Dispatch From The Front: Day 40

A Waggaist hiding in the trees outside Brooklyn.

An empty street in Geraldton.

Dennis Hopper on the beach at Geraldton.

As Michael Dransfield and Andrew Burke drove into Geraldton, a light rain began falling. The place was all but empty. The windy streets were lined with paper bags and other blown refuse. As they rolled down the main street, Michael noticed that many of the offices and businesses had boards and tin-sheets nailed over their windows. He asked if Andrew knew what had happened. Andrew shrugged and pulled over outside an empty bakery. They got out into a cold wind. The rain was heavier now and it angled onto the footpath. “This is very odd,” Andrew said as they sought refuge under an awning. “Last time I was here the place was humming.” As they stood trying to keep dry and wondering what to do, an old woman came around the corner with a red heeler on a leash. The heeler jumped when it saw the poets, then ran to stand beside the old woman where it curled its lip and sat down uneasily. “Excuse me,” Andrew said to her, “but why is Geraldton so quiet? Where is everyone?” The old woman spoke to her dog: “It’s because the show that never came has finally come,” she said. “What show?” Andrew asked. The old woman spoke to her dog again. “The one we said was over before it began,” she said, and nodded. The heeler was looking up at her expectantly. “Could you be a bit more cryptic?” Michael Dransfield said. The old woman looked away from the dog and fixed him with a glare. “Sarcasm is the last refuge of fools and thieves. Come along Red, these men are uneven and dangerous.” The poets watched as she turned the corner, the heeler giving them a lingering look as it went.

The Waggaists emerged from the bush. They were very cold and their bodies had been scratched and torn. Alison Croggan adjusted her lyre-bird skirt and scanned the scene. She saw how the main entrance to town had been fenced where it led down to the Angler’s Rest. A couple of bikers were standing at the main gate, arms folded. An ambulance was parked beside the gate, facing up the road, and Bill Wisley was talking to one of the paramedics. “We need to get through,” Alison said. “But not like this.” She turned and looked around. There were houses close by, and in their backyards she could see Hills hoists and pole-and-twine washing lines with clothes flapping on them. “I need two volunteers to go and steal those clothes,” she said. The Waggaists found sudden interest in the sky and earth. “You, you, and you” she said. The Waggaists cursed, but didn’t argue. They set off in a crouching run, keeping low among the shrubs and tall grass. They entered the yards and unpegged the clothes, then returned with their arms overspilling with fabric. There was barely enough clothing to go around, but they managed to cover most of their bodies. The men had to make do with shorts and jeans, some put t-shirts on, some had to go bare-chested. The women covered themselves with dresses, shorts, jeans, t-shirts, overalls, an ill-fitting assortment of casual and formal wear. The Waggaists stood among the trees and shrubs looking ridiculous and self-aware. “They’ll think we’ve run away from the nuthouse,” someone said. “Well we have,” said another. Alison Croggan stared down the road. Bill Wisely had left the ambulance and had gone back into town. The bikers were still standing at either side of the gate, their sunglasses gleaming. “We need a distraction,” Alison said. She looked around the group. “Now I need someone to get the attention of those paramedics. Who can do a convincing fainting spell?” A man put up his hand. “I can do them for real,” he said. “So what needs to happen before you faint?” Alison asked. “Mostly it’s the sight of my own blood,” he said, “but sometimes all it takes is to remember a time when I was bleeding.” Alison looked back at the ambulance. “Off you go then,” she said. “Get out into the middle of the road and remember away.” The man began stuttering and protesting. “But I might fall down on the road,” he said. Alison Croggan took him aside. “Shut the fuck up and get your blood-fearing arse out onto that road now. When you’ve got their attention, get as close to the side of the road as you can, then do your thing with blood and memory.” He looked around at the others. The others looked away. His lips trembled. “But,” he said, then he saw how Alison’s eyes were clouding over. “Okay,” he said, and walked out gingerly onto the road. He walked a few paces towards the main gate, then stopped and stood with his head bowed. The Waggaists watched and waited. He started swaying. He lifted a hand to his face. The hand fell away and hung by his side. Then he started staggering. The ambulance engine roared into life. He made it to the side of the road and went over. He dropped like a bag of rags and hit the road. The ambulance pulled away from the gate and came roaring up the road. “I want you all to hide. When I get their attention and bring them over, jump them and make sure they don’t get up again.” When the ambulance reached the fallen Waggaist, the paramedics leapt out and knelt down beside him.  Then Alison stepped forward. “Aggghhhhh,” she screamed. The paramedics looked over. They saw a woman standing with her face in her hands. Then the woman fell down. One of the paramedics ran over and knelt beside her. Alison was holding her breath. “Better grab the defibrillator,” Jack, I think we’ve got a cardiac arrest.” Jack left the fallen Waggaist, who had come around and was sitting up in the gravel. When he reached his partner he unzipped the red defibrillator bag and knelt down. The Waggaists came out of hiding and fell upon the paramedics. They knocked them out and dragged them away into the trees. They stripped their clothes, then Alison and a young man put the uniforms on. Using vines and the belts, they tied the unconscious men to the base of a tree and gagged them. Alison climbed into the driver’s seat. The other Waggaist joined her up front. The others climbed into the back and closed the door. They only just managed to fit. In a tangle of arms and legs and stolen clothes, they started arguing and shoving as the ambulance pulled away. “Silence!” Alison shouted. “We’re going in.”

Dransfield and Burke were amazed at how quiet Geraldton was. Everywhere they looked the streets were empty. The rain had stopped and a clear sky had given the buildings and houses a startling glow. When they reached the harbour, they got out and stood on the sand. The breakwall’s broken spine went out into deep water. On the far side of the bay, a stand of pines looked like a watercolour bleed. As they looked around, they saw someone at the far end of the beach. They took off their shoes and started walking towards this lone figure. As they got closer they could see it was a man. He was holding a large black book in his hands. When the man saw the poets he raised the book in welcome. “Hello friends,” the man said in an American accent. He was dressed in black jeans, a black shirt, black boots and was wearing Ray-bans. Michael Dransfield stopped walking and stared at the man. “It’s Dennis Hopper,” he said. “Bullshit,” Andrew Burke said, then looked closer at the man. “Bloody hell, it is Dennis Hopper.” Dennis walked up to the poets and extended his hand. “It’s good to see you,” he said, smiling broadly. 

