play cards, wasn't interested in roulette, two-up or other things, I wanted money and lots of it!


That night I won a thousand dollars and I felt good. Inside that tomb of screaming blackness, insanity reigns. We were all looking for El Dorado, all looking for the yellow brick road that would lead us out to the Promised Land.


So I decided to come back the next night for this game was easy, I thought I was born to win. The next night I lost and I lost big, I was a thousand down on my winnings and I panicked and I tried to recover the loss. Suddenly the born winner was a born loser and my guts felt the churning of an imploding universe as my money began to dwindle from crisis to crisis. Thankfully for me, my time to India had arrived but in the space of two weeks I had lost $8000 as quick as a blink of an eye.


I sat on the plane in a daze, I had blown half my life savings in a flash, and here I am with thoughts of becoming a monk. By the time I arrived in the ashram I felt disconnected and scared. It was if something had died within me. I was a rotting carcass of thoughts and fears in a strange land. I had fallen off the edge and the uncomfortable silence began its drum.


For two months I lived inside a paradise and meditated, talked with monks, lived in the silence of complete emptiness, yet I knew I had stuffed up back home and felt the nagging darkness of failure that covered me like a blanket.


Then one brilliant morning I noticed a girl walk through the gates, tall, stunningly beautiful, and it was then that life took another turn. I was infatuated with her, maybe it was her French accent, whatever, but she drove me crazy, I wanted her, I wanted to fuck her. After a month there, she left for Calcutta and shortly after she left, I followed.


I took a three day train journey and I had come down with a fever. When I got there the weather was cold and I went looking for a jumper in one of the bazaars. As I stepped down onto the street I lost my balance and as I fell to the concrete I felt my left foot snap. I could hear the crack and I wanted to throw-up but nothing came. My whole life was there on the street, a disaster waiting to happen.


For the next two months I hobbled around on crutches, I had broken the bone under the arch as far as it would go. My money was running out, and the twelve month plan to stay got short circuited to four, so I decided to come back home. The idea of becoming a monk was out, the idea of making love to her was out, I was finished and I wanted to come home.


I came back with nothing and I rang a friend who said he'd meet me in St. Kilda at 'Munroe's. He gave me a $100 and we looked over the road and there stood the Gatwick a residential hotel, in its heyday it must have been great, it had that old Victorian charm, but now it seemed battered and bruised and dark.


Owned by two Greek women the reception area was dark and men stood in the shadows. The clock on the wall had stopped, an old lounge that had seen better days and here I am with walking stick with just the clothes on my back.


I was shown to my room on the third floor, opposite my room stood a door that looked as if at one time someone had tried to kick the crap out of it. My room was an average size with an old wardrobe, a single bed, a small television and a piss stained sink. Down on the second level were the showers and toilets, yellow syringe bins were dotted around. I felt sick, scared and lonely. That first night I felt the bed bugs bite into me and I heard down the hallway laughter then voices filled with anger. I was in bedlam without a doctor’s certificate, I had crossed into madness.


In the morning I complained about the bugs and told one of the Greeks I wanted the bed changed. As I waited outside my room a young man stood leaning against his door. He said almost in a whisper, “don't worry”, I mumbled back thanks and closed the door.


That night I got down on my knees and cursed God and every other fucker. And as night became morning I was woken to the sounds of a saxophone playing down the hallway. It sounded like Coltrane and man could he play. It felt like he was playing for everyone in the Gatwick, all the pain, all the madness, all the lostness of the lost. And I sat on my bed and cried for all the shit of my life, and all the shit of everyone's lives stuck here inside the whale...

♣ ♣ ♣

 

Hotel.


I remember entering you.
Scared frozen body.
A man tells the time, see the clock.
Ancient Greek in shrouded black
shows me to my room.
Shattered from a Calcutta Street
I hobbled up the stairs.
A door opens- a young man stands by,
“don't worry”, I hear his whisper
O shining eyes of heroin.
A blackened sink, piss ridden bed, crawling mattress.
Shudder.


