Paul Cliff
Kelp forest: Annunciative
World's tallest kelp
grows to 200 metres -
moored
just off the Californian coast.
Taller than all its onshore,
air-breathing,
cousin redwoods.Each plant slow-marches on the spot:
upright as shocked hair.
Each copse tight-reined.
Tides jockey through it.Hectare upon hectare:
like
great wavering,
brown, drowned library-stacks of words -
woven from all
languages-&-tongues of the world's lovers.All written / spoken forms:
pillow-talk, postcard, assignation note ...
email, ghazal & madrigal ...
rock
lyric, ballad,
sonnet, ode ...The kelp stands listening,
absorbing all of
this unto itself -
in its still, anchored,
ululating herd.Awaits its critical mass -
till the expression is perfect,
and love's, finally,
got the right words ...At which, each plant,
detaching its root-foot,
will
effortlessly rise
to headbutt the sunlit surface:And all will be uttered
to the Impatient World.
Big Fin Out The Back: White Pointer
(Cactus Beach, South Australia)
Cactus
had the taint of it that day.
We should have read the signs:
the close-packed
pod of porpoises
huddling the beach;
the eery swell, and oddly-lilting
stillness.
The bald stare of the pale dunes
stepping down through mist.
The
sea's sloughing
uneasiness -
somehow unkempt; surreal ...Really, it
was obvious.An idle flicker, 50 metres from the shore:
a sliding grey-white
semaphore,
a splash - and something dully fell.
The swell yawned red ...
Some days you can look out there, and tell:
the bad vibe raising your neck-hair;
singing like a spinal-tap.
The bay takes a malignant set at you, somehow -
it's
like fronting a mad dog out on the street.
Yes, Cactus had the taint of it that
day for sure.Striking, like a driver's clumsy butting
of the carpark-wall -
that casual.
Then calmly circling back, for more.Now this whole community's shit-scared.
It's like some mafiosa's crashed the
neighbourhood.
Worried that the shark will log us in
to its restless itinerary.
Make the beach part of its annual run:
stepped up - become man-eater now.Striking surreptitiously.
Just 50 metres from the quiet shore ...Debate's
hamstrung on the response:
some saying that it's natural - to just leave things
alone.
Some wanting to lay down a steel barrier
to help protect ourselves.
Some
wanting to go out with boat-&-gun - put a bullet through its head, and
take this one -
before it comes back, hankering for more ...Striking just a
stone's throw out -
releasing, and then circling back,
nudging through blunt
chunks of jigsawed board -It's got people upset - this maverick gatecrashed
our shore.
Laid real grief, at our front door ...Yes, Cactus has got the taste
of it - and bigtime now.
For sure.
Regrowth: Travelling North
1.
The whales which we once over-
cut in coupes
achieve regrowth:Southern Right,
Minke,
Humpback,
& Blue.Resuming
their slow-shambling,
north-rolling pursuit
and shallow-breaching motorcade -
just like the Back-to-Work.Occasionally waylaid, or interfered with,
by the
tumbrils of the tour-groups
(in boats with names like:
True Blue, Azure
Venture,
Cat Ballou) -
tail-gating them for whole sea miles;or
gate-crashing a prone female
hung weightlessly and zeppelin-like
in her blue
crèche:suckling her calf in some calm bay.
2.
Finned forest-giants.
Sea's wry-grinning sages,
wrapped in their guffaws;
body-pierced with barnacles.Blubber-suit buffoons.
Benign behemoths with
Leviathin love-handles.They rear with stump-hands shoved
in short, grey
pockets -
topple and half-whirl:
BackCrash!!!
into tutu-
ing waters.
Grandstanding old hams.
Trouper Southern Rights,
pursuing their timeless
Vaudeville
and whistlestop show-circuit -in sundry inlets, coves and bays:
from Warrnambool,
to Point Byron -
right up to Whitsunday.
Davidson Whaling Station, Kiah Inlet
(Ben Boyd National Park, Eden, New South
Wales, Australia)
Here they towed the whales in:
harpooned, sideswiped,
chaise-longued with
bloat -
trailing surrendered flukes.Winched their bulk ashore with
chains-&-hooks:
huge, fleshly parachutes
dragged through thigh-high, maddened
waters -
garaged to this crude breaking-yard.
Put the boat-spades in their
peat-like flesh,
and junked ...Today the National Park conserves
the
timber-propped, tin-rooved sweatshop
in which the Davidsons performed this task.
Reduced the beasts to quivering, brick-sized tofu blocks
force-fed into the
try-pots' maw.
Emptied them of whalesong -
distilling this pure crude.Hot,
filthy work:
the reek of cooking-down, they say,
would carry 10 kilometres
northward -
as whales smelt their giddy way
past foundering Boydtown -
across the amethystine bay,
to stink out Eden.
Bio:
Paul Cliff is an Australian poet, playwright and editor. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Canberra. He has published two previous collections: The Wolf Problem in Australia (Five Islands Press, 1994) and Backpack Despatches, Travel Poems (Kardoorair, 1998). He currently works as an editor at the National Library of Australia, where he has compiled a book series based on the Library’s Oral History, Manuscript and Pictorial Collections. One of these books, The Endless Playground: Celebrating Australian Childhood, received an honourable mention in the Centre for Australian Cultural Studies Awards 2000. Paul’s experimental play, Deadline: A Manual For Hostage-Taking won the Canberra Playwrights Competition in 2000, and was produced by Canberra Repertory Fringe. Paul has also prepared a book-length manuscript (“The Angel In it: Les Murray at Bunyah - A Creative Cartography”) exploring the imaginative landscape and iconography of Murray’s Bunyah poems.
