When did I become him

                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

    

When did I become him

when did I become that gormless twat
who walks up to complete strangers at the mall
and starts telling them their life story like they were a guest
on an episode of “This Is Your Life!”

who keeps talking long after the other party has stopped listening
or quite often, when they’ve totally walked away —
(left the state)
who has been left conversing with trees, butterflies, windscreen
wipers…

who yeah, nah, yeah, nah

can’t get to the point without taking a side road round the houses
and when he reaches the main fork forgets where he started
and why;

who falls in love with sales people
whose discount deals are like personal invitations to candle-lit dinners
who comes back again and again spending their hard-earned
just so someone, someone he deeply cares for, will speak to him
like his life meant something—
when in reality she couldn’t give two roots whether he lived or died.

who ran up on Gough Whitlam at the airport long after he left politics
assailing him with decades-old stories that made no sense to anyone
who wasn’t there;
poor old Gough just kept walking straight ahead —
purposely not averting his eyes like the Giant that he was;
being yapped at by an over-excited Chihuahua.

when did I become that plonker

somewhere between Steve Irwin in terms of enthusiasm
and a billy goat in terms of being able to appropriately read
the reactions of others.

who earned the nickname “the marijuana kid” by going down to the nearest
Queensland RSL and telling anyone who’d listen (including the local drug-squad
detectives) about his wild days smoking weed in the merchant navy
when in all likelihood it was a blunt or two at most.

who turns up to someone’s crib he met only once 12 years ago
with an overly-friendly “Remember me?!”
only to be told to fuck off or they’ll let loose their hounds!

whose solution to other people expressing opinions different from his own
is to up the volume and continue talking 

like an out-of-control steamroller.

so, yeah, nah, yeah nah

when did I become that guy?

who’s been left outside on a freezing night
after his girlfriend whose bed he was sharing
decided his best mate who was crashed on the couch
was a better prospect, or a better root,
or both;

who wears shorts, t-shirt and thongs all year round in all weather
even when it’s ten below and blowing a gale
just so someone more appropriately dressed might ask,
“Aren’t you cold?”

and he can rattle off the long convoluted story
about the time he climbed Mount Wellington outside Hobart
in a blizzard at night dressed only in garbage bags
(a story that anyone who has known him 

more than a week
has heard multiple times)

so yeah, nah, yeah
when did I become him —that absolute fucking 

gormless plonker;
my dad.

Close Encounters of the Poetic Kind: a collection of poetry by poets from Australia and New Zealand

 

                  Poems were translated into Bosnian and Turkish languages by Vesna Suljic 

                  and Hehtap Ozer Isovic. The volume was published by the University of Sarajevo.

                

Cha: An Asian Literary Journal — from Six Poems

 

Cha : An Asian Literary Journal

Thanks to Poetry Editor: Tammy Lai-Ming Ho 

“Social Alternatives” (Vol. 43 : 1)

Quadrant (Jan - Feb, 2025)

                                   

                 Thanks Professor Barry Spurr, Literary Editor

Coalcliff Days

 205 Main Drive, Coalcliff .

Between 1982 and 1992 I inhabited a weatherboard and corrugated iron structure known as 205 Main Drive, Coalcliff. The property was resumed by Wollongong City Council in the mid 70’s for the purpose of a creating a drainage easement under the railway line opposite. 

Ken Bolton and Sal Brereton had found the property abandoned and squatted in it for a number of years before a council officer showed up and announced ownership. Luckily for Ken and Sal he was sympathetic to poetry and writing and after inspecting Ken’s gerstner machine which he was used to produce limited edition poetry mags like Magic Sam, he agreed to rent them the property for the grand weekly sum of $25 a week, indexed to inflation. By the time I arrived  the rent was $32 a week and I was grateful for somewhere to write. 

Breeze

I stayed up reading late. My light was the last one to go out

on the whole block. I checked.

And every now and then I leave this book in which i have been looking 

for the last few hours, at poems etc… mostly not reading them 

and go outside and piss over the verandah into the front garden.

