Anne McCue
Christopher Konrad (Edith Cowan University, Australia)
.
.
She’s singin’ “Take me down
down to the place where the monsters play”
She looks like she’s a thinking man’s Barbie doll
or a back up guitarist for Cyrano de Bergerac
.
She started her journey ready to write
the world’s next greatest novel but ended up
answering an ad in some local rag
.
The wheels are turning in my own swamp…
I’m sitting in this tepid room out
on the backstretch of Gagadju: I’ve just seen
ten thousand years of rock art and heard stories
of twin sisters who became crocodiles so that they could kill
as many people from as many different tribes as they want
.
The air is pregnant
it is fertile up here along the Arafura Sea: the wetlands
give birth with every saturated breath that is exhaled
.
I’ve been down to the place where the monsters play
to where the Namarrgarn sisters lie in wait
their fertility is my death
their dream time is my creation story
.
I see her singin’ a Sonny Boys song
she is my demise
she is full of danger
she is the monster in this swollen yellow water
.
The wheels are turning
The wheels are turning
.
I’m a stranger here and
left to my own devices I drown in the juices of this land
parables make my wheels go round
course through the East Alligator River: my veins
this rock is my art
my new papyrus
I have no more words
these ochres are my road
.
The wheels keep turning
.
All these brothers under all these constellations
………..under this dark sky
under my breath
I hold a special place in my heart for my friends on this Ubirr ledge
looking over these vast wet plains
.
She was singin’
“Take me down
down to the place where the monsters play”
.
Billy Neidjie says “ … soon the elders will be gone
it will be up to you to carry these stories on”
.
My demons lay in wait
I started my journey
I ended up with a long horizon ahead
shadows are my companions
who will tell my stories
who will protect my art
how on earth could I protect theirs?
.
.
Chris has lived in the hills around Perth pretty much his whole life and has a wonderful partner of twenty six years with four grown children. He works currently with the new and emerging communities. Currently he is undertaking a PhD in creative writing at ECU, Perth, and has had poems published with four other WA poets in an anthology called Amber Contains the Sun (2008) and in many journals and online zines and journals. He was the winner of the Tom Collins Prize in 2009 and the Creatrix Prize (WA) in 2009.
