Noel Rowe

For Greg McLaren

Bury me with my rosary beads and teddy bear.
I’ve been tasted by a cheese sandwich. It was toasted.
Morphine, like postmodernism, does affect the brain.
In another room the pages of a book are being turned.

I’ve been tasted by a cheese sandwich. It was toasted.
The pantoum poet abides very near the chocolate shop.
In another room the pages of a book are being turned.
A dry-hearted terrorist goes about watering bombs.

The pantoum poet abides very near the chocolate shop.
By the continental parsley she had a revelation, even so:
some athletes from the Games have disappeared, but
a grand narrative was seen, derelict, on Boulevard St Michel.

When talking wheat, keep your answers narrow, technical.
A dry-hearted terrorist goes about watering bombs.
I’d like an angel with a camera in attendance when I die.
I’m seriously off American shows, even Desperate Housewives.

A grand narrative was seen, derelict, on Boulevard St Michel.
When talking wheat, keep your answers narrow, technical.
By the continental parsley she had a revelation, even so:
I’d like an angel with a camera in attendance when I die.

Morphine, like postmodernism, does affect the brain.
Some athletes from the Games have disappeared.
I’m seriously off American shows, even Desperate Housewives.
So: bury me with my rosary beads and teddy bear.

For Stephen Fahey

If the visitors’ book is to be believed
I’ve been sleeping in a room a ghost
usually occupies. This week it seems
he’s being merciful: the only moanings are
of tonight’s storm, shaking banksias
by their scrawny necks, roughing up
the surf and slapping seaweed all along the shore
so that in the morning we will find the waves
have turned to rust. Then it will be time to leave
our last scattering of scraps for possums, kookaburras,
currawongs, and noisy mynas. The dingo
who tracked us down the lighthouse hill, making sure
he could trust us with the place, will stay
under cover of his cautious eyes and watch us go.

These quiet days away have helped
heal me. Almost as if
eating bread and prawns, drinking tea,
watching films by François Ozon
(images so beautiful and crisp I want
to take them on my tongue),
having the kind of conversations friends
of more than thirty years can have, and now and then
testing the possibilities of prayer,
has somehow offered me a chance
of touching the hem.