Hook the loops of your bag
between your forearm crease,
let it swing not lag
whilst you walk to see your niece.

Your nephew is ill in hospital,
your parents too ill to help out,
your sister is depressed, it's postnatal,
and you've been there from the beginning, throughout.

Those aren't tears, but the effects of the wind
while you walk nervous to see.
******* in your cold coat you’ve thinned,
but no one will notice nor disagree.

As you’re there to help, encourage with wise words,
short bursts of helpful blurbs will
satisfy your sister just enough
for her to get through.

i

It took three of us to pull her out
onto steel-float-finished concrete —
where her mother; BNNZ-0031U
fell from GXA339605 —
a little black Limousin heifer
later to be Christened
IE18576-0426.
Shortened to Patch.

Like my nephew Jamie
he’ll never know dial-up.
Imagine … I lived 27 years B.FB.
(Before Facebook.)


ii

If a cow calves down successfully —
that’s no guarantee you’ll end up with a cheque —
they’re moved to the postnatal paddock.
Almost the furthest field back,
gives junior a peak at the future fields
they’ll someday graze.
Provided they live long enough.

One year, the tour had entered the 3rd Hill Field
which has 8 gates, the cow knew which one.
I was only here to open and close the gates.
So she checked her mirrors
then indicated left. Migratory.
Junior, on-the-other-hand
didn’t quite know what to do
so floored it; head-on
into un-suspecting gate.

It was like in the cartoons,
something would fall on someone’s head,
they’d walk away like an accordion.

I nearly died laughing
5000 times funnier than castrating lambs
I swear to God.


iii

They came into my world and leave
from the shed

I like to think that there word for the shed,
when translated would mean pain —
between being de-horned; castrated;
belted with sticks; stobbed with needles
and yucky medicine rammed down their throats.  
Then weaned: no more mommy from now on.

Let back out, having weathered their 1st winter.
Yearlings; grazing different field.
Their 2nd summer at grass — according to the book —
is where they’ll experience Compensatory Growth.
When the gate up to the Rock is closed,
that’s the end of the road for them.
We finish the cattle here.
Well used to gates by then.

That’s all it is really; a series of galvanised gates
opening and closing in conjunction
with a selected grazing rotation.
One cycle around 62.4 hectares.


iv

There’s only one reason
cows are moved in with the cattle —
well, yea there’s the other reason too,
but primarily —
to keep Romeo away from Juliet.

At this age, there elders are generally knackered,
probably mastitis in more than one ***.

In the Beef Book in college,
cull cows are referred to as ‘canners’
as that’s where most of them end up —
in tins of dog food.


v

It was 17 years ago, Patch ran into that gate.
I’ve seen her go from bullied springer to bully.
She’s taking a trip with the cattle today.

I wonder did she know
that IE18576-0851 was hers
from last year. I like to think so.
And everyone of her offspring,
all lived to be killed.
Only space for that in my notebook.

Mart starts at 10, it’s 8.30am
waiting for Lynsky.
All my years loading cattle,
it’s never once been raining.

And calves in fields over
contently ****.

we are your daughters too! we are your daughters, have you forgotten that part? have you been gone so long that your memories have shriveled into space gaps and brain tissue and eggnog?

young stud, blue jeans. there’s a sister in the room, you don't have to worry about being dizzy anymore. is there comfort in her hair. is there a mosquito green pond in her eyes. or is it just me?

some meadows are full of honey, like the one in san francisco above the trolley lines. maybe it was there that they walked barefoot, full of moon wedges. maybe it was there that the gravitational pull of the earth first began to melt.

we are exactly the same! closer than twins! womb-slick and half-closed, hands grasped together from the moment the first cells began to split. mitochondria. fibula. ozone.

i wanna hold your hand sometimes! i’ve been thinking of monserrat lately, her knee-high black converse shoes and her tulle skirt. i have been thinking of sitting behind the science building and tearing my history textbooks into strips and i have been thinking of the alley behind the safeway and how i pretended i was luxa for a few hours. all of that ends at graduation with elan’s red dress and her mom in pajamas.

