Being Bardi

If you stand perfectly still, this short walk from the river
you can hear the echoes., the past heartbeats of the city.
Wolves padding quietly and then howling at the chase,
Shawnee turni gg their head sharply at the sound of
a tree falling from one last swing of an axe, saws and
sharp tools bringing a home to last by the shores.

People shouting along the river, their wares onboard
the steaming ships, the flatboats, the loads of
pigs and oats, lumber, whiskey, slaves
to and from, up river down river a steady flow of
a City's life being created.

The screaming of Irish hate over the draft, Confederates
moving silent through the crows as the flames lick through
the buildings the sounds of paradox in the bright haze.
The long low belching of the trains rattling along
the burnished tracks without stop

The sound of the wagons moving slowly up and down
the streets, the heritage of plague to flu looking for
the dead, the long lined shuffle two decades later
from the jobless, the homeless, the hopeless.



And then the trains again, duets with the first
large engine planes and the flood of monochrome
passengers, olive or white the child-men on their
way to make a world, unmake a world,
survive the sounds and smoke of war.

Unlike past sounds the guitars crescendo the
counterpoint with the riots of this year, that year
the escalating of firearms and their sharp, strident
announcements and these are the echoes of the city

weaving around the sounds of engines and tires and
the soft, soft cooing of a pigeon before it
skitters away from a laughing child in the CIty.

There is something different about the city
when behind the wheel, windows rolled,
sounds muted if heard at all.

I remember 8mm films, bright colours
but no sounds as if the present in that
past was silent.


People, cars, birds buses, flags
snapping high above the street
birds playing with the flapping shadows.

I turn the radio on and turn
from station to station
until I find the city's soundtrack.

colour upon colour
nations blending with
nations everything
blends the grey
of the buiildings
concrete and marble
overcoming the rainbows

This is how a city should be
a focus of its being and
the laughter and
colour upon colour because variety
is the true foundation.

High overhead
the city, the world,
The Peregrines with brood
watch over their dominion.
the pigeons, blind and
oblivions to any
impending doom.
The starlings hoping
inside their dna that
their size means safety.
The Peregrines
watch over their dominion above
the concrete canyons
the crowless concrete canyons
that keep their kingdom theirs.
A dark shadow flys over head and the
feathers ruffle for a moment
high overhead
the city, the world

CCTV mounted on poles,
watching the cars jerking
in and out of lanes at rush
hour and the buses sliding
in and out of stops.

At one point a streetcar pulls
silently into a stop, the signs
proclaiming that entry is forbidden.
And so, unlike cars and buses,
it moves off just as silent
and with only the operators
aboard.

Silent,sterile, passing the
couple who have just moved
into range of the CCTV
and each other's arms.

"You will find that from inside empty buildings
the noise of the city is, if not louder, then
at least more full of life.
And our hotel is a prime example of that

Another thing I might add. The ghosts ,
you will find, perfer the upper levels.
And the roof where the pool was.
Where, to them, the pool still is."

She holds out my room key and
fades away. I wrap my fingers around the key
or try to. The key is laying on the floor.

I do not remember the feel of the key or
the sound of it hitting the floor. All the sounds
are outside where there is wind and lovers and
bustling to and from work.

Inside there is nothing. I can hear nothing can
feel nothing, not even my heartbeat.

























yOU W

There are noclouds in the sky
only the blue and the light
and the long grown shadows
cast by the sterile slabs
that are the walls of the
tall and barely alive buildings.

Limousines and powercars
rush from dark to dark in
hopes of control in the light
the sheen of desire the
ripples of hunger.

But there are also people,
the hungry, the lonely,
the loving, the crazy to ones
who can recognise each other
even in the dark where
they are wrapped in dark and light
like purring cats remembering immortality.

She is 14 going on 41
an age she may not reach
if the years follow the
tracks along her arms.

Instead of wanting
a pony, she wants more horse
and stops passing strangers
offering a ride for whatever amount.

The wind wraps what little skirt
she wears and as she smoothes it
the wind carries her laughter and
for a moment she is once again 14

like a blade of grass through concrete
she is, for a moment, free

Yes I know it is late, but then the poem is about something that happened the day before that so perhaps it all fits


There is a long, low rumble
as the sky comes unfastened
and there is deluge of water...
that brings out a colourful
cornucopia of umbrellas
twirling, colours overlapping,
held tight by hands praying along
the handles for dryness.

You know that once
One of us was dead.
I forget which one it was at the time.

Not the death that passes us through
time and time again as this and this
and back to you and I again.

Centuries upon centuries but
at least I remember one of us
was dead, although I forget which.

the dead that is cruel, the death
that would not let you or hear
the laughter from lives to come.

Your beard whispers the story
your beard sings ever so soft
of life and death.

Do you remember that one of us was dead
once upon a time? Do you remember
who it was in the once upon a time?