gorgeous late autumn sunday morning
i sit at my kitchen table
with aurora justine k
shes drawing flowers n fairies
with the doodles new glittery pens
(im having a bit of a fiddle with em myself)
the air is crisp but not at all cold
australian birds sing outside in the different gums n palms
compared to dry old cold canberra
bondi is a tropical paradise
red n orange n crimson hibisci
white frangipanis the most aromatic flowers
ones with slight pale yellow
or rosy whorls becoming maroon near the edges
thousands of flowers i couldnt name
a passionfruit tree with pink autumnal blossoms
and the strange mixture of trees
the figs
the ghost gums
oaks
twisted strange native trees
paperbarks
scribbly barks
its all still
silent
except for enos on land
which is playing softly on the kitchen counter
i can see evie lying in her bed
looking at the ceiling
letting her mind roam with miraculous freedom
that only children and madmen and geniuses understand
its funny with twins
they usually do their imaginings together
me….ii lived in world i had sculpted and formed
in a crowded part of my mind
it was made of
playing cards
(to me the diamonds and clubs were the good guys
just check out the jacks…
the hearts and spades, those jacks,
they look like cads n ne’er do wells
blackguards
while the ds n cs
their jacks (princes..?)
were sensitive kind and usually without
the horrible little moustaches…
then as i am talking about cards
i think who or what do the aces represent?
hmmm…well…
theyre higher than kings
but are also sometimes the lowest….the one
they represent the point where absolute power
either coagulates into the all powerful ONE
or devolves into the singular lonely one
they are the link
where communism meets fascism
where beauty n ugliness collide
the interzone
the apex
and the nadir
consider this fiendss
and look at the cards next time you playing
hmmm most blokes i know
would laugh if ya asked em to play monopoly
or even draughts
chess
but cards
ahh
lotta people love the cards
i do
im fascinated with em
and five hundred is my favourite game
but i can turn into the sinner when i play…
)
other things that informed my daydream
were marbles
(once again joycies spatial clout came in handy)
but although i was good
i was never the best
and i lost lotsa marbles
i had a personal relationship with
(a white one with a yellow ring round the centre)
we played “follows” in nsw
where you just shoot for the other guy
catch as catch can
in victoria we played big ring n little ring
where you shoot the other guys marbles outta a circle
but without your shooter getting caught in the circle
except i think in big ring you wanted to get in..
in the a.c.t it was holey
and only holey
this was my favourite game
and the one that got me totally hooked
its a form of gambling
i justa realized that
youre staking something you love
something that is intrinsically worth something to ya
and when you lose
ah…the sick despair
the bruised ego
the struggle to smile
or say something
the need to repress the shout
“you bloody cheat!!
all the bad chemicals that come with losing..
losing anything
money
yer lover
or marbles…
but the winning
mmmm
oooh lovely ego rush crush acquire
to defeat your rival
collect his booty
“kilbey, youve cleaned me out”
moaned a hapless boy in my back garden in canberra
we had a perfect back garden for holey, baybee
rocky sandy soil grass all terrains are us
you dig a hole
you say how many yer wagering
“how many up, kilbey?)
“ten up, mate
“ten….no way, im only playing for 5”
then youd say
no pots or grannies
this meant that the other player could not invoke
any arcane rules
to get himself outta a jam
it was a clean game
then youd get to the nominated distance from the hole
start shooting
(theyre was even a special and the only legal way
to shoot and that was to flick with the hand laid flat
alongside the marble and catching the forefinger
under the middle finger
you lightly flick
now the strength and subtlety of yer flick
was the very essence of the game
like golf or pool
except in those games the balls represent something
but are nae of importance of themselves
in marbles the balls are the prize and the wager
what an amazing twist
anyway in holey you won
by sinking the last marble
that means when theyre all in the whole bar one
if you have a go at sinking the last one
and you just miss
then youre opponent can easily sink it
and win the lot
so theyre was a very elaborate endgame
trying to have potshots at the hole
but hard
so if ya missed it would go off away from the hole
of course sometimes it went in the hole n bounced back out
sometimes it would go round n round the hole
and roll back out
sitting right on the rim
where the other kid could just tip it in
and your heart would sink right thru yer boots
yeah i cleaned em out
and they cleaned me out
and it was like going bankrupt
you hadda hit yer parents up
to buy some loathesome new marbles
now theres another thing
the beautiful rare n valuable marbles
you could never buy em
they were in circulation
but you hadda win em
ya couldnt buy em
all you could buy were these dull common “guts stickers”
average green flecked things
sometimes if you wanted an americano
or a tom bowler
or a bottler
ya hadda stake a number of the gutstickers
so getting wiped out was tragic
and addictive
wow
marbles my first addiction
anyway now im outta time
i love ya
sk