Dennis told the poets he’d been on his way to an island north of Sydney with Marlon Brando more than a month ago. Their friend the poet Philip Levine had told them about the Poetry War, and they were keen to come and lend a hand. Brando had insisted they fly to Perth first as he’d heard there was a restaurant in Fremantle that served the world’s best seafood gumbo. Dennis said he’d soon tired of Brando’s endless demands and moods, and had gone off to a club where he’d scored some speed. Then he’d returned to the restaurant, completely wired and full of talk. Brando was in to his third dish of gumbo, and all but ignored him. “To get his attention, I went into my James Cagney routine, but that just pissed him off,” Dennis said. Then I started reciting his own lines from Apocalypse Now. ‘The horror, the horror,’” Dennis said, and doubled over, laughing. “You should have seen his face. He went pale then red, then he stood up and turned the table over. Shrimp and fish and sauce went flying. Oh Lord, what a carnival!” Andrew Burke was feeling ill. He knew that it was indeed Dennis Hopper there on the sand before him, but nothing he’d ever read, seen or heard approached the madness he felt descending upon him in. “I think we’d better go,” he said to Dransfield, but Michael had gone head-and-heart-first into Hopper’s story. “So what happened then?” he asked. Dennis opened the big black book - a dictionary - and started reading. “Convolvulus,” he said. “A trailing or twining plant with funnel-shaped flowers.” He looked over the black edge of the dictionary. “Isn’t that a beautiful thing?” He opened the book again. “Denouement,” he savoured the word. “The unraveling or clarification of a plot.” He shivered. “Mellifluous words. They steal your breath,” he said. Michael agreed, then said “But why are you in Geraldton?” Dennis Hopper closed the dictionary and looked out over the harbour. “I left Brando to sort things out in the restaurant and went back to the club. I fell in with a very bad crowd. Speed, heroin, the best hash I’ve ever smoked. Whisky. I went under that swift current and stayed there. When I woke up I was in the back of a camper van, just up there near the marina. I’d been driven to Geraldton.” He smiled and removed his Ray-bans. “Isn’t life grand,” he said quietly. Andrew Burke had wandered off and was sitting up on the grass above the beach. He was talking loudly to himself: “Edward Hopper. Grasshoppers. Dennis Hopper,” he said. “Is your friend alright?” Dennis asked. Michael looked up at Andrew. “He’ll be fine,” he said. “He’s just doing it hard with the living and the dead.” “Aren’t we all,” Dennis said. “And who would have it any other way?”

G. Lehmann.

Dispatch From The Front: Day 39

A Superb Lyre-Bird mimicking the call of the Waggafish.

The red wheel barrow out back of Ian the Squid Man’s shop.

The free-styling Waggaists were in a tight, thrashing group. As they reached the centre of the river, a loud moaning filled the air. The sound seemed to be coming from the depths of both the water and the pit of despair of itself. Then the sound became like a raw, broken symphony - a chorus-line, where anger, sadness, futility and pain were dividing and reforming. NARAAAGH, the sound was getting louder. And then it became flesh, that of rising, hungry fish, and that of the stricken Waggaists. Two of the weakest swimmers at the back suddenly fell further behind and went under, as if they’d been pulled away by a swift current. The water around them turned red, and then their arms and legs came flying out of the turbulence and floated away. “Keep swimming!” Alison Croggan urged them on. Then the man beside her was torn asunder. A huge school of Waggafish had surrounded the swimmers. Like killer whales working to isolate whale calves, they came at the Waggaists in quick, violent raids, crashing into their bodies then ripping them away and down, where they were torn apart. A wide, red stain was covering the river. By the time they’d reached the far shore, there were only twenty Waggaists left. The limbs and torsos of the others were being ferried away out to sea. Alison Croggan spoke through her tears. “Away,” she said, and walked off into the scrub. The others followed, numb with cold and grief. 

They climbed into the escarpment. It was tough going. Branches scratched at their faces and hands. The hard afternoon light gave their bodies an amber, ethereal glow. They climbed and did not speak. Past the blackened trunks of gums, through scribbles of vine and trembling, dusty ferns. They stumbled and fell. When they reached a high sandstone cave, lit as if from within, they sat together and stared back down over the river. The walls of the cave were honeycombed and crumbling. They huddled together, shivering and holding their arms. Alison spoke through her hair: “Whatever happens, we need to be strong. We should reach Brooklyn in a few hours. Keep together. Try not to think about what just happened.” She was about to say something else, when a loud, piercing sound came through the scrub above them. NARAAAGH, NARAAAGH. The Waggaists started shouting and leapt to their feet. They looked around wildly. Waggas in the bush? This was now completely fucked up. Alison stepped from the cave and peered up through the trees. The sound came again. Her first thought was that the poets had come looking for them, and were taunting them from high in the scrub. “Let’s go,” she said. “If they want a fight, then I’m up for it.” 

They climbed higher, moving slowly and keeping low in the undergrowth. As they reached the top of the ridge, Alison Croggan parted a screen of sawgrass and raised her hand. “Don’t move,” she whispered. Carefully, she eased her face and shoulders through the sharp serrations of waving green grass. In a clearing, its tail fan spread wide, a lyre-bird was parading and strutting. NARAAAGH, it called. The perfect mimic, it had picked up the cry of the Waggafish and was giving it back to the late afternoon sky. Alison cursed. “Fuck this,” she said. She waited until the lyre-bird had turned away to face the other side of the clearing, then she got to her feet and sprinted after it. She was fast. The lyre bird never had a chance. She grabbed it by the tail-fan and swung it around over her head. The Waggaists watched in amazement as she turned and danced. The lyre bird was calling out in panic. It was repeating a rapid-fire arrangement of sounds from the bush: whip-birds, kookaburras, even chain-saws and the motor-driven shutter from a camera. As it went around and around over Alison’s head, a car alarm went off in the lyre-bird’s mouth. Soon it fell silent, and it closed its eyes. Alison put the bird down onto the earth it had scraped clear. She stood over it, breathing hard. Then she knelt down and began removing its tail feathers. When she had plucked them all, she took a length of vine and began attaching the feathers. When she stood up, she wrapped the tan and white tasseled skirt around her waist and looked at the other Waggaists who had emerged from the saw grass. “What are we going to wear?” asked one. Alison adjusted her skirt. “Go find your own lyre bird,” she said.

