Selected poems
Buns, boys, buns
I'm Monty. I walk these streets with a paper bag.
What you got in the bag, Monty?
Buns, boys, buns.
I'm Mrs Sparrow, I go bent double
behind my old pram staring under my eyebrows.
I pick up treasures thrown away.
Nobody calls out to me.
I'm Tom, Black Tom. I sleep in the powerhouse
I catch snakes and pull out their fangs with pliers
then I wear the latest one wrapped
round my black waist. I never
change my singlet. In the pub they hate me
when I introduce a snake. Here's Joe, I say, Joe Blake.
Me, I'm a champion footie player
I duck and blind-turn all along this footpath
I take screamers and the crowds yell:
Up there Cazaly!
They call me Bessie, that's not my name.
I walk the supermarket aisles with my dog, Mackie.
He carries my cardboard box for the shopping.
Once I saw Rolf Harris there and told everyone.
Another time I saw Jesus Christ. He thanked me.
I'm Horrie, the radio man.
I carry my big ghetto blaster on my shoulder.
It sings to me all day beside my ear.
Just call me Mister Icarus. I used to teach. I would
tell stories from the Greeks if people would only listen.
I carry a briefcase and always
wear an army greatcoat storm or sunshine.
My name is Possum. I wear a greatcoat too
and bring the cows in every evening for milking
across this highway in the Rises.
I ride the last cow and the cars toot.
I'm a horse. Really I am.
They call me Tobin Bronze that won the Cup.
I trot or canter I gallop along this street straight.
Sometimes I shy away from nasty people.
The many old streets have run into one in time
the walkers all come tumbling now together
as out of Monty's paper bag.
They've been up close to the sun with their prams
and greatcoats, songs, snakes, cows, horses, Jesus
Christ and ghetto blasters and are now
quietly gathering among my piddling memories.
Buns, boys, buns, they are saying.
I moved to the Land of Magic
I moved to the Land of Magic
found it full of mumbo-jumbo
I bounced to the Kingdom of Rhythm
too many ups and downs
I went eagerly to Warm-and-Fuzzy
soon bogged down in treacle
I trekked to the Republic of Religion
it was open only on Sundays
I suffocated in Ideology Land
choked in Hypocrisy's Realm
I passed a place where men went masked
they struck me down with flagpoles
in the outlandish Land of Sheer Outrage
I was mocked for mentioning respect
I asked a wise man where I could find
the Land of Music Love and Art
nowhere, he said, it's all been banned
as political correctness gone mad
in despair and hope I went by boat
riding oceans daring storms
until in the Commonwealth of Promises
I landed bruised behind barbed wire
Rifle range at Port Campbell
When you walk up beyond the targets, the concrete
pit and the stop-butt where the rifle bullets plug
you realize that the sea is right there, under your nose
and out, almost out of sight, a fishing boat or two
still and distantly picturesque against the sky
and behind you a long barely-grassed fairway
with shooters' mounds 100 yards 200 400
the old Lee Enfield 303 shot much further
way out over the targets and the sand-dune
out as far as the fishermen, out beyond to Bass Strait
to the Southern Ocean if a rifleman just sneezed
at the wrong time as he squeezed the trigger
out past the oil rig on the horizon out of sight out there
all the way away from men on their bellies shooting
splayed legs, eyes fixed, explosions, smell of cordite
at the rifle range, out to the whole world maybe
round after wayward round over the Antarctic and away
well past the comprehension of the marksmen
lying on their bellies, of me there on a non-shoot day
looking out to sea, of the fishermen, the oil rig workers,
harmlessly over the heads of the seals and the penguins,
who still swim in here on their bellies from another age.
Coming in through the heads years ago
Coming in through the heads at Port Campbell
still some way out from the pier I noticed a lone
small head in the water and when I eased the boat
to check if someone was in trouble (sometimes
weaker swimmers get swept out to sea)
I saw that it was my son, Matthew. Now I knew
well enough that Matty from a very young age
could swim all day and dive betweentimes
and that seeing him there was, on reflection,
no big deal but I sang out anyway: Need
a lift? and he said: I'm OK, and we all went
on our way. Now Matty has gone, suddenly,
and we are entirely numbingly shocked
at his absence. He won't see Port again
first time in close to forty years and I won't
see again that head bobbing in the water
though now I will always imagine
he is there and still saying: I'm OK.
B. A. Breen has been publishing poetry for half a century, in books . lit magazines and newspapers in Australia and (occasionally) overseas. His latest poetry collection is Beyond the Frame: Poems from the Art Gallery of Ballarat, 2014.