i still wanna hold your hand, i am fifteen and dumb and you are seventeen and beautiful. the inside of her stomach was so long ago, it’s the difference between the beginning of a century and two years after it has begun.

maybe we aren’t so alike but i know that i still dream of water bugs and swamp gods. does your heart beat to pacific tides? does it float and gasp, like duck and pelican? because the ocean is still ready for us. it is gooey with patience and whirlpools and spongey with squid ink, squid eggs and krill.

the east coast is waiting for you too, ready to fold you into its hilly green arms and take you away. some places are too pretty for their own good, they are too much lighthouse red gas station not-oregon hot dizzy head sit down warm cement. i don’t want you to go. and i still don’t even know where you want to go to college, but probably not san diego because someone said she wanted to play there and you didn’t chime in.

it’s so funny about being postnatal. blue and orange hands, umbilical cords in place of functioning intestines, young toothless mouths and cottage cheese. sometimes i miss it. that’s dumb because i am still postnatal, i am still conductive to electricity my body is still blue and wrinkled. we are exactly the same, don’t ever forget that. don’t forget we shared a body.

I. antemortem
from this place, further along this journey of days
antemortem, would I …
take the path
say nothing
submit to the pain
still believe it was worth it
avoid cataclysm
fight harder
not fight at all
believe in a higher cause
endure the torture
deny my nature
avoid the execution
accept the cup
walk into that storm again

II. postmortem
from this place, further along this journey of days
postmortem, could I
walk in that desert
get totally lost
live without hope
not haunt myself
see the outcome
park my brain
know that it will end
suffer with gratitude
exist
forgive myself
accept the loss
forgive them
not want death
skip this part
willingly submit to it again

III. antenatal
from this place, further along this journey of days
antenatal, I understand
impacts of trauma
being empty
processes of grief
some wounds heal
… others do not
manifestations of evil
fighting to live
seeking control
...and never getting it
human frailty
frailty of mind
reconstructing a mind
listening to quiet
struggling for reason
struggling for purpose
seeking pain
going backwards
pulling together the threads
becoming
submitting to time

IV. postnatal*
ut consilium*

@journeyofdays

IV. postnatal
ut consilium...repris


things are looking up when
you look in the mirror and you don’t scare yourself
recognise the person you see there
arrive before you leave
stay the course
take people at face value
can meet with friends
laugh
turn your face forward and there is no crick in your neck
your muscles ache
because you worked hard
get used to this
you want this to be your new normal
see a future even if it is just tomorrow
yes, hopeful...repris

@journeyofdays

I'm told I didn't cry when I was born
The midwife had to give me a whack
While both ****** and Stalin
Screamed the house down
I hope there's something in that.

National safe Motherhood day
Celebrated in India on April 11
In co-oporation with white Ribbon Alliance of India
to reduce maternal deaths
Which is a big menace
Out of 30 million pregnant women roughly
45k go into the hands of death yearly
Therefore Six pillars of safe Motherhood have been chalked out
first one is family planning
While 2nd to 5th are antenatal, obstetric ,prenatal n postnatal care
And sixth is the control of STD and *** infection
Above all is avoid child marriage and promotion of girl child education
If we succeed in our this great mission
It will be a great satisfaction.

yesterday can feel like months
or even years away...

              all because you pounce
out of bed,
and begin an argument
about three glasses sitting
     on the sink...

   like it's a hoarder's genesis
to clutter...
     on the odd surmount -
it is a mother,
and i somehow grip to a patience...

but the whole thing is
shambles...
the original idea that allowed me
to get out of bed
like a kangaroo sinks...

insult after insult...
    this that and the other...
from a woman who doesn't see
what 0 hours contract has
done to working
in a supermarket...

   why are these people happy
doing 0 hour contracts?!
i sometimes see this person,
that person,
then some other person...
   doctors are supposed
to sign up to: being on call...
not supermarket
shelf stacker!

