Poem
Noel Rowe
Next to Nothing
Next to Nothing
Next to Nothing
My sister’s staying things are notwhere I’m used to finding them
my bachelor hands often doing double takes
after saucepans rice and cutting knives
even god help me whiskey glasses this time
I tell myself it doesn’t matter tell myself I’m glad
to have the inconvenience night after night
I’ve heard her cough day after day
watched her hunched shoulders just ahead of me
getting off the 380 bus at Darlinghurst
where the wind scrapes its fingernails
against the locked doors of the Sacred Heart Church
if she’s afraid she doesn’t say taking each day as it comes
heading to the Clinic where she’ll write her name and time
in a book that faces a door with a sign above it saying
“Radiation in Use”
My mother’s here as well she wants to help
she always does can’t help herself
was given kids to raise when she was only four
living in the bush above Taylor’s Arm
no windows in the house only old sugar bags
that sometimes in the pitch black night would start to move
mostly just the wind but once she was sure
there was someone there she’s still afraid at night
and lonely always lonely death for her
will be difficult when she finds she can’t work her way around it
for the moment though she’s cleaning out kitchen cupboards
ironing tablecloths sweeping up camellias trimming ferns making meals
from next to nothing just relax I say
I can’t she says as long as I can keep moving the pain is not so bad
her bones shrinking her skin too easily bruised (just the cortisone?)
she too coughs at night and when she sleeps
you hear her mouth hungry at the air
she says she can no longer pray wonders if she should
worry about this I’d like to say it isn’t words
that constitute prayer but can’t when it comes to god
these days my tongue cracks open
others of the family stay in Macksville everyone asking them
what’s happening the priest has put my sister in the parish bulletin
they’re saying prayers for her recovery
(please god they’re not putting too much emphasis on thy will be done)
this makes it worse for them up there they’re in the dark
at least down here we see her body won’t give up
its place to circling dust motes her walk still asks of earth
equal return of strength she’s learning how to live
with death inside her where it’s always been
My other sister so we’re told isn’t coping well
taking it hard instead of being as she should be strong
she starts to scream when across the phone she hears the news
isn’t good lymphoma cancer they’ll have to operate
perhaps she’s tougher than we think sees what even now I try to block
her sister’s body cut from sternum down open at the middle
so doesn’t care whether or not her cardigan’s on straight
later on she too comes to help ironing tablecloths and making meals
from next to nothing each day the two of them
walk around the block one day they get as far as the video store
this is getting dangerous they’re almost back to normal
soon they’ll settle in we’ll all be watching Charmed
and eating jelly babies months later in the freezer I find
the apples that she stewed and eat them remembering her
when she was young we were all bred
on disappointment eventually it tells
My youngest brother who’s deaf and never learned
to socialise or do his maths
too much trouble his teacher later said to justify
putting him in a corner down the back
now runs music shows on radio 2NVR
rehearses in the bath then with nothing written down
touches the controls and lets his thick-tongued troubles
turn to song but when his sister asks
to speak with him he won’t take the phone
don’t talk to me about that no doubt remembering year after year
in Sydney operations on his ears he had a dog once Charlie
so keen to be in everything one day he jumped the fence
still wearing his lead and hung there choking on love
Middle brother also stays at home to keep an eye on things
living on the edge of what was once the family farm
(now cut in half) he looks across the valley where
the Nambucca makes each day the same
search for ocean while the Star Hotel packs away
another dozen tales the locals tell
because I was gone from home before his stories
had a chance to grow I sometimes find it hard
to know what to say to him
one night he took his telescope and touched
the shoulder of the dark
it turned and looked back galaxies
too long in the city I’d forgotten how clean-cut
the stars can be
my older brother on the morning of her operation
drives us all to hospital easier than a train cheaper than a taxi
a little later in the day he gets his thanks
an accident on Parramatta Road a drunken driver rams the car behind him
and suddenly the family Sigma has damages that total more than fifty taxi trips
the drunken driver hasn’t got a license or a visa but he gets out
laughing because he’s rich the woman in the car between
is trapped screaming she has to be cut free and is too afraid
to let my brother hold her hand later in the day he asks
why good intentions always bring so much bad luck
it’s a family theme his life divides
from when he left his father on the farm
to go to the city where he lived in a boarding houses full of cockroaches
as we grow older it seems more necessary to recall
being young and playing in the swamp
between the farm and the hill he was Phantom Ghost Who Walks
I was Bantar Pygmy Warrior don’t laugh
better that than playing baddies in childhood’s moral scheme
it’s the baddies who are dying all the time
he gave me once one of the old wire strainers we used
putting up fences with our father to get the tension right
I hold it now to feel the way
its weight takes up my hand.
