… Collections by Lyn Reeves, Stephen Johnstone, Martin R. Johnson and John West were launched during Saturday afternoon. Tim Thorne launched John West’s ‘All I Ever Wanted Was a Window’ [Pardalote Press], mentioning how he’d been pretty well hooked from the first poem of West’s he’d read. ‘So much so that the first opportunity I could, I invited John to take part in the Festival, a couple of years ago. When you live in a big city, there’s a need for a great volume of energy and compassion, though along with that comes a greater freedom to fail, to be a loser … demanding a compassionate attitude. This collections represents some of the most compassionate writing by poets and artists – those using language as their form – that I’ve read in recent years, yet it’s a writing which loses nothing in terms of skill and cleverness.’

West responded with a reference to his sense of interconnectedness with things Tasmanian. ‘People ask me, “Why Tasmania?” and I say because I have always had such great vibes, such warmth and love from you all down here! I email friends here daily, sometimes twice a day. I almost bought a house here some months ago, you can’t get more connected than that.’

‘Putting People to Bed’

Puddling around in the pad between Mr Johnson’s legs
I see as if for the first time in twenty years
what it is I do, cleaning the coated scrotum,
watching the bristels on his legs,
the random pattern of the bruises on his skin, my eyes catch sights
and my ears sweep sounds and my nose sponges up smells;
his frailty, his humility, his sorrow.

They lean towards me so I can peel away their clothes,
fibres oozing with the sweat of their afternoons;
I wipe their faces, wash teeth; they forget
between the two ticks of a clock but I remind them
that this is their bed, tell them that they live here now,
that I am a person in this house,
that they will never go to their own home now.

I feel their warmth through pyjamas, nighties,
touch the wet of mouths as I feed in pills;
I see men who wander corridors, line at doors
waiting for a bus or train to go home,
to go out to their job or the pub,
I hear them wondering about children,
I hear women asking ‘Who can stop that baby crying?’

I taught at school for a year then midnight flitted, next
a factory, then a lab assistant’s job, then this,
meeting these people, feeding and showering them,
putting them to bed, people with pockets filled
with the marble chips of dreams, the bluestone chunks of age,
dry sticks jammed into earth while my life spreads,
a paddock blowing green.

[June 2000]

FOR MAL MORGAN

‘The first week was the worst, waking up each
morning and remembering I was dying’
[Mal Morgan]

1.
Finally
I step into my car
and pull up outside your place,
knock
and meet your body
packed
with its handgrenades
of dying.

You’ve chosen badly, Mal,
you should have gone for something cleaner,
a deent heart attack or stroke, now you’re facing
all the sweaty little jigsaw bits of dying
that no-one thinks to mention, waking up
100 times a night, how it feels to lose
a pound of weight a day, the cramps, the way that time
flows like red-hot lave.

Yes,
you smoked,
but, I drink;
people who die old
have merely
picked their vices
carefully.

I begin on the subjects
that we have always talked about,
working as a pharmacist,
a nurse, Di’s paintings,
your shiny colour printer
but then it grows before me
that now
these are not your interests.

People ring,
catch taxi cabs to visit;
Di
is suddenly at home;
is the house
of someone who is dying
always so damn busy?

We part,
hugging
with all the awkwardness
of men.
I rush home
to scribble all this down,
running late for work,
running out of time.

2.
This is the poem
I didn’t write
last time,

it has the greyhound in it,
staring from the car
parked across the road

as I drove away,
it has the shapes that moved
but were not there

when I looked
as I lay along my couch
attempting

to listen
to Bach,
it’s the one with the line

‘All we own
is the taste in our mouths’,
the one containing

the terrible
wind-over-ice whistle
your cough didn’t have

when I saw you
three weeks
ago.

[Dec 1998]

She lays it, doubled over
on the ledge above the sink
the way I do at home

and then she picks up a price list
for milk or cakes or pies
while the guy she works with

finishes making my coffee
and I consider her smile
at four o’clock

on this Friday afternoon
and then I think about the fan
which stands

at the end of every day
mercilessly blowing away
a million moments just like this.

J West, ‘Stuttering Towards Love’, [2000]

It is believed he had a massive heart attack, unfortunately, he was alone.

He was to turn 58 this Thursday 3rd December.

I’ve just gone through all the lovely books he has sent me over the years, some of his own work and other writers in the hope that I would be inspired, which I was and will continue to be. Almost all his dedications read ‘ to my amazing friend, thank you for your love’. I would like to send that dedication back to him hopefully via Garth Madsen at his funeral tomorrow.

The thing I loved about John is he wasn’t afraid to show fierce love for his loved ones and the world around him. We should all reflect and learn from his enormous heart and generosity.

Love,
K x

“Undelivered Mail Returned To Sender! 15/11/2009″

Why this November’s Quadrant?
I handed over the $8.50.
To be Stunned, Stung
Unannounced Contents….
“I’ve Ridden Slipshod Over Mt Life”
Tucked up,
Neatly packaged…..

And I saw You again
for the first time, years back.
Low voiced, bashful……..as you read of
a man “dog-legging, and dog-legging, skirting outer obstacles, perhaps…..
…..when all you ever wanted was a window.”
30/11/2009