Samuel Wagan Watson

I remember construction cranes like herds of frozen praying-mantis, high on the steamy Bjelke-Petersen plateau above a brown snake-coiled river. It was from this view, at the age of 4, that I learnt to read the columns of Brisbane city.
...

Sprinkled in the happy dark of my mind
Is early childhood and black humour
White stucco dreaming
...

I can't speak my grandmother's tongue and I've never been on my grandfather's land,
I've travelled here and I've travelled there,
my culture replicated in government-funded laboratories;
...

got up off the couch
and immediately the room cleared of its winged creatures
flapping in-time
to an abdominal exercise machine on the glowing box,
...

For Anthony Lawrence
A large gray jumped, what I can only imagine is a dingo fence last night and made it at least 5 feet off the ground, under a full moon a million miles away,
...

For once you have tasted flight you will walk the earth with your eyes turned skywards, for there you have been and there you will long to return.
 — Leonardo da Vinci
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my Dad straightened out the crooked men
in the old laundry shed
above the fishing gear and jars of nuts and bolts
where on a rack
...

dropping a knife
on one's foot
is nothing like
dropping tequilla
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you'd never forget the pelicans
because it was their home too
and that occasional one who'd try and swallow your baited hook
while we cast out into an endless mould of brown and blue skin
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the pyromaniacs of the gods were kicking it
into that desert sunset
upon a fire pink, burner-blue horizon line
blossoms cherry red
...

for David Gilbey

fire-engine flash of fox pelt
and a plume of tail
...

Today, I am the caretaker for one of Brisbane's oldest evils; the retired gaol of Boggo Road. There are still a few walls, towers and buildings,
...

Stand back . . . Keep your body and hands away from the bars . . . The bars, the frets; of the instruments that played with the dark . . . Stand back . . .
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Our Elders are well-acquainted with the Unlucky,
And they acknowledge Death by his sign,
Don't cross a knife and fork on the kitchen table
'Cause you're just inviting the Devil to dine,
...

"You talk about terror . . . I been terrorized all my days!"
from ‘Terrorized' by Mr Willie King, Alabama Blues Legend (1943-2009)
All the signs read, SMILE . . .
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it comes to that morning
when finally you realise: it's all going to collapse

there is a conclusion that's yet to be seen
while loose ends are stacking high to a volatile degree

eyes peering through sun-kissed slits
at a landscape bathing in a varnish of itinerant blue
as if the sky has reminded the earth of loneliness
and the old days of communion

a dawn when gamblers get slapped into remission
and the ball starts rolling again with rogue impetus

time to move and abandon what is built
and may later bleed
after days and nights of bargaining into the mirror's subversion

as the only muse that serenades you
is a computer generated image

wishing to advise
you have limited credit to make this call…
...

the late shift erupts;
Greek boys in turbo-fitted 4s
open the back streets
of bitumen lines built for mice

a gear-crunching
nightscape howl

simultaneously
embraced and ejected
into the dire congestion of the city's spectral pitch

like the fading trumpet oratorio
of an emphysema-riddled jazz musician
...

die spätschicht bricht aus;
griechische jungs in 4-zylinder turbos
öffnen die hintergassen
der asphaltlinien für mäuse gebaut
ein gang-knirschendes
aufheulen der nachtlandschaft
gleichzeitig
geborgen und herausgeschleudert
in die äußerste stockung des stadtlichtspektrums

wie das verebbende trompetenoratorium
eines emphysemgeblähten jazzmusikers

Übersetzt von Raphael Urweider
...

lying on the floor
with its concrete and ammonia tongue
reading Charles Bukowski, ‘Living On Luck'
my split-level mind and its contradictory ghosts
at once condemning his ribald desires of flesh
and praising the simplified schematics of his Richard Nixon landscapes,

I've placed a block of cheese on my doorstep
and the ants are drawn to it,
I have no couch to lie on and read
thus, the ants attack my flesh
and I reciprocate, squashing them between my fingers
to produce a gasoline inspired perfume,
the smell of victory

some guy is at it, upstairs, screaming at an accomplice
but between breaths he allows the other tenants movement
and loads a fresh tirade into the breach
under the smoggy glow of tube lighting
frozen images of dogs playing poker
accommodating the warm reception
of a surprise attack
from within the whites of their eyes
tambourines tied to their feet
...

liege auf dem boden
mit seinem beton und der ammoniakzunge
lese Charles Bukowskis ‚Living On Luck'
mein halbgeschossiger geist und dessen widersprüchliche geister,
die seine derbe fleischeslust verdammen
und zugleich die vereinfachte schematik der richard-nixon-landschaften verehren,

ich habe einen käseblock auf der türschwelle platziert
und die ameisen werden durch ihn angezogen
ich habe kein sofa um draufzuliegen und zu lesen
also greifen die ameisen mein fleisch an
und ich gebe zurück, zerdrücke sie zwischen den fingern
ein benzinartiger duft kommt auf
der geruch des sieges

irgendeiner ist dabei, oben, einen komplizen anzuschreien
doch zwischen atemzügen erlaubt er dan anderen mietern, sich zu bewegen
und lädt eine neue tirade ins patronenlager
unter dem rauchigen glimmen der neonbeleuchtung
eingefrorene bilder von hunden die pokern
und die den herzlichen empfang
eines überraschungsangriffs begrüßen
aus dem weiß ihrer augen heraus
tambourine an ihre füße gebunden

Übersetzt von Raphael Urweider
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