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ARTLOOK #15 | September 2005
new writing
proudly sponsored by ‘poetry in flowers’
Shattered Memories
ROBERT MCDONALD: Winner, the ACT Writer's Centre Canberra Young Writers' Award, Year 9/10 Section
Madame Rusedski stepped through the damp curtains and onto the quiet balcony. Her footsteps echoed in the street below, mingling with the soft sound of water steadily dripping off the roofs of the houses. The small streams ran together, forming dark puddles in the shadows.
Madame Rusedski wiped the tears and black, smudged make-up from her bloodshot eyes and looked down at the small, silver object in her hands. Ten storeys below, something hit the ground with a splash and a tinkle, and the picture of the small face of a happy, laughing boy was washed down the drain.
Tears ran down Madame Rusedski's face. The small splash, splash of water hitting the balcony did not worry her-nothing was important anymore.
The rain had drenched her dress, the one she had worn to her son's first birthday. She looked up at the dark, stormy sky and saw the moon peeking through. It was a thin sliver, like a mouth mocking her about the loss of her most precious possession.
She could not take it. She had bottled up all her feelings and was at bursting point. She drew a shuddering breath, and screamed. She screamed at the people in the streets below, to let them understand her tragic loss. She screamed at the drunk driver in prison, sentenced for his actions that bleak, September night when purpose was removed from her life. She screamed and screamed.
Ten storeys below something else hit the ground with a splash, and the long, sad scream ceased.
Ambiguity
Beneath the eastern window
he sits in an ante-room
suffused in the colour
of his tortoiseshell glasses.
His book of poetry
is filled with quaint
and quiet words
that slip off each page
to float
on the cold and silent air.
Outside the rain has ceased
and a delicate sun
through dusty wooden blinds
divides him deliberately
into layers of knobbled light:
a thin ladder
that runs beyond his shoes
becoming stairs
and a flight
into the freezing monochrome
of afternoon
and the yellow meaning
of the hours.
JEFF GUESS, South Australia