            i guess with writing i
know i'm doing something right...
hell... it's not exactly Stephen King...
but it's something...

three unwashed glasses
sitting on a sink, monetarily,
and i'm talking to a woman
feeling that i'm about to be castrated
by a ****...
          
                the ups and downs
of: unaffordable rents and
even more unaffordable housing...
****... social housing for men
about to start off?
single mothers, sure...
men?
either the streets or a tent
shanty town in a forest...
with a chance for eviction...

        yeah, men have it real bad,
but we're the ones who
have to come up with
existentialist solutions,
meanings, purposes,
a woman can oven bake
    the meaning of existence in
9 months...
which is focal around,
but one argument:
continuity...
     i have to sit here,
and think of something outside
the realm of giving
birth and securing
the fluidity of a healthy economy
buying, things,
that women would buy...

i have it easy...
any given day...
the troubles of 9 months
over 90 year of idiotic
bewilderment...
    and the bewilderment doesn't
even last 90 years,
since another bunch
of ******* are on their way...
men have it easy...
yeah... reads like a quote
from the ******* Bible...

and how much of feminism is
borrowed from
horror sci-fi?
the whole... alien thing?
how much?
i'm guessing pretty much all of it...
perhaps there's the postnatal
depression...
but then there must be a
pregnancy psychosis of being...
hijacked...
             yes... hijacked...
but never pampered...
just ego-****** incubating a fetus...

nice one...
      
i could work in a shop,
believe me...
my highest ambition was to work
in a music shop...
but guess what?!
   only food shops, cafes,
mobile phone outlets
and shoe shops are running the market...

so i say to this woman...
like brick walls over paintings?
no?
  how about the sound of silence...
turn the radio off...
the free aspect of any
production of art...
        some things are just:
necessary...

sudoku no. 10,197...
i love it when one of the grids is left
blank...
    you can easily note
which final numbers fit into all 9...
3, 8, 6, 7, 9, 1, 2, 4, 5...
  
like that 20th century dialectical
question that seems to be the only one
that still exists...
the Rolling Stones, or the Beatles...
neither, Aerosmith...
why? because i saw them live
in Hyde Park...

or from the 80s...
    Depeche Mode or the Cure?
i also saw Depeche Mode in Hyde Park...

beside the point...
what was my morning thought?
ah...
   i don't know how i managed
to keep it in my subconsciousness
without it slipping into
the unconscious and forgetfulness...

a funny thought...
i know why i dream so little...
or hardly at all...
   my capacity to dream has
been eroded with my
treating the faculty of memory
like a recurring movie -
this whole memory cinema...
or cinema of the memory...
the fact that i remember
as much as i do,
and yes, selectively,
      none the less the details,
could imply why i do not
have a brain that has evolved
to find meaning in
  dreams, per se -
i.e. dreams for the sake of dreaming...

i hear of the Anglophone high status
of dreaming encounters...
how the Anglophone people
are master architects of dreams...
maybe i'm not evolved to become
an architect of dreams,
but i'm pretty sure that,
the nature of your unconscious
doesn't allow you access
to being, in charge...

                      how can someone be
in charge of dreaming?
     i've heard that somewhere...
which makes more sense to do away
with the faculty of dreaming...
riddled with Freudian easy
access to ******* or counter-*******
symbolism...

i'm even thinking as far as:
dreams are the remains of the consciousness
of a *****...
wacky! well no **** Sherlock!
but i'm guessing that i don't dream
as much as other people,
only because
    my memory faculty has overtaken
my capacity to dream...

memory is a cinema for me,
    and perhaps my exposure to excesses
of memory, have eroded my
physical need to dream...

  sure, i don't consciously chose what
to remember,
  but... i can't entertain the argument
that i unconsciously chose what
i remember...
                  at any given moment of
recollection...
   that's not how educational rubric learning
works before sitting down
an exam.

how can i consciously chose what
to remember... when...
even if i try...
    i am capable of forgetting what,
i "thought" i would remember...
and receive a grade F on
   an essay from history about
the crusades?