PSYCH NURSE

10 P.M. -
the TV still operates in the main lounge
tranquillizing those patients who have not yet found


their crooked way to bed.
The hypnotic sound of bullets ricocheting off
the electric clock & ivy-patterned wall.

A ghostly figure glides out of the dark & into
the blue flickering light like a waitress
carrying a tray of steaming coffee
& places in each waiting hand a small pile of coloured pills

- & a white one, for oblivion.

Going


she leaves behind the smell of Brazilian hair
& a few unanswered questions - like


Why are you not yet in bed?
- &


What do you see in such rubbishy programmes?

The squeaks of her 2-inch rubber soles recede
down the passageway
to the ward
where those who've gone to bed straight after tea


with anxieties
wait with clasped hands,
questioning faces,

for oblivion.

FROM KAIO LANE




(after a painting by Lindsay Crooks)

There's a steep path through bush down from Kaio Lane
to Back Beach where the small craft tie up among the
rusting pieces of 19th century machinery and heavy ropes
of slime and weed. The smell of fresh paint - new white

boards trimmed with green - and the kind of activity you'd
expect after long summer rain. And below Observation
Point, on reclaimed land, giant tractors with claws race
back and forth stacking tree-trunks in tidy match-stick

piles, like a game one plays where the sticks are picked
up, one by one, without disturbing the others . . .
A black and white spaniel guards a rickety slipway, its
owner up a ladder painting the side of an orange boatshed.

I stop to talk and I'm told the shed's made from two Model
T Ford packing cases - That's how long it's been here, he
says - But the stove doesn't work anymore (pointing to the
tin chimney) - Some local hoons broke in one night for a

party and stuffed it. . . And over on the jetty one or two
kids in wetsuits are fooling around daring each other to
jump into the chilly water first - and in the background
a black hulk moves up the channel blowing thick smoke.

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