The Sleeping City | Australia Street (remove formatting)

I

A waxing crescent moon in a twilight sky still

a vague, lightly glowing shadow of the whole –

its illuminated hemisphere – is visible. As I walk

the line from the Court House, scene of so many

poetry readings and launches, to Derby Street near

the old Fowler factory park and Camperdown

Bowlo, I think back: the Shakey’s now The Coopers;

the Marlborough is still the Marly to many but so

changed; the Bank is unrecognisable; and the Newtown

gone completely.  Where do I place my compass now

that the familiar is only similar, rendering the Earth-Sun

line feint, at best, when it shouldn’t be. And why

are these meridian points pubs only and not other

significant phenomena: not people; not ideas; not grand

themes. The Cornstalk’s gone and with it the poets

and writers scraping a skerrick, now the words unfound

in Better Read than Dead. Gould’s façade is still there

but the book speleology, to find what you’re looking for

now all empty ravines and caves.

 

II

There’s Lennox Street where John F lived, near

the Carlisle Castle. There’s a picture somewhere

of him at a typewriter in that flat when still alive, vital.

And not far off is Bailey Street where Gilbert E and I

lived with a massive Autumnal mural, casting a rusty

hue to those few years. The Sando was the place to go

for Paris Green on a Sunday night. Further along

off King Street Joe M lived with Phil S on Union Street,

and whose playing of Windy and Warm as I woke

with Fintan Ó one day at Bridge Road – almost meeting

the Parramatta Road end of Australia Street –

formed the background theme tune to my time there.

The Harold Park Hotel with its comics, theatre sports

and Writers in the Park on a Tuesday night competing

with the Trots. Robin Williams even appeared once –

all now gone. All over.

 

III

But it’s the corner of Brown Street where Clem’s

Chickens – still serving quality chook and side dishes

to the changed demographic – that makes me stop

and remember: your scent, so fresh to me again

recently, but now even without the patchouli,

it’s mine, my memory, my bit of you all these

years, while I walked the city, quelling devils.

And this is a turning I really do need, and want,

to make.

 

IV

So, there I go one Saturday morning

and I can feel the rising longing

as I get close to the Belvedere –

red brick and cream iron balconies

so Sydney 70s, it’s now almost heritage –

for what? Can’t quite place which was your

flat. The breathlessness at the chunk of time

elapsed slows my pace and, really, where the hell

did it all go. Your bed, its crisp linen, so alien

in those days, a clean respite from the chaos

I lived in, felt. Then round the corner

to 60 Wilson Street, scene of a lost weekend

when I cried for another and you looked after me,

unquestioningly.

 

V

I was scared that time on Parramatta Road

When you declared undying love and I receded,

scared of what it all meant. But we followed

each other across the globe and cities – Sydney,

London, Edinburgh, Seattle – and across

the years it was always you, I see that. A skewed

diurnal arc. The freight of our past and now,

here we are. And this is it. You and me.

 

VI

The young moon

is always seen in the west

after sunset. My prime

meridian recedes and then

fades, an as-yet-unknown

dip circle in this magnetic

inclination.

 

 

Helen Loughlin

 

 

Helen Loughlin is a poet living in Sydney. She’s just completed her first collection City of the Dead after a long break from writing when she worked in publishing in Australia and Scotland. She’s organised literary events Writers in the Park and the Bridge Readings and edited Phoenix Review, Hermes and Antithesis. She’s been awarded residences at Varuna and Bundanon and her work has appeared in Southerly, Antithesis, Tangent, Rant, Hobo, Essential Poetry, Hermes and Blue Bottle.