Monday, February 15, 2010

Victor's Invective

Dear Anthony,
You don't know me, my name is Victor Pringle a Minster of the Presbyterian Church, an old school friend of Robert Adamson. He calls me (I think with an edge of irony, his 'spiritual advisor'). Well, he certainly needs advice, if only he could listen. He is down there now, under his boat chipping away at the hull, he believes it is infested with the Q-X virus that is killing the oysters, there's nothing on the boat, is shines like a smokey pink mirror from a bordello in Sutherland.   I'm terribly worried about him, and you’re right, his household is over-run by very disturbing people.  
The big bloke you mentioned, I believe his name is Charles, has now screwed a  mouth guard with wire mesh onto the jaw of a man they are calling 'Greenie.’ And this man ‘Greenie’ is dressed in a smeared smock and is a truly a dreadful item..  He was milking ethanol from Robert's Haines Hunter and grunting as it flowed into a black container before the others jumped him.
This is a hell-house. There's a man called Webb who looks like George C Scott, he is kneeling on the kitchen floor reciting poems from a Selected G.M. Hopkins between biting off great chunks of wadding from a padded bag with a post mark from Saskatchewan, Canada.  There's a dreadful stench rising from a great pot boiling on the stove,  I lifted the lid and scolded my hand as I took a peek. There was a huge mulloway head inside, boiling away furiously. I tired to turn down the gas and suddenly a hand gripped my wrist with force.  It was Webb from behind me. He started talking about how he couldn’t stand to see me looking into that horrible pot. Then he struck me down.  My mouth's bleeding as I type. I rang the police and reported the matter. They asked my name and address,  I managed my name but when they heard me say 'the white bunker near the oyster farm at Mooney’ all I could hear was the black laughter of cynicism. The officer said: 'The Red K?  The Zest from the West?  And then, in a cold  hardened voice, three chilling words: "It is Done".
Sadly,

Victor 
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Dear Victor
I’m afraid I won’t be much help. The man you refer to is Charles Olson, and if Olson wants to put a chicken-wire mouth guard on someone, then he’s going to do it. I’ve seen Olson sweep aside five men with one hand as he came for someone he thought was the Red K in a bar in Fremantle. It turns out the man was a white-haired, sackcloth-wearing Hari Krishna who just happened to be mouthing-off about the horrors of the footprints of modern transport. Before anyone could intervene, Olson had chickenwired the man’s mouth and thrown him into the exposed roof beams. So my advice is to leave him alone. As for Frank Webb. Brilliant poet, but like Olson I wouldn’t want to get in his way. The boiling mulloway head is a sign. I’m telling you this because it might be your last chance. It means that a special feast is about to take place. I can only imagine who the guests might be - I’d say Pound, Dickey, Bunting, Emily Dickinson, James Wright and Merwin. They want the Red K as much as anyone, and will go to extreme lengths to get him. Get out of there as soon as you can. Call a water taxi and head for Brooklyn. Or a seaplane and get to Sydney. Things are going to get nasty. I wouldn’t want to be there, and they’re on our side!! As for the local cops, they just want to see action, whether its delivering an AVO for writing poetry or intervening in a dead poets meeting.
Good luck
Anthony

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