o Motutapu & Rakino Islands,
back behind the wave screen at Okahu Bay
to Freemans and St Marys Bay. And as
I called into the Schooner Tavern &
sought the drear interior of the Wynyard
Tavern & the sailors talk told me
you had fitted and trimmed your craft
against every dire prediction to set sail
on that other sea, Bob, the one that
has no name & no horizon & is drowning you.

Dave Spencer

lived his life like barbed-wire
is what an old girlfriend said, man of
the river. But then, life finished you
off bit-by-bit though couldnt pluck out
your dingo-bright eyes. Lets face it,
you were pretty much an arse-hole
to those who knew you. Most of us just
bash the trees without seeing the kangaroos.
You saw living mostly for what it is,
a part-time job with bugger all security;
the occasional softness of a woman,
maybe, and of course grog by the bucketful.
What was it you saw at the last, Dave,
when passing through the ripped canvas of a
thunderstorm, lightning flashing down the
Hawkesbury, a good belt of rain after?

You Dont Remember Dying

least, thats what the Old Londoner
told me who didnt learn to relax till well
past fifty, seated alongside his two
mates: a Norwegian: Youre not the same
person now as you were ten years ago.
And the Irishman: I like the music its
the noise I cant stand. Each one,
orphaned & aphoristic, deep into his sixties.
NZ born and much younger, I offered:
Youre not the same person tomorrow as
you were today. And then, To your
arrival in Melbourne, they singly toasted.
(Great-grandfather, MacCormack, arrived
here in 1851 & 26 years later, in 1877, set
sail for Dunedin aboard the Ringarooma).
So our tale of the two cities unfolded:
Sydney is get what you can. Melbourne,
what have you got to offer & are we really
interested. The afternoon floated by
as did the trams with dry, asthmatic rush
in this mellow town of bungalows & brass.

Graham Clifford

After THE DUKE HOTELs demolition,
(opp. Perretts Corner) one last joke: one DB
beer bottle ringed by ten green cabbages

as roseate or wreath for an empty lot. Close by,
the mad bucketing fountain of Cuba Mall
played on. Meanwhile, at his Manners street

studio above the music shop, Graham
Clifford, renowned for his Figaro, ululated
profoundly through the scales. A window framed

trolley-bus poles that, tacking, flared bluely
along the wire. The maestros voice floated
over harbour & city, c