The shopping centre’s footpath is
thin and interrupted by
parking signs. I tell you this because
along comes an up-market gopher
with tall zipped-up plastic walls
like an oblong of shower curtains
driven through the drizzle of
a spring day. It parks outside the chemist
and an old hand unzips a side panel
carefully. Tall and stooped, rickety on
frail legs, Merv leans on his walking stick
and steps out, then just as carefully
zips the panel up. He travels slowly
on worn slippers, his stick as third leg.
Down the path come two lads,
twenty or so, cocky, sure of
their balance and future.
Mrs Jones, grandson's hand
in hers, moves closer to the wall.
The boys don't notice. On legs
swift and sure, a teenage schoolgirl
walks past, hips alive, and as she passes
she bends and waves at the boy.
The big boys wave back,
mockingly. They know her sister,
the one with a rose tattoo. This one’s
younger, solitary, waiting
at the lights, balancing first on
one leg, then the other. Just now
a gleeful burst of young children
runs down the street, gold and green
streamers flying. Merv pauses
in the doorway to let them pass.
No respect, he thinks, no respect anymore.
His gopher has left a thin stream
on the footpath and one whooping boy
takes a tumble, no worse than
a fall at footy but today
it's a fright and he rubs
his coccyx. The chemist's girl
comes to help. Merv waves
his stick to Shoo! them away,
then slowly zips up a panel,
walking stick on his arm
Hoagy Carmichael style. I
watch from the prompter's pit
how they play their roles so truly. I'm
at The Globe when my wife returns,
shopping bags in each arm. I start
the car. She says, 'This lot'd cost
a pretty penny without a pension card.'
I steer out and over a speed hump,
windows up tight against the wind.
I say: This poem began a couple of weeks ago. It began as a thought. I was sitting in the car outside our neighbourhood chemist where my wife had gone to pick-up a prescription and other nameless objects. I had Talking Heads on the CD system and cranked it up a bit to fill my head. As I watched the passing parade - only scattered pedestrians as it was a weekday and before school closing time - I noticed the extremely different ways people walk. Some loaf along, barely raising their feet. Others walk with a determination and purpose, driven by busy brains. An old man appeared in a flash looking gopher, and the trademark caught my attention: Shoprider. Ha! Just like a surfrider or a waverider but for an oldie. I had to smile at that - I had to write that down. The passing parade had fat people, young thin people, school kids in a bunch, and two young sporting looking men who conversed in a lively manner as they almost danced down the street. They were in their own world as I was in mine.
Over the next two days I carried this thought of a poem around in my head, and by now it had become a thesis on the various skeletal frames of these pedestrians and how age and misfortune affect our walking styles. But when I sat down to write the first draft, it came out differently. Here's the start of the first draft:
Working beats the poems out of you.
At the start of two weeks mid-semester break
I drive my wife to the chemist
And wait outside, listening to
Talking Heads live on some concert CD
My daughter burnt for me. The footpath
Is a thin one, with signposts interrupting
Its width every now and then. I tell you this
Because along comes a Shoprider –
A gopher with tall zipped-up curtains
All around like an oblong shower recess on wheels
Only this one has driven through the drizzle
Of a spring day to park outside the chemist.
An old man – tall and stooped, rickety on
His frail legs – unzips a panel carefully,
Balances on his walking stick and just as
Carefully zips it back up. You can’t be
Too careful, I can almost hear him say.
He travels slowly on those flatfeet,
His stick supporting him as a third leg.
The draft went 548 words, and had a lot of extraneous detail in it. I worked on it on and off for days until the Poetry and Pasta night last Thursday. There I showed it to my fellow poets - and I must thank Sarah French and Dennis Haskell for cutting through the conversations and social ambiance of the evening to suggest cuts and corrections. I started again, and have now done twelve drafts all up, a lot more than my usual amount (although, not unheard of). I chopped the lyrics of the Talking Heads song out early when I chopped the intro out; I named characters just two drafts ago. I cut and I cut and I listened to my mates on a poetry list, PoetryEtc, and to my wife Jeanette. So, it hasn't turned into a camel but it has been written with the input of a lot of minds. Hopefully it is clear and evocative now; hopefully this is the last draft. But it may not be ... Time will tell.
If you are too young to remember Hoagland Howard "Hoagy" Carmichael (November 22, 1899 – December 27, 1981), he was an American composer, pianist, singer, actor, and bandleader. He is best known for writing "Stardust" (1927), "Georgia on My Mind" (1930?) and "Heart and Soul", three of the most-recorded American songs of all time. He also read contemporary poetry very well, and - from memory - appeared on a poetry & jazz album called Jazz Canto. He is not a man to be forgotten.
As some wise person once said, Poems are never finished; they are merely abandoned. I abandon this poem.
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