Shelby woke with a start and looked around. He was at the back of a bus in the dark, the aisle strip-lighting like an aircraft runway at night. Seidel was beside him, breathing loudly, his head on the window glass. They were heading back to Sydney, where they were going to meet with Merle Haggard then catch a water-taxi to Brooklyn. Merle and Seidel were old friends. Seidel had helped resurrect Merle’s flagging career by injecting large amounts of cash and time into promoting his work. As a gesture of thanks and goodwill, Merle had written a new song for Frederick: The Sod-Buster’s Dream, which he’d sung to Seidel over the phone. Frederick told Merle he thought the song was a masterpiece, where in all honesty he thought it was a piece of shit. A few weeks later, when Haggard found out that Emmylou Harris had not invited him to the festival in Brooklyn, he flew into a violent rage. He called Seidel and said he was going to come anyway, and he was bringing trouble. Seidel didn’t doubt it. When Merle was angry, storm clouds gathered, animals and birds went for cover. When Seidel told Merle how he’d been treated by the poets, Merle completely flipped. Seidel heard stomping, breaking glass, a door slam and then slam again. A bird shrieked and fell silent. A dog yelped. A cat started yowling then made a sound like an electronic blip. When Merle picked up the phone again, he said “You tell those freaks in Brooklyn that Merle Haggard has poets and poetry in his sights, and that his magazine is loaded.”

The Sons of Zebedee dragged the giant Waggafish from the bow of the boat and loaded it into a wheelbarrow, then they went off to Ian the Squid Man’s live-bait shop. Ian had the best filleting knives in town, but he also had a secret sideline in Waggafish blood. He sold small bottles of it out back of the shop. It was so intense in texture and scent, that only a few drops were needed when fishing. The blood infiltrated the water column, attracting fish from miles around. The old locals used it in their burley, and some were said to have developed an addiction to it. You could see them walking around with a red smear on their lips, their eyes glazed over.

Ezra Pound hopped and skipped along behind the wheelbarrow, stroking his beard nervously and whistling like a wattlebird. “Where are you taking that Wagga? I am very fond of the meat in the pouch below the gill-rakers, though I’m also quite partial to the liver. Can you spare an old man a small fillet of delirium?” The Sons just laughed and wheeled the Wagga away into the crowd.

When they got to Ian’s Live-Bait shop, Ian wasn’t there. The Sons went around the side and climbed in through a back window. Ezra remained out front of the shop, cupping his hands at the glass and moving from foot to foot. “Please!” he cried out. “Just a taste!”. Bill Wisely was crossing the street, heading down to the festival stage with an arm-load of planks when he saw Pound outside the shop. “What are you doing you old codger?” Bill shouted. Ezra tried to run away, but Bill went after him and hauled him up by the collar of his coat. “What are you up to, Pound?” Ezra pointed back to the live-bait shop. “They have a Wagga, and they won’t give me any meat.” Bill’s eyes narrowed. “Who has a Wagga?” “The Sons of Zebedee,” Ezra said. “They have a red wheelbarrow glazed with Wagga blood beside the white fridges.” “Stay here,” Bill said, and strode off towards the bait shop. He went to the window and looked in. When he saw what was happening, he took his plank and smashed the lock on the door, then went in swinging. The Sons had removed the Wagga from the wheelbarrow and were just about to start cutting it up when they were floored with a plank. As they tried to get up they were planked again. “This,” Bill panted, “is,” he swung the plank again, “what,” he shouted, “you,” he took aim at a retreating arse, “get,” he gave the arse a whack, “for,” he planked the shield of a hand, “bringing,” the plank came back over his shoulder, “Waggas,” the plank fell, “into,” a Son screamed for mercy, “town!” The Sons of Zebedee had ben laid-out cold on the floor of the bait-shop. Bill Wisely looked down at his handiwork, then put flakes and broken bits of plank into the wheelbarrow. He went to the Wagga, took a filleting knife and cut a sliver of meat from its side. He wrapped it in a square of carpet, then took it out to Ezra Pound.

Led Zeppelin were now passing over the many islands surrounding Fiji. They were flying low, speared along by a potent tail-wind, and were making good time. They were going to be in Brooklyn by mid afternoon on the first day of the festival. 

Jimmy Page was looking down, watching the ocean’s surface glitter pour through and over the long rollers of a velvet swell when he noticed a disturbance. Many sea birds had gathered and were diving into and around what appeared to be a dark blue shadow. It was a cloudless day. Then he saw how large fish were patrolling the edge of the shadow. He called to John Bonham. “Are you seeing this?” “Yes,” Bonham replied. “It’s a huge bait-ball.” They watched as the birds and fish swept into and over the dark mass. They had to move down the airship, looking through each window as the airship passed over this foam-flecked, travelling feast. From the last window, they saw a new disturbance - a red cloud was circling the dark blue one like an ocean-borne corona. “Waggas!” Bonham cried. He ran up and down the aisle of the airship, rubbing his hands together and laughing. “Waggas!” he said again. “Fuck the festival, I’m going fishing.”

G. Lehmann.

Dispatch From The Front: Day 38

A swarm of red grasshoppers north of Perth.

Robert Duncan with his own edition of the Zohar.

Eurydice in the form of a stone curlew.

Driving north out of Perth into an overcast afternoon, Michael saw how the sides of the highway were blowing with sand, how the bottlebrushes were lighting the air. Despite having company, he inhaled a draught of solitude and turned back to look at the road.

Michael was telling Andrew Burke about the Edward Hopper exhibition when Andrew pointed. “Looks like a storm ahead.” Over the highway, a large red cloud was swirling and pulsing. “Wind up your window, quick!” Andrew yelled. As the Monaro entered the cloud, huge grasshoppers began smashing into the car and exploding on the windscreen. It was a relentless onslaught of wings and armour-plated bodies, all reduced to a red paste on the windscreen glass. The wipers only made it worse. They pulled over as the swarm raged against the car. When the grasshopper cloud had moved on, they got out and watched it go, breaking and reforming on its way south. The mustard-yellow Monaro had a new paint-job, and some of it was still moving.