Dungeon of Fitzroy Street and bone jarring sounds.
Kafka haunts me!
I am finished to the kicked in doors
and needle ridden dawn.
I am on my knees
Cursing You.
Cursing me,
can't seem to find the light
can't seem to find the key.
Its 4am
and the junkies are high on white light
as Coltrane plays in his room.

 ♣

 Big Wind



We were waiting for the big wind to hit,
we were all waiting that day
and I fled like a scared rabbit to a city
where everything is hard and cold.
It is a place where the unforgiven walk every day
to the house for a meal.
Dismembered by time,
the old house I left years ago is still going strong.


Smoke plumes of death rose from the table
as Edvard Munch walked by, hollowed out eyes, heroin eyes.
Tall and balding he lived in his shadow.
'they took my right away to have a gun', he said
hopping around as if had fire in his pants.
My Father taught me never to ask questions,
I just nodded and smoked
I waited for the big wind.


We all waited..
a dust storm hit from the west
a murky yellowy imprint on the city's bowels.


Another man came out of his room
hard with gut protuding, glasses burnt
'I had the gun ready, I would have killed him
but his for his two daughters that stood by him'.


The wind began its drum beat of fear
as I thought about Warburton.


I saw an old woman with a g-string
up the crack of her arse.
I saw a young man showered in sweat
waiting in line to go nowhere.
I saw people dressed in black hunting the streets.
I saw a Nepalese giving puja.
I saw the old Franciscan walking, lost in prayer.
I saw two French folk singers immersed in the rainbow.


And I wondered about the people I knew
in my small town surrounded by forests
locked in with no place to go
and I wondered if they felt I was a coward
as the soles of my shoes touched the broken heart of Fitzroy
as we waited for the
Big Wind.


♣


The Hermit


Silent waters
yellow moon,
mountain mist,
and deer on the run.
Prayer mat and beer
which will I have first?
Drifting silence and wet afternoons
I think I''ll read Kerouac,
perhaps, St. Augustine the black.
Lonely sun
tired days,
friends come around.


Ken Trimble


 

Warburton

 

Ken Trimble, Bio . . .


“I left school at 14, I read a lot when I was young, influenced by Hemingway, Dostoevsky, Sholokov, Gorky - later I read Orwell and became involved with International Socialists. In the late eighties I went to the Soviet Union via the 'trans siberian railway’ with letters of introduction from the Australian/Russian Friendship Society. In this time both parents died and in 1989 I had experience that made me question existence. In 1993 I encountered the television programme 'Compass' and saw the life of Father Bede Griffiths an English monk who lived in India for 40 years. I read his books and went to stay at his ashram in 1996. After I came back I felt unsettled in job and life and quit job to go back to India to become a monk. Things went badly and came back broke - in mind, body, and financially destitute.


Lived in rooming houses in Melbourne then discovered a meditation community in Warburton deeply committed to Bede Griffiths and Inter-Faith dialogue. Since India I have worked as a personal carer for disabled persons run by the Brotherhood of St.Laurence. I began writing poetry when I was young, but after I read Kerouac and Whitman and later Bukowski I took up writing seriously.


I have read my work at the Dan O'Connel and The Empress Hotel bars and The Burigna Café. My writing published in Windmills run by Deakin University and the poem 'Big Wind' has been played on public radio in America. Last year I published my first book Clouds on Hanover St.


I am an oblate in the Catholic tradition of a community called the Camaldolese, a hermit order founded over a thousand years ago. I classify myself as a left wing Catholic, which often leads me to question.”
Ken Trimble


[ ed. Warburton is an old ex-goldmining town about two hours drive out of Melbourne]

Warburton

♣ ♣ ♣

Ken’s book of poems Clouds on Hanover Street is published by Little Fox
http://www.littlefoxpublishing.com/

Ken is also published on
http://www.collectedworks-poetryideas.blogspot.com/

Ken’s blog
http://wwwhenrylawsonsotherdog.blogspot.com/

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