stomp off, let's go!

Louis Armstrong says it best! So - set this entry to the soundtrack of Louis Armstrong: The Ultimate Collection, Disc 3, Track 13, because that's what's flowin from my cd player right now. Mmm-mm. It's raining, a thunderstorm remnant to douse out the bushfires which burned high near my house yesterday; I assume it was close because we were choking smoke all evening, but I was out all day shopping and caught up in the absolutely awful task of reading Australian Gourmet Traveller & Delicious back issues under the slip light fogged ceiling of the Mitchell wing, State Library, revelling in a room walled with books, smelling library. Yep, it's a fantastic life, and someone's gotta live it! ;)

As I just urged a friend: Listen to the rainfall. Trickle down tango partnered with birdsong. A family of rainbow lorrikeets squeak and squawk from our jacaranda beyond my balcony. On such a morning, like a Louis Armstrong song, I can't help it, I'm on the sunny side of the street, I'm in the mood for love, I'm stomp off, let's go!

So another friend, Alex, texted me yesterday to ask how Day 1: Operation the end of undergrad uni forever (ever ever, ever ever??) went down. And I wouldn't be a wayward procrastinating writer worth my whimsy if I didn't end up answering in a poem. Here it is. Yes it's long, but so was a 5 year degree. Unlike the degree, it goes down easy, like a Tetsuya Ying Sling infused with lychees, definitely a drink to woo women with.

"There must be more than being happy" (Scream love.)

14 Nov.
(1999). A mud hue sedan veered into Pennant Hills Road
The automobile artery of NW Sydney
Male, the driver, late 20s
His mind a kite on a long flying tether
On Caltex, milk and cigarettes
Failed to check right.
His collision theorised by Isaac Newtown four double oo years before
'One object in motion will proceed in due course
Until acted upon by some opposite force.'
Smash!
21.34.
I drank saltwater hospital soup & watched tiny-screen Jerry Maguire
In ER.
The boy across my aisle bore a bloody stump
For a left arm.
So it goes.
(Vonnegut theorised too, fifty years before.)

14 Nov.
(2008.)
I missed my stop.
By plan if not purpose
Thrilling under the passing Bridge beams
Steel pine shadow beams
Harbour glimmer, Quay cruise ships and sunshine
The drop point where a boy
Brilliant, my age, days ago
Dux, final year high
Law Revue loved
Career ready, steady Freehills for life
Forgot the feel of the sun
Heady perfume of magnolia bloom
Of crisp-baked French roll's virgin crackle
Forgot & knew only
Life. Hard life that stretched thin as the skin of a drum, ever ever on.
03.26.
43 mins before the first dawn Cityrail.
By the cold blowing sea gusts, under Bridge beams
He stepped off - saw not
Cruise carnival ships, the harbour as it glimmered
By the city's high lights and brand names neon emblazoned
Felt at last, the thrilling wind as it flew
From the fell drop to the sea.

12.43am.
North Sydney Station.
Unrecognisably changed.
Gone - the smog, 'smoke fog' stairway
Advertising lined, blasted steps
Here, slit aluminium ceilings let in light
By degrees. Dispelled shadows
By design.
I loved to see this. This change. I grew up on this steppes.
Now they're gone.
My battered phone buzzed a message - Alex:

'Spectacular sunny day,
Don't you think?'
I didn't think.
A wild idea for a walking brain.
No-mind. Zen free.
Part of the Plan.

'Exam soon, so relaxed.
Hope you're doing well,
First day of freedom -

Scream love!'

My reply was one line.
The end of the line.
(If I stake my word-bound career by this
I'll be a cardboard box pauper,
Give it days.)
Law - the corporate dream
Hard living
Now a myth.
Dispelled by design.
In one line.

"LOOOOOOVE!!!"