Craig Cliff
Wellington Triptych
[i]
One-thirty: Midland Park
- the lunchers are all back in their boxes
- our hero has finished his mandarins and his friend is just smoking
- the lunchers are all back in their boxes
- our hero has finished his mandarins and his friend is just smoking
the pigeons are eating his ash --------------------- just like they
have for a
fortnight
fortnight
“Evolution eh?”
Perhaps he’s right
There are no dead birds
............................................................... only
defiled ones
defiled ones
[ii]
upwards in a hungry whirlwind
out the window -- slurried
And great pages fly
leaves separating from flapping leaves
like seagulls in a child’s drawing
like seagulls in a child’s drawing
Below
a man with a swaddling eyepatch
throws his hands up and out
a man with a swaddling eyepatch
throws his hands up and out
– out-stretched palms the way you imagine stopping a train
–
only for the paper to continue
approaching but
never arrive
Our hero is nearly falling
out the window
thesis out of reach
out the window
thesis out of reach
Our heroine is on a train – her progress is
inexorable
[iii]
a dead leaf is
dance-ing with a cigarette
butt
at the top of the e s c a l a t o r
and our hero is no longer going toburger king
to use the hand-dryers on his pit-stains - -
he will blow off hisinterview and go hunting
for moa with his friends and big nets
and let the world know
wonder once more
at the top of the e s c a l a t o r
and our hero is no longer going to
to use the hand-dryers on his pit-stains - -
he will blow off his
for moa with his friends and big nets
and let the world know
wonder once more
Craig Cliff is a young (read: quarter-life crisis young) public servant. His workplace diversions include frequenting lit-blogs, setting fantasy football lineups and writing short bursts of escapist text inside of briefing notes. He is on borrowed time. Of ‘Wellington Triptych’, Cliff writes: “When I write about Wellington, birds appear—which sounds like a Carpenters song but isn’t. Rather than fight the content, I decided to fight the structure.”