When they reached Guilderton, they pulled over beside the Moore River and stretched their legs. Michael took his telescopic rod and a small net from his backpack. He screwed on a small Spinfisher reel spooled with 2 kilo braid and attached a 20 gram lure. He stood on the bank, casting the silver lure out into the river, and winding it back fast. On his third cast, the line went tight and he lifted the rod tip, which then slammed down as the fish took off. Andrew Burke watched as Michael Dransfield went to work on a nice tailor. The fish leapt and shook his head, trying to throw the hooks. Burke was impressed. He didn’t know Dransfield was into fishing, and he marveled at Michael’s rod-work as he brought the fish towards the bank. Michael netted the tailor, lifted it from the net and held it up. Its pale green sides flashed in the late afternoon sunlight. He removed the hooks and lowered the fish into the river, where it disappeared with a flick of its tail. “Why did you let it go?” Andrew asked. “We could have had that for dinner.” Dransfield stood up, removed the reel and collapsed his rod. “Just because you can, it doesn’t mean you have to,” he said. Andrew Burke was disappointed. He’d been hoping for a more eloquent, lyrical explanation. He was looking at the spot where Michael had palmed the tailor back into the river. When he turned around to say something, Michael was sitting in the car, his legs up on the dash, the lowered sun visor concealing his face. 

Dr Greene and Bob Russo pulled off the road at Gerringong and drove down a narrow dirt road that led to the beach. The Cocteau Twins’ Sugar Hiccup was on the stereo. Bob Russo tapped the dash. “What’s this fucken shit?” Dr Greene spoke to the windscreen: “It’s called sublime music, Bob. I have no Bay City Rollers, Kim Carnes or Barry Manilow with which to soothe and inspire the beast that resides within that Godly frame you call a body.” Bob Russo picked up the CD cover and stared at it. “Oh,” he said. Sarcasm had not eluded Bob all his life, the ability to recognise it had been erased from his brain at birth.

The Waggaists were holding an emergency meeting. I loved that they had convened to meet when every day and every aspect of their lives had been one long, drawn-out emergency. 

I’d gone out to Lion Island in Bill Wisely’s tinny to check on their situation. I was anchored out front of the island in a gentle swell when I heard a woman’s voice. I grabbed the binoculars and scanned the scrub. The Waggaists had gathered at the only place on Lion Island where the red fairy penguins couldn’t reach them: in a tree. On top of the Lion’s head was a huge Moreton Bay fig, its branches sprawling and twisting. The Waggaists had covered every part of the main branches - they were like huge red flying foxes standing upright in their torn and stained coats. The woman’s voice cut through the sound of the swell breaking open on the rocks below. Her clear, urgent syllables came through the wind. When I  first heard her speak, the voice was vaguely familiar. The more she spoke, a shock of recognition went through me. I glassed the tree slowly, checking every face. Then I saw her. She’d let her hair out. The red hood of her cloak was flapping out in the wind. She was leaning against the skin of a huge branch, one hand gripping it high for balance, the other waving in time with her words. It was Alison Croggan. Was she really a Waggaist, or had she been, like Dorothy Hewett, working under cover the whole time - and if so, what was her agenda? Surely she’d already had the chance to come out and renounce Red Language. “This doesn’t have to end here,” Alison said. “We might have lost The War, but we haven’t lost our fire. The poets think it’s over. They’re down there at Brooklyn getting drunk and sleeping in warm beds while we get cold and wet and starve.” The Waggaists were listening with their heads bowed. Croggan continued. “I have a plan. Their will be pain, physical and emotional. Remember: what doesn’t kill you makes you a darker shade of red.” With those words, she  sounded more than convincing. She sounded like a natural-born Red leader. The Waggaists were now muttering and looking around. “But what if we’re wrong?” a man said. “What if the poets are right, and the Red K is indeed nothing more than a manipulative, self-styled, self-promoting mouthpiece for empty rhetoric, badly-edited poems and confused ideologies?” Croggan stared at him. “Then you, my friend, are penguin food. I say we make a swim for the other side. If we form a tight group and swim fast, it won’t take us long.” “What about the Waggafish?” someone said. “Yeah, and the bull sharks!” shouted another. “Baitfish form tight, rolling balls,” Croggan replied. “It confuses predators. There’s safety in numbers.” There was a long, awkward silence. “So, are you with me? If so, we need to leave now, not tomorrow or the day after.” Alison Croggan began climbing down through the branches. Others followed her. Soon many Waggaists were climbing down. As they neared the base of the tree, the red fairy penguins were jumping up and down, snapping and growing. “We need to hit the ground running,” Croggan shouted. “Once we reach the beach, we need to strip off and start swimming. Our cloaks and coats will drag us down. Are you ready?” There was a half-hearted response from the others. “Alright then. One, two, three!” Croggan said, and jumped from the tree. The red fairy penguins went for her but she kicked them away and ran down through the scrub. Most of the other Waggaists followed her, kicking penguins out of the way and removing their clothes. By the time they reached the shore, Alison Croggan was already ten metres out, treading water and urging them on. They dived in a swam out to join her. Up in the scrub, those that had descended the tree but had stalled at its base were being torn to shreds. The screaming was terrible. Those still in the tree were howling and slapping the branches. I pulled the anchor and motored away quickly. Looking back, I could see the water being thrashed to white foam as a desperate group of Waggaists swam for the far shore. 

                                                     THE FINAL TRANSMIGRATION

Lenka was no longer the passive recipient of his dance. She was burning in blue fire as Shiva smiled at her with his alarming pointed teeth. She was the gold centre, the essence of truth at last, all her savagery gone, reaching further and further into the flashing blades and limbs, blue and red, white and black, she was dissolving, melting, through the gate of fire.