Feel the cold creepy feel of August wind creeping up my bare legs and 

looking up to the sky, which is unarguably full of stars and bright almost 

full waning moon giving everything that moves a definite shape 

that sways in what now is an energetic breeze

The house stood as though it had been washed there by an enormous tide. 

Lodged above the tree line, between it and the escarpment 

that rose directly behind it.

It stood weathered like a wooden raft. Still in one piece

but leaning gently in one corner.

The house had been weathered like the bare wood

growing out of the side of the cliff. Everything set at weird angles, 

like the undersea frozen in a strong current.

Even the garden had something of a sunken quality to it.

as though, in order to find the existing form you might have to dig down 

one foot- discover the original bones of plants

gleaned white by the moon.

+

Trains are shunting up and down the track. It’s early morning

and the hill cliffs beyond the road are hit by the first bits of sunlight.

A movement so slight, like the buzzing of a butterfly coming

closer to the ear.

+

Some construction sheds are erected across the road.

Little white ones that look like toys in comparison to the hill

that rises behind them. 

I imagine what they must look like from the very top – more toy-like 

probably. These sheds that have been constructed to house the thirty 

or so men employed to build the new railway.

+

I spend too much time in front of the radio.

I hear the floorboards and I know you’re out there somewhere

drawing me into your place. Curling in the space between two large rocks 

behind the sand dunes.

On the other side of the house, ocean-blue Pacific O.

Windows that open out suddenly to the extended relief of coastline. 

There has been a significant change in the size and placement of the horizon.

The trees upon the hill are reflecting the sun as though they are made of 

some resilient galvanized iron – they are reflecting the light everywhere in 

strips of green.

Alan and Zonda (Coalcliff kitchen)

The Crocodile who Wanted to be Famous (media…)

 

Reviews of  “The Crocodile who Wanted to be Famous” written by Alan Jefferies, illustrated by Mariko Jesse (Sixth Finger, 2004)

“Local writer Alan Jefferies has borrowed from the real-life adventures of Hong Kong’s own Yuen Long Croc, Pui Pui to create a story which is both humorous and thought provoking. 

It is a story which is sure to resonate with readers of all ages, touching on the hot topics of pollution, parental authority, and the effects of too much bad TV.

The illustrations, by unsung local talent Mariko Jesse (who also illustrated the girl-power book Sarsparilla’s New Shoes by Hong Kong-based writing twins Ming and Wah Chen) are sweet and whimsical and ideally suited to the text.

The bilingual book is also written in Chinese, and would make a lovely Christmas gift for any Hong Kong child between the ages of 4 and 14.”

Karmel Schreyer

from “The Asia Review of Books”

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“The illustrations by Mariko Jesse are fun and it has an easy going pace and a touch of humour that would work well in the classroom.”

Hazel Perry

from “The South China Morning Post”

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“Overall it’s a simple story that children will relish, especially if they are familiar with the saga of our real-life croc. Parents will also get a kick out of it because not only will the book resonate with children, but it will make them ask questions about animals, human nature and the state of the environment. 

“This is one croc who may never be as famous as this heroes, Jackie Chan and Yao Ming, but in his own way he’s likely to be just as inspiring…”

-SM

from “Hong Kong Magazine”

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“The tale is spiced with local flavour, including a folk song sung by an old boat woman who longs for her long-lost daughter.

Alongside the English, there is a Chinese translation by Lian Yue, and humorous illustrations by Mariko Jesse. The bilingual format can assist readers learning English or Chinese, and lends authenticity to a story based in this part of the world”

Joyce Ng

from “The Student Standard”

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“Hong Kong writer Alan Jefferies has also captured the crocodile very well in his imaginative reconstruction of the story for children and adults, entitled The crocodile  who wanted to be famous. In Jefferies’ version of the tale, which is enlivened by Mariko Jesse’ wonderful line drawings of both crocodiles and the city, the fictional crocodile

named Crafty sees imagages of Hong kong on television, and makes up his mind to go there.”

“Hong Kong: a cultural and literary history”

by Michael Ingham (Signal, 2008)

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