You could give it up, you know.
Nah, mate. I couldn’t.
Sure you could.
Think I haven’t tried ? I’ve cut back, mate. Cut back heaps.
Still ….
I’m in a happy spot. I’m not going to beat myself up.
But ,,,
Everyone needs one vice in their life, mate. It keeps us tethered.
So these pigeons wing in from the wild sky,
their coats a rainbow sheen, but when the sun goes in,
they’re all drab, all except one, a pretty little albino,,
white as the Taj Mahal, and when they descend
on the grass patch near the footbridge, and start pecking away,
happy as diners in a food court, you can just tell
these guys all hang out together, weekends, whenever,
them and their albino mate and I ask Daz, ‘cause he knows
everything, why we can’t do that, Daz, coloureds and whites,
one happy family and he says because we’re not pigeons, that’s why.
*pic courtesy of Rodolfo Clix on pexels.com
We were talking about Milly, Bev’s cat
who had just butchered a baby blackbird
when Rob went feral.
I have never liked cats, he said. They should be locked up. Murderers all.
Go easy, I said. You ever eat at a restaurant?
Of course, he said.
Ever ordered a barramundi?
Often.
Ever sent it back because it was too fishy?
No, of course not.
Well, I said, you may as well berate a barramundi
for being a fish
as to castigate a cat
for being feline.
Emily Dickinson composed her poems while wearing a simple white dress with pockets for pencils and scraps of paper. She wrote in a large, airy bedroom, with two big windows facing south and two facing west at a small table 18 inches square with a drawer deep enough to take in her ink bottle, paper and pen. They overlooked her family’s large property containing a large Italianate mansion among tall pines.
I hover around in my hoodie and tracky dacks, biro on the go in a cramped cell of a room at a desk sprawled with papers, magazines and bills, one narrow window overlooking a block of grimy units towered over by power lines which is why my poems are nothing like those of Emily Dickinson.
Spent all my life looking for this, he said.
And?
It hasn’t worked out. She goes her way, does her thing. She gives me only four days a week.
Are they good days?
Yes. But I want more. Total commitment.
You like wine, don’t you?
You know I do. What’s wine got to do with it?
What’s the one wine you’ve always wanted?
Grange Hermitage, of course. It’s the best.
You ever tasted it? Bought a bottle?
No.
Ever berated a bottle of red for not being a Grange Hermitage? Ever stopped you drinking other reds?
Of course not.
Then let it go.
Let what go?
Your obsession with S. Or should I say your possession. You will never have the S you want. Enjoy the one you have. Allow yourself to be replete. From what you tell me she is a very, very good red. Stop thinking Grange Hermitage.
John Malone 