                                                                     

                                                                      Vicki Viidikas, Kali and the Dung Beetle

Robert Duncan had been performing complex ceremonies. He concentrated on getting each ritual right, pulling together all his knowledge about the transmigration, weaving this into his effort of calling up Eurydice from Hades. She’d already died twice because Orpheus had doubted her love, the second time as they were about to pass through the gates of hell. Duncan wasn’t going to be responsible for a third failure. Eurydice had died twice for love, this was enough even for a myth. Duncan had started his ritual at 3am and now it was almost dawn, he decided to freshen up before his final session. A shower and a cup of herbal tea, a short period of meditation, refer to some books.

After his shower Duncan carefully shaved, dried his hair and toweled himself. He used a towel with the blue crest of the Masonic Temple embossed on the bottom. He made a pot of lemon-grass tea and decided on a change of clothes. His favorite black velvet suit with its waistcoat, cream silk shirt and a black raw-silk tie. He then consulted the Zohar (on loan to him from Christopher Brennan) an edition he wasn’t familiar with, taking up more time than he had to spare. Duncan used the Zohar as a guide in attaining knowledge about the origin of his soul. Just  to know how far he was along the path to this, always gave him strength.

Duncan considered the meaning of Eurydice’s time in hell. How long could she remain physically separated from Orpheus before her love would begin to fade? Complex considerations, all factors in the truth and life of myth,  things that were unfathomable. Eurydice was another mortal who had been caught up in the whims of Gods, but why had she remained silent - she was like a reflection caught between the silver on the back of a mirror and the surface of its glass, a space of silence. While Orpheus babbled over, water falling, or a skylark embroidering an endless song.

Duncan resumed his secret incantations, his rituals of reclamation. Breathing rebellious fire into the restless soul of Eurydice in Hades. Duncan’s mind and soul were dancing on the border of time and eternity - he felt an affinity with Vicki Viidikas and her lines about being in the ‘gold centre, the essence of truth at last, all her savagery gone, reaching further and further into the flashing blades and limbs, blue and red, white and black, she was dissolving, melting, through the gate of fire’. Duncan could see how the different cultures and myths blended into one vast universe of truth. Figures with glowing heads flew across the heavens, he felt the beginning of Eurydice’s soul’s transmigration. It fluttered and danced and Duncan worked himself into a visionary state. He could tell Eurydice was circling Budgewoi - a migrating bird from the other side of the world looking for a safe waterway to come to rest. Duncan thought of Tennessee William’s Orpheus Descending where he has that image of a tiny legless bird that lives its whole life on the wing ‘they sleep on the wind and never light on this earth but one time when they die!’ Eurydice was free and her soul would return to the paradise of Budgewoi and she would become mortal and never have to live again as a ghost in the underworld.

W.B. Yeats and Devin Johnston came into the library,  they were smiling and Duncan knew by this that he had succeeded. These two weren’t false poets like the imitations of Raworth and Baudelaire that came earlier trying to disrupt the proceedings - Red phantoms from the sick imagination of Dr Greene. These two were Duncan’s friends and even their likenesses could not be corrupted. Yeats was an Immortal and Devin Johnston had been studying the alchemical mysteries of the transmigration for years.

“Eurydice’s soul has been released,” Duncan said to Devin. “She will be here any time now.” Yeats padded across the old Persian carpet on the library floor to where Duncan stood and embraced him. “You’ve done it Robert—her soul has risen from the rocks and bird-less trees of Hades. 

Devin Johnston was smiling broadly but his intelligent eyes were full of questions.

Duncan was exhausted, he sat down on a lounge chair and sighed, he looked out through the window and watched the cold fire of morning. Bower birds swooped through the ancient grape vines growing over the back fence of the Masonic Hall. The wooden grapes were finished and the leaves were yellow. Zebra finches bounced like tiny balls of red-flecked fluff across the grass. In the primrose silver-eyes darted about like green dashes of electricity, the circles of their eyes streaks of white flake.

Feargal Sharkey was huddled in his hide on the edge of the Budgewoi Sports Ground, he’d been there all night waiting for the first sign of the return of Eurydice. Earlier, at dawn he thought he saw a shape in the rolling mist, the figure of a woman appeared and then turned in the parting mist and dissolved in the morning air. Feargal thought why the hell he was doing this, his clothes were damp, his legs were aching and his neck was stiff. He was about to give up when he noticed a bird walking across the oval. An extraordinary creature with long spindly legs, sepia and fawn cryptic plumage, its head large for its body with huge brown eyes. It was a stone curlew and it came walking across the oval towards Feargal in his hide. The stone curlew was only a few feet away and Feargal felt an overwhelming wave of emotion. A feeling so intense he didn’t know how to respond to the situation. He was balancing on one leg which suddenly filled with a hundred cramps, Feargal toppled over and knocked the structure of the hide over. The curlew panicked and jumped three feet into the air before flying off. Feargal finally eased the pain in his leg and managed to get up. He timidly started walking towards the scrub where the stone curlew had vanished, his feet touching on the heavenly grass as he passed by the goal posts.

WB Yeats and Devin were having a coffee in a beach side café. They were talking about Duncan and wondering when they would find out the fate of Eurydice. “How does it work?” Devin said to Yeats. “How can her soul settle into the body of another living soul?” Yeats thought about this for a while before replying “It’s a great mystery.” When the stone curlew walked under the outside tables of the café, the two poets looked at each other knowingly. The soul of Eurydice had taken up in the body of the stone curlew. Feargal Sharkey came in next, his eyes wild and his silky hair falling over his shoulders. “He saw the poets and said “I’m in love!”

G. Lehmann.

Dispatch From The Front: Day 37

Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks.

Charles Baudelaire.

Val Kilmer in his role as Baudelaire in The Flowers of Evil.

Val Kilmer in his Shelby Mustang driving through Budgewoi.

Dr Greene emerged from his laboratory carrying a large red container. Attached to its side was an aquarium aerator. He put the container down carefully and stretched. He was wearing a leather coat, moleskin trousers and a blue shirt. He adjusted his Akubra to a gunslinging angle and squinted into the hard Ulladulla sun. He was waiting for Bob Russo to close the tackle shop. He looked down the hill and out to the harbour. “It’s time you had a holiday,” he said to himself. When Bob Russo walked out of the tackle shop, the tail of his fox-skin cap swinging like a furred plait over his shoulder, he tossed a set of keys to Dr Greene. “I see you’ve got the new items,” he said. They walked over to the car park. “That fuckwit Berryman has no idea what the words live-bait mean,” Greene said, patting the side of the red, humming container. “It’s time he understood. Let’s go fishing, Bob.” He opened a door and climbed into Lucinda William’s Chevy Silverado.

