Patrick McCauley: from The Sea Palace Hotel

We went to the holy

bathing place

where the spring had never failed,

there were ducks and geese

and cormorants

and the pool was filled

with big catfish.

There were old men on the steps

fixing up the rocks

where the ceremonies take place.

The sky was mist

or Mumbai fog

and this was an old, old place.

The stones laid here,

the water deep,

probably three thousand years old.

The taxi man said he came here

for the energy;

and we both sat quietly

upon the stones

in the peace and the heat

and the history.

 

*

 

The Australian woman

thin and ragged,

slightly nervous,

was assertive.

“No, only one hundred rupee”

she said with venom

which would not have been out of place

back home.

Here it is aggressive,

obvious, loud and ugly.

The Indian men

don’t know what to do.

The price is fair

and the bargaining was done

a while ago.

She does not know when she has won

or if she lost

and all are left in silence.

 

*

 

They are not crows,

they are ravens small and smart

that bark like dogs

from the Banyan trees

when the sun is up.

 

They swarm over

sites of food

around the market place

like shadows of another world;

a black kaleidoscope.

 

The women cloaked from head to foot,

in black arabesque

follow white dressed men around

and never seem to speak.

 

There are black holes

in the raven’s world,

the ones that bark like dogs.

Black holes of absence

where silence holds no light.

 

*

 

Outside the air-conditioning

of equity

forcing citizens to their knees

in the heat of a late summer

heatwave

the North wind.

I sit in the shade of Australia,

shamed

for my gender

shamed for my race.

We don’t know who we are

we are multi-cultural.

We place the turds in plastic bags

and we sweep the dirt

from our souls.

We dance without the use of our arms.

We are pretty agro in Australia

we walk like we know

how to work

real hard.

Tougher than an old dog’s bone.

 

The air is filled with anger

and aggression

suppressed into silence,

and brief conversation.

I am a stranger in my own family

I recognize the face of my mother

teaching the girls to be boys

and watching the Mardi Gras.

Feminine journalists

were humiliating the gladiators

on the global world wide stage.

I walked into a thick fog of angst

disguised as the ABC.

My home had become my enemy.

 

Patrick McCauley