Graeme Hetherington: Three Poems

Van Diemen’s Land Road

Strange moment on the road today

When I discovered that the stone

I’d nicely judged to kick along

Was tissue paper in a ball.

Instead of meeting, as it struck,

Resistance to its weight, my foot

Kept going, light as air, as though

At last I’d walked free of my un-

­Loved self, discarded, flown off like

The wad of rubbish out of sight.

Household Scenario

One way my father ruled the roost

Was to sound threatening when he said

To questioners “you want to know

The ins and outs of a magpie’s arse-

Hole”, or asked God to stiffen crows.

My mother, never quite inured

To these outbursts, though frequent, could

Be roused from moods dark as their plumes

To claim they cleaned up road-kill from

His car. Aware it wouldn’t work

To be close to the wives of men

He as mine manager employed,

She made a pet of “Jim” who’d lost

A leg and stumped, a pirate tamed

By tit-bits from her brimming hand,

Companionably near, and drew

From the bread-winner, keeper of

The cheque book and sole signatory,

“What wicked waste!” She must have felt

In that male-shrivelled, carping world

As cursed as his black birds, and quipped

In anger to him that she wished,

If only it were possible,

To fly away at meal’s end with

Her friend before he was wiped out.

Playground Triumph (2)

“Getting the dirty water off

Your chest” was derelicts’ and red-

Neck miners’ slang for having sex,

And not just the police, but wives

Were called “the filth”. Such idioms,

As naturally as mother’s milk,

Helped form the fabric of my soul,

And when today I poked my tongue

Out in the mirror at myself,

Fed up with inner turbulence,

Its yellow coating, partly from

Keeping the half-loved, tabooed side

Of my verbal identity

Under control reminded me

Of how I won a school-yard cheer,

The trophy for foul language which

If printed here would without fire

Reduce the paper to black ash.

Graeme Hetherington