Seidel and Shelby had been gone for days on a LIMP2 binge. Dr Greene had offered them as much as they wanted, and they had feasted. They’d been in Seidel’s room at The Wheelhouse, talking like a pair of cockatiels and laughing uncontrollably. Seidel had seen the Red Oblong sail away to the north, and had doubled over, clutching his sides and crying with delight. “Look Shelby,” he howled, “they’re escaping in the Red Rectangle.” Shelby was on the floor, counting carpet fibres, quoting lines from The Immigrant Chronicles, and doing T.S. Eliot impersonations.

Now that they were focussed again, they spread a map of New South Wales on the kitchenette table and began making plans. 

Michael Dransfield was waiting outside the Perth art gallery. He’d just been to see the Edward Hopper retrospective. Hopper’s painting Nighthawks had always been a favourite. He loved Hopper’s portrayal of the lonely, after-hours lives of the Red Language poets: the Red K in drag and beside him, Ron Silliman impersonating William S. Burroughs. On the other side of the bar, his back turned, Charles Bernstein writing a poem on a napkin. The diner’s proprietor is reaching for a canister of Zest, as things are getting tense. To his right, the water containers are silo-shaped.

Michael was deep in thought, going over the details of Hopper’s painting when he heard a deep, loud rumbling. He looked up and saw a mustard-yellow Monaro with twin black GT stripes over the roof and bonnet. Behind the wheel, wearing mirror shades, was Andrew Burke. “Come on then!” Andrew called through the passenger window. “It’s a great day for a drive.”

Emmylou Harris looked down the river. She was worried about Lucinda Williams. With one day to go before the festival, she was concerned about Lucinda’s wellbeing, but also she couldn’t stand the thought of her missing out on what was sure to be a memorable time. The atmosphere was unbelievable. There were buskers everywhere, and poets reading on the street. This was not like Tamworth: predictable songs sung by Australians busting their guts to sound like they’d just coughed up a handful of Nashville dust. The Nashville scene was no better, which is why Emmylou and Lucinda had invited an eclectic, mostly alt-country line-up. They left the ragged edges on their music and brought a world of styles to their playing. 

Bill Wisely had been on the look-out for Australian country music stars trying to get into the festival. He’d put posters of John Williamson, Lee Kernaghan, Slim Dusty, Anne Kirkpatrick, Casey Chambers. Keith Urban and Troy Cassar-Daley on the train station walls, at the Angler’s Rest, and at the main entrance gate just down from Ian the Squid-Man’s live-bait shop. He knew that some of them would try to get past security, and he was determined to keep them out. 

“So what was your point?” Dorothy Hewett asked Admiral Escher as the Red Oblong made its way north. Escher didn’t respond. He was staring straight ahead as though he were looking through a high window of a bridge on some ocean liner. “I mean, great, we got to see a red asterisk at a place called the Red Abyss, and then the head of Dante comes out of the water like some fucking humanoid atoll spewing red water, and starts raving. And it didn’t even sound like Dante. This is fucked. Look, you’re a great graphic artist. One of the best. I love Night and Day and Hand With Reflecting Sphere. And Three Worlds got me through some tough times. You put things into perspective, and you do our heads in with your dreamscapes and tricked realities, but to be honest, I don’t care anymore. You can take your clever visions and put someone else inside them. I didn’t ask to be included in all this horror. I didn’t just wake up one morning and say ‘Bloody hell, I hope M.C. Escher takes me in a Red Oblong out to sea for a front-row seat at the Dante-and-Asterisk Show.” T.S. Eliot spoke from the top of a staircase. “But you did enter the Oblong, Dorothy.” “Oh fuck off, T.S.,” she said. “I only scrambled into this jumped-up bit of geometry because I was worried about you and Ted and Lucinda. If that’s how you feel, you can all get stuffed.” M.C. Escher was nodding. Then it became apparent that he was crying. His shoulders were rising and falling slowly. Great globes of tears were sliding down his cheeks, each with highly-stylised images of birds and insects inside them. Lucinda went to him and put her hand on his arm. “It’s alright, Cornelis, we’re all a bit stressed here.” Ted Hughes joined Lucinda. “Come on old man, chin up.” The badger farted. Dorothy sat down at the base of a staircase. “All this redness,” she said. “Can we please have a change of colour?” Lucinda Williams took a deep breath. “How long will it take us to get to Brooklyn?” she asked. “About twenty hours,” Admiral Escher said between sobs. “Perfect,” Lucinda said. “We just might make the opening of the festival after all.”

   The Transmigration

‘I had known from the beginning and told those about me that we were in the Last Days, in the Glory then. The Doctor came into the picture then. I told him about the fall of the giant orders of the world. “How can the unreal have as much effect as the real?’ I asked the Doctor. The falling of the astral worlds may be, then, the falling of the sky, where giant stars and dwarves, monstrous constellations and regents of the planets stream down in the collapse of time. Here the Doctor and I must restore the Milky Way, the spring of stars that is our universe. The Doctor had the key to the old science of the spring. I had to find the lock, but now it seems that I draw the water forth by the physical magnetism of a shaman, witching, pulling invisible reins of the stream with my hands. ‘You who are nearest to me’, I said to the Doctor, ‘are unreal’. I could see through his form.’

                                                                 Robert Duncan, The H.D. Book

After the local Goths had upset the first transmigration ceremony, Robert Duncan decided to hold the final phase in private. He waited until after midnight and was about to set up his candles for the ritual. There was a knock on the door. It was Tom Raworth and Charles Baudelaire. They looked tired and were soaking wet and their legs were covered in mud. “We came up the river in a Bass-Boat we borrowed from Dr Greene. We didn’t see a sunken tree as we came into Budgewoi and it hit the boat with a great force,” said Raworth. “With the force of Darkness,” said Baudelaire.  “What a lot of shit,” said Raworth. You could tell they had been arguing for days. It seemed they were on some kind of mission. Duncan became very suspicious. Why were they using Dr Greene’s boat? Had Greene lent the boat or had they stolen it? Duncan knew Greene never lent his bass-boat - it was the boat he used in Bass-Fishing Competitions; he’d been trying to beat Steve Starling with the best bass for years and he had to have the boat ready. Duncan had been briefed by Rodney Hall about Dr Greene and his obsessions. “So you have been with the Doctor?” Duncan eyed them with his straight eye. “You have been dicing with death.” This seemed to cheer Baudelaire up. He looked about the Masonic Hall and took off his wet coat. “Is there a bathroom here? I would like to refresh myself, and to wash this mud from my legs and feet.” Duncan directed him to the bathroom.

