New poem: ‘We are all space-junk’
October 14, 2009
Here is a very short piece I very recently sent in for a facebook friend’s themed mini-anthology re: weeds -actual and figurative/discarded/unlovely. An excerpt from a different one (of mine) was preferred, so decided to give this one another outing:
We are all space-junk
‘Atomise them all!’.
‘But…Commander! Those ships…
are all in working order!’
‘We lost the critical war, colleague.
All of this around us is space-junk.
WE are now space-junk.
How can you fail to see this?’
****
38 words max, or 36, counting ’space-junk’ as one compound word each time; 40 words was the limit.
Recent poem: ‘Daydreams and Detour signs’
October 10, 2009
(i)
Three low-lying hills
mark the boundary of a realm;
a dark, cold lake of unknowable depth and beaten-metal surface
is ahead of me;
on an island in this lake,
an ancient tower suggests a history of wizards.
There are no dragons in the sky. Yet.
(ii)
I take a few steps backwards,
then look to my left side again: there are Detour signs,
construction-site notices on temporary metal fencing
and on the surviving patches of worn grass, some small dunes
of cement rubble, piled up by workers demolishing the familiar path.
Looks like it could be weeks before the fence is gone,
so I turn right and head towards a park and another realm
best seen in daydreams.
********
The lake-shore footpaths and park areas in the centre of Canberra are great for daydreaming, especially during quieter late afternoons. The poem above is based on some notes made during a weekend-afternoon walk about a month ago.
Recent poem: ‘It all comes down to this’
October 10, 2009
It all comes down to this
long corridors and short stops
to let the late joiners catch up with the group.
A guide’s voice floats over me,
carrying another story to a tapestry
that has already soaked up too many words.
I half-close my eyes so I can see some of those old words
leaking onto the intricate patterns on the floor.
“This last room was a special salon -
the original chatelaine spent nearly all her time here
and only allowed her closest women friends as guests.
It has a rare set of design features adapated just for her
and an even rarer positioning within the chateau -so rare it is famous,
even among all the chateaux in this region.”
It all comes down to this:
the women who used this salon
were all left-handed.
A coincidence?
Not for them.
****************
After many tours of castles, chateaux, stately homes etc and seeing them in documentaries and movies, I’ve occaisionally thought about how really unusuual, difficult design features affecting the entire building were accomodated in the construction process. Probably only a tiny proportion of castles were ever genuinely and completely designed for left-handed people, as the orientation of rooms, stairwells, inner defences etc were designed on the basis of 90% + of people being right-handed. Related to this is a question about how specific areas within a grand residence might be customised even more if particular people due to live there managed to ‘get their way’. Over an extended time, how might this specialised space affect the way they lived in their home and how they related to others?
New flash fiction: ‘Helena’s Tasting Party’
October 10, 2009
Helena’s Tasting Party
Helena is here: at a gourmet food-tasting party, hosted in an expensive apartment with lake views on two sides. She is dressed for cocktail-style social action but surrounded by people she has never mixed with before. The “slightly weird” colleague who offered to get her an invitation is over at a table stocked with rows of small bowls full of colourful dips and designer sauces. Someone engineering this production really pays attention to catering: so many details are included, so many options provided, but there is no clutter anywhere. Waiting staff have a spooky knack for anticipating guests’ choices.
She is annoyed to note that despite not being even nearly as sleek or conversational as her, Glen is obviously at home in this settting. In their office world, she has overhead him talking about role-playing games. It stirs strong suspicions.
‘So, can I get you a drink? A plate of samples?’ A strong, young voice; still, she struggles to not assume that the man who owns it is trying too hard.
‘Not yet, thanks, but can you tell me how my colleague over at the dips table fits in here?’ Helena likes her drinks neat and her answers even neater, whenever possible.
‘You don’t have much time for fantasy fiction, do you?’ Dafydd the stranger likes to test reactions of anyone who looks over-confident about their ability to interpret unspoken social cues. He hasn’t met an example like Helena for a fair while. Helena just wishes she’d accepted a drink.
‘No and not interested in starting now’. ['Good thing Cassie isn't here now -she'd nag me about being unforgiving.' ]
‘If you were, it could help explain a little about why Glen fits in. He’s not naturally “one of us”, but it’s good to know him.’ He leaves that with her as he goes to get her a drink, taking a chance he’ll get it right after being trained by the waiting staff.
Glen is back beside her seat, with a full plate, extra fork and servietttes for both of them. ‘Thought you could use some of these morsels. Sorry for being away so long.’
‘No matter; thanks for the food’. She finds some flavours that promise to improve her workday lunches if she can get them at a deli.
‘Looked like Dafydd was throwing you a surprise question or two’.['Wtf? When did Glen the role-player in disguise become a sharp reader of body language?' Helena really wants that drink and wishes she'd never let one of her closer friends talk her into saying yes to this...event. ]
Too late for any more answers or questions -the host, even weirder in his own way than Glen or Dafydd, is persuading everyone to move out to the balcony for his sunset-viewing ritual. Two minutes later, with a drink even she admits is a perfect choice, Helena finds some relief in the natural spectacle and takes a micro-holiday from being critical.
Back indoors after dark: Helena and Dafydd are enjoying a mutual-irritation/flirting contest and Glen is keeping out of range while he also tries to assure the host that they won’t involve anyone else.
Helena suddenly crosses an unknown personal boundary by simply not knowing enough about these people. Glen hasn’t managed to intervene in time – he saw the essential warning sign but has missed the chance. He also missed every earlier chance to drop any discreet hints about the presence of genuine mysterious capabilities and some disturbing secret lives.
All the fun stops. Instantly. Possibly even faster than that. She can’t even see Dafydd now, but looks at where he just was…sees a small three-tailed orange lizard on his chair.
‘Didn’t see that one coming, did you?’ Even if Glen had said something, Helena’s intense contempt for fantasy fiction would have reduced it to nothing, so she is totally unequipped to deal with small talking lizards the colour of Subtly-muted Umbrian Orange tiles she recently had installed in her bathroom. She just shakes her head, stays quiet and aims a panicked look at the host and Glen, for any kind of help. No conditions, just help. A quick exit is her no.1 choice.
‘How about we try a quiet lounge bar, somewhere else?’ Glen the “slightly weird” roleplayer from her office life, finds a voice that has the right kind of helpful sound, so she follows him out of the circle of
confused guests, out the front door and stays silent in the lift. She is still silent when he leads her out to the footpath and points towards a bar across the road. A nod will do, so he gets one.
The best news of the night suddenly become clear to her: despite fititng in with the unsettling party scene and being a friend of a guy who changes colour and grows three tails when he’s really pissed off, Glen is showing no signs of changing into a lizard. He might even turn out to be a reasonable lounge-bar date.
********************************
I wrote the piece of flash fiction above earlier this week, for a facebook friend. It was written in one night, very soon after being at a national Speculative Fiction convention, Conflux6, in Canberra on the October Long Weekend (3-5 Oct.)
