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Poem

Samuel Wagan Watson

Parallel Brisbane

Parallel Brisbane

Parallel Brisbane

Brisbane is a small city, but that’s OK . . . ’cause I don’t need much room to move . . .
My domain is on the south-side.  I get all my fuel from Logan Road.  Logan Road is the main artery of my being.  This is where my story begins . . . and will one day peacefully end. The ghosts of my Indigenous and European ancestors share spiritual communion on the length and breadths of this stretch. Although their cultures and journeys ran parallel in the past, the gridlines that form my identity were eventually meshed. Mum and Dad found each other in high school, in the shadow of Mt Gravatt, by the shifting skin of Logan Road. Their love is still as deeply entrenched as the tramlines under Central.

I frequently lose myself here, in the best place I will ever know. In the belly of a bus, the song of the engine’s celeste, easily moving in and out of traffic, the regulated stops between Garden City and Woolloongabba, punctuated by the footpaths, the parks and corner stores where I have purchased my ingredients of the Dream . . .
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Parallel Brisbane

Brisbane is a small city, but that’s OK . . . ’cause I don’t need much room to move . . .
My domain is on the south-side.  I get all my fuel from Logan Road.  Logan Road is the main artery of my being.  This is where my story begins . . . and will one day peacefully end. The ghosts of my Indigenous and European ancestors share spiritual communion on the length and breadths of this stretch. Although their cultures and journeys ran parallel in the past, the gridlines that form my identity were eventually meshed. Mum and Dad found each other in high school, in the shadow of Mt Gravatt, by the shifting skin of Logan Road. Their love is still as deeply entrenched as the tramlines under Central.

I frequently lose myself here, in the best place I will ever know. In the belly of a bus, the song of the engine’s celeste, easily moving in and out of traffic, the regulated stops between Garden City and Woolloongabba, punctuated by the footpaths, the parks and corner stores where I have purchased my ingredients of the Dream . . .

Parallel Brisbane

Sponsors
Gemeente Rotterdam
Nederlands Letterenfonds
Stichting Van Beuningen Peterich-fonds
Prins Bernhard cultuurfonds
Lira fonds
Versopolis
J.E. Jurriaanse
Gefinancierd door de Europese Unie
Elise Mathilde Fonds
Stichting Verzameling van Wijngaarden-Boot
Veerhuis
VDM
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