Tom Raworth wanted a drink, he wanted “vodka with limes, and a double to start with.” Duncan told him that Feargal Sharkey had drunk everything in the Masonic Hall except for a bottle of pink gin the Lodge got in when they thought that Kenneth Slessor was coming up to report on the transmigration. Duncan opened the gin and offered a bottle of tonic water.  Raworth wanted to know when the transmigration would occur. He said  wanted to write a report for ‘Pepper’ an electronic literary journal. Duncan knew this was edited by the Red K, or at least started by the K before he lost the Poetry War. Duncan also knew the funds were drawn from the poetry mafia’s bank in America, run by the poetry academic, (this was her cover) Helen Vendler. “Where’s the money?” says the investigator from Internal Revenue. “The money? What a joke, there’s no money in poetry.” Vendler had relentlessly omitted Robert Duncan from every anthology she edited and generally made it clear she did not even consider his work.   Just  thinking of Vendler made Duncan furious.

“She rings up Dr Greene to check out the flathead fishing in Queensland,” said Tom Raworth with a smile. Duncan felt betrayed. He knew Raworth was double dealing somehow, and when Raworth had finished half a bottle of gin he slipped up. He took out his thin silver camera from his coat pocket an envelope fell onto the floor, it was addressed, in Raworth’s handwriting to Val Kilmer! “What the hell is going on here?” Duncan said.   Baudelaire had finished his bath and came back into the library drying his hair with a towel. “Yes, Val Kilmer!” said Tom Raworth. “He is going to play the main role in Flowers of Evil - a big Hollywood movie based on the life and times of Charles Baudelaire.” “He will play me in my heyday!” said Baudelaire. “Yes, it’s all happening,” said Tom. “Charlie loves the idea of Val Kilmer, in fact he suggested it.”

“Tom, did you just say that Helen Vendler phoned the Doctor in Queensland to ask about flathead fishing?” Duncan, shaking his head. “Yes, Vendler is fascinated by flathead. She wants to come to Australia and give a lecture on Gwen Harwood at the University of Queensland so she can go flathead fishing with Doctor Greene.” Duncan let go with a stream of references and quotations from the 17^th Century to the present day but right at the end he slipped in a sly question to Raworth. “Tell me Tom, what do you make of the poetry of the Red K?” Raworth was well known for his quickness, though now he stumbled and waited two seconds too long. Duncan knew these two desperados were either poetry gangsters or agents working for either Greene, Shelby or the Red K himself.

Feargal Sharkey came in with the crew of golden codgers, armed with their gaff-hooks and blackfish knives. They had been fishing all day and were going to cook up a feed for Duncan to bring him strength for his transmigration ceremony. Duncan said to Feargal “Throw them out, these two are frauds, they aren’t who they claim to be, throw them back into the river where they came in from.” At this Feargal tore off his clothes and mounted the old oak table in the library, he started flapping his arms and imitating the call of a male kookaburra. He danced around on the table and became a kookaburra shaman, his voice transforming from a human imitating a kookaburra into pure bird song. As he did this the golden codgers with their gaffs held in threatening positions ushered the two false poets out of the Budgewoi Masonic Hall.

It was 3am when Robert Duncan began to call on the soul of Eurydice. Outside the Milky Way looked like a great horn of fog flecked with stars and flares of starlight and cold fire. The constellations were spinning their light and drawing themselves onto the imagination of whoever looked up that night. The heavens were bright with darkness. Feargal Sharkey had recovered from his kookaburra shape-changing dance and was now settled into his special Eurydice hide on the edge of the Budgewoi Sports Ground. The golden codgers were in their beds and Duncan was chanting and calling up the dead from the library of the Masonic Hall.

How would Eurydice’s soul manifest itself? Would she return as a Goth and finally get to speak in the local version of English? She had never spoken in all the myths, not one word, in Greek or any other language. She was a silent figure for the wife of the first singer, the inventor of the lyre and the poet who charmed the King of Hell. What was behind this silence? Maybe Feargal Sharkey would be the first moral to hear Eurydice’s side of the myth, the first person to hear Eurydice’s own story.

Feargal peered through the slot in his special hide and saw the mist rolling in over the cricket pitch, over the turf and around the goal posts.

G. Lehmann.

Dispatch From The Front: Day 36

Lyle Lovett’s sound-check.

Michael Dransfield stepped off the plane in Perth and inhaled the air. It reeked of solitude and vast distances. The light was sharp and clean. He walked into a hot, dry wind, more focussed than he could remember.

J.S. Harry and Kerry Leves had gone to Brooklyn. They weren’t country music fans, but the festival seemed a far better option than travelling into the wild West on a mission that was bound to end in tears.

Michael caught a cab into the city, then walked down through Kings park and the botanical gardens to the Swan River. He found the jetty where kids were doing bombies in the opening pages of Tim Winton’s Cloudstreet. He sat on the end of the jetty, looking out over the sliding dark blue river, going through the details of his plan. He had much to do and see before he went to the wheat belt. First he needed to visit Fay Zwicky. Fay had sent him a text, saying she had a special gift, one that would be ‘a talisman against redness...’ After visiting Fay, Michael was going to call in on Andrew Burke. He’d liked the poems of Andrew’s he’d read in New Poetry and sensed he could rely on him in a tight fix. He was going to ask if he’d accompany him to Geraldton. Michael had always wanted to see first-hand the harbour and surrounding countryside of Randolph Stowe’s Merry-Go-Round in the Sea, and Andrew Burke knew the place well. He remembered a line from the novel, and said it aloud: “The merry-go-round had a centre post of cast iron, reddened a little by the salt air...” He understood that line now. The redness was not rust. It was Stowe’s metaphor for a fast-approaching time of linguistic decay and unprecedented ego in Australian literature. The merry-go-round’s centre post was the eye of the storm, the hub, and at its perimeter was the centrifugal force that would throw all but the most discerning and determined readers and lovers of poetry into chaos.

