The language of oysters
Charles Olson sat back in his oyster-shed
working with words - 'mostly in a great
sweat of being, seeking to bind in speed' -
looked at his sheaf of pages, each word
an oyster, culled from the fattening grounds
of talk. They were nurtured from day one,
from the spat-fields to their shucking,
words, oysters plump with life. On Mooney Creek
the men stalk the tides for corruption.
They spend nights in tin shacks
that open at dawn onto our great brown river.
On the right tide they ride out
into the light in their punts, battered slabs
of aluminium with hundred-horse Yamahas on the stern
hammering tightly away, padded high-tech -
sucking mud into the cooling systems,
the motors leave a jet of hot piss in their wakes.
These power-heads indicate
the quality of the morning's hum.
The new boys don't wake from dreams
where clinkers crack, where mud sucks them under,
their grandfather's hands fumbling
accurately, loosening the knots. Back
at the bunker the hessian sacks are packed ready
and the shells grow into sliding white foothills.
A freezing mist clenches your fingers,
the brown steam now cold as fire:
plunge in and wash away last night's grog,
in the middle morning, stinging and wanting
the week to fold away until payday.
On the bank, spur-winged plovers stroll in pairs,
their beak-wattle chipped by frost,
each day blinking at the crack of sun.
Stalking for corruption? Signs.
Blue algae drifts through your brother's dream
of Gold Coasts, golf courses. The first settlement.
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