Katoomba Incantation
One.the ups
bivouacked, between Sydney and Bathurst- alembic of buskers and brisk air:
Katoomba by dusk,
after the tempests
I take notice of myself
in an acrobatic city
refulgent amidst its
frangible sandstone terraces;
in the sunken green dimples of treed land between tin roofs, obstreperous white cockies, ravish seeds of casaurina agitating the backstreet silence above The Gully.
locals are crammed into arteries off Katoomba Street, souped-up exhaust system epiglotti bellow foully like indigestion for tourists moseying towards a share of the mountain dogma;
the cart-wielding madmen clanking cans of Coles beans outside biodynamic food stores, insult lavender with body odour; within earshot, passing freight- Great Western Highway's incantation.
this little city whose sun gods are spat upon by clouds; stoic city of gentle bookshops and end-times exegeses in cafes, of Land Rovers in low gear, the cocksure vendors of adventure.
two.the downs
my neighbor, he is a rubbish bin master- obsessive-compulsive about them: expert in their etiquette and impeccable with their timing -never sooner, never later- his is an exertion of love unfolding in the little valley sidewalks of Wembley Downs.
the same person every morning is fast-walking for heart fitness while magpies and crows cackle and release sudden white shite onto the perfect black bitumen, aiming for joggerheads.
such artistic, altruistic birds! dripping mandalas of excrement (like Pollack), dropping divinatory splotches for the benefit of Buxton Street's residents, but who cares about the occult these days.
instead conversations revolve around the sounds of crow feet on corrugated roofs at 6am, the ball & chain watering schedule, that bloody bark-shedding bastard of a gumtree and its shitbirds!
all this, before the god of sun stymies the involuted clot of creation singeing the hirsute dunes of Floreat collapsing houses, imploding seas liquifying Scarborough's Priapus between Fremantle and Hillaries.
three.between
indian pacific, fractals of mulga bush- swatheline through Australia:
ten hours to Kalgoorlie, dark walk in the wide streets of the Golden Mile, next day tropical gales at Cook old gaol propped like outhouses- bush hospital a stack of rocks.
step off at Adelaide to retrieve, Internet palaver, downgraded to the Red Seats to the Pacific, families crawl aboard, why don't they just fly? backtrack towards Alice Springs, then abruptly east.
watery heat of Broken Hill, suspension of thought, movement through the night, fetally expiring through the undefined expanse of the Blue Mountains- early morning call, off at Lithgow.
wind tossling hair, a searching look behind sunnies, a snapping of the train into motion last lock of eyes, a burning impression of always ever, either leaving or arriving.
John Ryan