Leather and Chocolate

I was revisiting some of my older poems today and thinking about how all my early poems were so focussed on the senses, particularly the ones that involved food and sex. I remembered my friend Shelley once describing my voice as like leather and chocolate (she was kind enough to come and hear me read at open mic events) and I had this idea about myself being a kind of Nigella Lawson though that seems incredibly farcical now. Anyway, I thought I'd share some of those older poems. The first two appeared in the Listener (I am sure Steve Braunias published the "oyster poem" just to annoy his bosses because he got the sack soon after), the third was never published but always well liked at readings, and the fourth was published by Doug Poole over at Blackmail Press along with several other poems for which I am very grateful.

tossed green salad

His girlfriend wears a fitting shift

of apple green but I am reminded of

acidic lime - the bitter peel, finely grated –

found in a recipe for dressing – tart

with juice and a hint of mustard,

as well as extra virgin olive oil

to grease

her way along the bar and clasp

the hand of a man who once

squeezed mine.

shuck

You once attached yourself

to rocks, clustered amongst

clinging barnacles but now

you are laid back, chilling –

awaiting the guilty pleasure

of sliding over this

velvet tongue and down

my aching throat.

greengrocer

It seems inevitable, looking back.

Cloistered in his fruit shop, every day –

the serpent lurking.

He held each apple like a newborn,

cradled avocado in his palm,

packed bags as engineers might stack,

with steady precision and consideration

of every weight and possible constraint.

His careful touch - light yet firm.

At times you saw him in a

rusty hatchback back and forth

between the shops and houses of

our bay, delivering, delivering,

(always on his way).

You wonder how the vehicle

and marital relations broke down

that same afternoon in the

parking lot. Rumours swelled

at mention of his keen resolve

to service one lucky customer

too often and too well.

Juicy strawberries wept.

The ripened flesh of pear

showed off its bruises and brightly

tipped asparagus spears

began to wilt.

He's sold up now. You heard

they divided the fruits in two.

He oversees the produce link

of a large suburban chain

and yet, he's unrestrained.

He tends his seedlings on weekends,

and sometimes takes a carton

of Grade 2 grapes to his ex-wife,

as a gift, so she can leave them

on the steps, to rot.

coffee with a crush

The second hand threatens –

we never get to be alone like this,

wedge a stolen hour in,

sip lattes and chip away, with forks,

at lemon tarts – bittersweet and treacherous.

We tread on ground we’ve

fallen through before yet urge ourselves

to leap across to new terrain,

spongy with possibility.

The minutes bridge us.

We meet and hang amongst families

consuming eggs, bright side up.

A river of patrons drift in and out.

Somehow time fixes itself. Not slow

/excruciating like waiting out the rain

but slow/delicious – chocolate melting

on a pink tongue, pavlova sliding

in baby spoonfuls over parched lips.

We have to savour this, disprove

the equation now + here = nowhere,

fingers embracing a warm cup

and across the table – a feast.

All poems © Tania Brady

this is the tide, turning (poem)

A poem I wrote a while ago, from the deck of a bach at Port Waikato.

this is the tide,

turning

This is you on the deck.

That bird is a tern.

The tide is procrastinating – this way or that?

That is a crab scurrying into a hole

in the brown sludge. This is what

it looks like when the tide’s out,

the inlet’s shiny coat reflecting a stand

of trees, and the grey smoke sky, before

the dunes begin. That is the sound

of a plane, cutting its arc

through the air.

That is a tern calling to another tern –

a babble of barking– like small dogs or frogs

learning their language. Half bark,

half whatever it is frogs do. This is the whistle

of another bird – high and screechy. That is the sun

coming in after having the day off.

This is Sunday.

There are children on a blue swing going

in opposing directions. This yellow slide stands out –

its colour and its angles. That tree next to the park

is shaped like a green lollipop. That is a blue bach

on a small hill, with a sunset orange umbrella.

This is the neighbour’s house, all cream

and green and on the flat.

That is the squabble of terns escalating.

This is you admiring

the hurried footsteps

of the Asian fishermen scurrying

to take their place on the edge

of the bay.