Fay had morning tea ready when Michael arrived. She poured tea and talked about The Island War. She spoke calmly about how the Waggaists were representative of all that’s wrong with poetry when theory becomes its overarching focus and driving force. “Most of them are running scared on the meniscus of an ill-perceived notion of what it takes to write good verse,” she said, spooning blackberry jam into a bowl. “They feel that if you dive deep, and go on your nerve and trust your instincts rather than the poetics of the current fashion of the time, you’re seen as being too vulnerable, or sentimental. The Waggaist’s poetry is largely without passion and emotion. They view anything that engages with matters of the spirit as being pathetic. It’s why the Deep Imagists were ridiculed by the Academy when they started publishing their poems. When James Wright wrote “...when I stand upright in the wind, my bones turn to dark emeralds,” or “...if I stepped out of my body I would break into blossom,” the hard-arsed spin-doctors of cynicism and theory couldn’t handle it. For them, opening your chest and saying ‘Look at my heart, it’s in shreds’ was a fuck-up.” Fay was leaning on her elbows, using a scone to highlight each point. “By following the Red K’s lead, the Waggaists were writing too much, too quickly.  Technique and craft might seem to be interchangeable, but when careful editing is exposed on a hillside in septic weather, the poem breaks down.” Fay took a sip of tea and looked carefully at Dransfield. “Can you remember one line of a Red K poem?” Michael had to think, but not for too long. “No,” he said. Fay smiled and stood up. “My point exactly,” she said. She went to a large mahogany cabinet and opened a drawer. When she turned around she was holding a pendant on a plaited black leather string. She came to stand behind Michael and looped the pendant around his neck. It settled against his shirt with a cool, comforting weight. He lifted it and saw a photo of an osprey behind a globe of glass. Michael was overcome with emotion. The osprey was his favourite raptor. Fay took his hand. “The long voyage does indeed involve many streets,” she said, and kissed him on the forehead. “Now get to work.”

Emmy-Lou Harris was running around with a clip-board under her arm, organising the many singers and bands. There were only two days to go before the festival, and things were tight. The stage has been erected - it ran along beside the water at the marina, and had a huge scallop shell behind it, lit with green and blue. At night it looked incredible. During Lyle Lovett’s sound-check, Lyle had insisted the crowd be allowed to come to the stage. The atmosphere was electric.

Heading the bill at the music festival was supposed to have been Lucinda Williams and Hex, but no one had seen Lucinda for days. In her place, she’d put Lynyrd Skynyrd (with special guest John Berryman). Ronnie van Zandt and Berryman had been holed up in the back bar of the Angler’s Rest, putting music to some of the Dream Songs. Berryman loved that “Life, Friends, Is Boring...” now had a driving Southern swamp-boogie sound. Following Skynyrd were:

Johnny Cash

The Charlie Daniels Band

John Prine and Iris Dement

Patty Loveless (performing songs from her forthcoming album inspired by the poems of Mary Oliver)

Gram Parsons and Emmy Lou Harris

Drag the River (with Lucky Oceans replacing their late friend on pedal-steel)

Sun Kil Moon

Diesel Doug and the Long Haul Truckers

Dolly Parton, Lynn Anderson, Linda Rondstadt

Blue Rodeo

The Jayhawks

Kris Kristofferson and the Oyster Band

Gillian Welch

Drive-By Truckers

The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash

The Amazing Rhythm Aces

Lyle Lovett

The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band (with Doc Watson and Vassar Clements)

The Ozark Mountain Daredevils

The freak banjo-player from Deliverance (with James Dickey responding on guitar)

Waylon and Shooter Jennings

Steve Earle and the Copperheads

Townes van Zandt

Wrinkle Neck Mules

Robert Earle Keen

Frog Holler

Chris Knight

James McMurtry 

I See Hawks in L.A.

Bill Wisely was Head of Security. He and Terry Hack and Moose had set up a perimeter fence around the venue, and out back of Yeats’ oyster shed, in case they were needed, they’d erected a few chicken wire cages. Bill had also enlisted the help of the Sons of Zebedee, who had finally been won over by Berryman and Hill’s eloquence and passion. Bill was handing out planks and giving orders.

Traffic out of Sydney and on the freeway south was already a nightmare. The Old Pacific Highway was banked up from Asquith and cars jammed the freeway from the Gosford turn-off. Many had abandoned their vehicles and were walking in. A local outlaw motorcycle club had already arrived in Brooklyn, and were a serious presence as they walked around with Bill’s planks, keeping things in order. Dolly Parton had taken the members aside and given them a stern lecture about how crowd-control can get out of hand. She reminded them of what had happened in ’69 when the Stones played Altamont. The bikers were impressed by Dolly’s cautionary speech, and promised to keep order without resorting to violence. 

Brooklyn was packed. You couldn’t get near the bar of The Rest. Thousands of craft were anchored out on the river - from Brooklyn to Flint and Steel and up to Spencer there was no room for anymore. The river was a tight patchworking of motor boats and sails. In town most people had gone up to the oval above the marina. There was a constant blue fog of spliff smoke on the breeze. Barbecues were spitting and smoking. The local cops were barely visible. They assumed because it was a country music festival that things would not get out of hand. This would prove a fatal mistake.

In their stone cottage, Bron yr Aur, in the Snowdonia National Park in Wales, Led Zeppelin were getting ready to leave. Robert Plant had received an email from his old friend Gram Parsons. Gram had told him how much he was looking forward to the festival in Brooklyn. Plant had contacted the other members, saying how much he wanted to go, and were they up for it. They hadn’t been semi-acoustic since Led Zeppelin 111, and they thought they’d surprise Gram by turning up in Brooklyn. They were all keen. John Bonham was excited. He was a keen fisherman, and news of massive Waggafish in the Lakes District had been in the London Times. He’d already packed his live-baiting gear. The band’s air-ship was waiting, hovering over a field outside the cottage.

G. Lehmann