© 2004, Noel Rowe
From: Next to Nothing
Publisher: Vagabond Press, Sydney
From: Next to Nothing
Publisher: Vagabond Press, Sydney
Poems
Poems of Noel Rowe
Close
Next to Nothing
My sister’s staying things are notwhere I’m used to finding them
my bachelor hands often doing double takes
after saucepans rice and cutting knives
even god help me whiskey glasses this time
I tell myself it doesn’t matter tell myself I’m glad
to have the inconvenience night after night
I’ve heard her cough day after day
watched her hunched shoulders just ahead of me
getting off the 380 bus at Darlinghurst
where the wind scrapes its fingernails
against the locked doors of the Sacred Heart Church
if she’s afraid she doesn’t say taking each day as it comes
heading to the Clinic where she’ll write her name and time
in a book that faces a door with a sign above it saying
“Radiation in Use”
My mother’s here as well she wants to help
she always does can’t help herself
was given kids to raise when she was only four
living in the bush above Taylor’s Arm
no windows in the house only old sugar bags
that sometimes in the pitch black night would start to move
mostly just the wind but once she was sure
there was someone there she’s still afraid at night
and lonely always lonely death for her
will be difficult when she finds she can’t work her way around it
for the moment though she’s cleaning out kitchen cupboards
ironing tablecloths sweeping up camellias trimming ferns making meals
from next to nothing just relax I say
I can’t she says as long as I can keep moving the pain is not so bad
her bones shrinking her skin too easily bruised (just the cortisone?)
she too coughs at night and when she sleeps
you hear her mouth hungry at the air
she says she can no longer pray wonders if she should
worry about this I’d like to say it isn’t words
that constitute prayer but can’t when it comes to god
these days my tongue cracks open
others of the family stay in Macksville everyone asking them
what’s happening the priest has put my sister in the parish bulletin
they’re saying prayers for her recovery
(please god they’re not putting too much emphasis on thy will be done)
this makes it worse for them up there they’re in the dark
at least down here we see her body won’t give up
its place to circling dust motes her walk still asks of earth
equal return of strength she’s learning how to live
with death inside her where it’s always been
My other sister so we’re told isn’t coping well
taking it hard instead of being as she should be strong
she starts to scream when across the phone she hears the news
isn’t good lymphoma cancer they’ll have to operate
perhaps she’s tougher than we think sees what even now I try to block
her sister’s body cut from sternum down open at the middle
so doesn’t care whether or not her cardigan’s on straight
later on she too comes to help ironing tablecloths and making meals
from next to nothing each day the two of them
walk around the block one day they get as far as the video store
this is getting dangerous they’re almost back to normal
soon they’ll settle in we’ll all be watching Charmed
and eating jelly babies months later in the freezer I find
the apples that she stewed and eat them remembering her
when she was young we were all bred
on disappointment eventually it tells
My youngest brother who’s deaf and never learned
to socialise or do his maths
too much trouble his teacher later said to justify
putting him in a corner down the back
now runs music shows on radio 2NVR
rehearses in the bath then with nothing written down
touches the controls and lets his thick-tongued troubles
turn to song but when his sister asks
to speak with him he won’t take the phone
don’t talk to me about that no doubt remembering year after year
in Sydney operations on his ears he had a dog once Charlie
so keen to be in everything one day he jumped the fence
still wearing his lead and hung there choking on love
Middle brother also stays at home to keep an eye on things
living on the edge of what was once the family farm
(now cut in half) he looks across the valley where
the Nambucca makes each day the same
search for ocean while the Star Hotel packs away
another dozen tales the locals tell
because I was gone from home before his stories
had a chance to grow I sometimes find it hard
to know what to say to him
one night he took his telescope and touched
the shoulder of the dark
it turned and looked back galaxies
too long in the city I’d forgotten how clean-cut
the stars can be
my older brother on the morning of her operation
drives us all to hospital easier than a train cheaper than a taxi
a little later in the day he gets his thanks
an accident on Parramatta Road a drunken driver rams the car behind him
and suddenly the family Sigma has damages that total more than fifty taxi trips
the drunken driver hasn’t got a license or a visa but he gets out
laughing because he’s rich the woman in the car between
is trapped screaming she has to be cut free and is too afraid
to let my brother hold her hand later in the day he asks
why good intentions always bring so much bad luck
it’s a family theme his life divides
from when he left his father on the farm
to go to the city where he lived in a boarding houses full of cockroaches
as we grow older it seems more necessary to recall
being young and playing in the swamp
between the farm and the hill he was Phantom Ghost Who Walks
I was Bantar Pygmy Warrior don’t laugh
better that than playing baddies in childhood’s moral scheme
it’s the baddies who are dying all the time
he gave me once one of the old wire strainers we used
putting up fences with our father to get the tension right
I hold it now to feel the way
its weight takes up my hand.
From: Next to Nothing
Next to Nothing
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