On Growing Up, With Swearing

This is a personal narrative essay I wrote for the first assignment for my Intro to Academic Writing paper at Massey. I got an A for it, though it did have some missing commas and other small problems which I haven't fixed yet but will. It was supposed to be on an aspect of literacy but you know me, I couldn't restrict myself to just writing about learning to read or write. It had to be more interesting and it had to be more specific. And my tutor was pleased he got to read something different as well. Just posting in case anyone is interested in reading it.

(*note names have been changed to protect the innocent)

On Growing Up, With Swearing 

I learned to swear outside the Girl Guides Hall in Gosnells, Western Australia, lounging on a large concrete pipe we used as play equipment, while Stacey Smithers called Karen Brown a ‘fucking mole’*. I was ten and she had to explain to me what ‘mole’ meant.

“It’s like slut,” she said. “Only bitchier.” I didn’t know what ‘slut’ or ‘bitch’ meant either. Sometimes new language is thrust upon you and you need to learn it fast.

“So what’s a slut then?” I asked, biting my fingernails.

Two weeks before this I was enrolled in a convent school in Sydney, in a brown checked woollen uniform complete with beret, and six months before that I was attending my father’s funeral. There was still a lot to think about as I contemplated the black dirt and sweat that outlined my sandals, my brown legs poking out of khaki shorts, on the dusty outskirts of Perth. I was trying to get my bearings, on life and on swearing, in the afternoon between primary school and an evening session of Girl Guides.

Anna giggled. Then she leaned in, whispering. “A slut is when a girl likes boys and does stuff with them.” I searched Anna’s eyes for clues. She may have winked. I blushed. It was embarrassing not to know.

Gosnells is about an hour south of the Swan River. That’s the division in Perth – it’s what side of the river you come from. If you lived there you were a ‘bogan’ or a ‘yobbo’ (‘yob’ for short) and wore black t-shirts, pale blue Levi cords and brown or black DBs (desert boots). You listened to AC/DC and KISS. The beach was a long way away. And outside the Girl Guides Hall, on local bus stops and the Gosnells train station (where you could take the hour long trip to the city and swap trains for another half hour to the coast) the slogan “Gozzy Boys Rule” was plastered in spray paint on every available wall, just like dogs piss on hydrants.

It is funny to think of the words we used back then. A condom was a ‘franger’. A stupid person was a ‘fuck tard’ or a ‘fuck muppet’ or sometimes even a ‘tard fuck’, another clear derivative of ‘retard’, which was also common. There was this saying, “A slut sleeps with everyone. A bitch sleeps with everyone but you”. We said ‘screw’ and ‘fuck’ but the most popular verb for shagging was to ‘root’, as in “You wanna root that bitch?” or the romantic pick up line “Do you wanna root?”

I was fifteen when I talked to my cousin Rob about swearing. He boarded at Aquinas College, an affluent boy’s school (north of the river). He was a few years older than me, about to leave school for university, and full of expensive facts. We were lying on the trampoline, with sausage and cigarette smoke drifting past us from the barbecue, discussing the origins of words.

“So what do you think of ‘fuck’, then?” I asked. I thought he might call me a retard for not knowing.

“Oh that’s an old old word,” Rob answered, all thoughtful and smart. “They've been using it since convict times. If you got caught doing stuff with someone your age, say, the judge in court would say you were up for fuck – felonious, unlawful, carnal knowledge”.

That same year I was having a conversation with my mother, during the dishes.

“I read in the paper that forty percent of girls lose their virginity by the time they’re sixteen,” she said.

“So what?” I blurted, knowing what was coming and not being able to stop it.

“Which camp do you fall into?” She was washing and I was wiping. I couldn’t believe my ears.

“It’s none of your business, you bitch,” I muttered, half under my breath.

 Looking back, it was a normal teenage thing to do, talking back to my mother, using the language of rebellion, but there was a lesson here and I was about to learn it. When you’re standing in your mother’s kitchen, doing the dishes, no matter what she says to slander you, and whether you deserve it or not, DO NOT SWEAR at your mother. A slap across the face with a wet hand has a powerful and long remembered sting in it.