truncated acquaintance

 (or the man-with-two-beards has a going away party)

  (past TENSE)
I stood in the room, had entered and he,
at the sight of green and red
on the threshold, lifting his face
dropped my name soft and firm
from his wide, moon mouth
it fell quick from his lips:
a coal on his tongue, an ember ellipse;
Then his eyes sought the ground
to earth the capillaries, swollen to pink
in meniscus rims, that left me somehow
feeling sorry for him with his
pale doughy jaw from the recent inhalings:
his pre-engagement aperitif of
atmospheric  addle-cladding, that
pre-empted my tip-toey, shy
frocked at ten o’clock arriving.
 
(present CONTINUOUS)
And I’m just inside the open door
upstairs in the upholstery paddock, being
grazed upon by the palms and soles of the
early, murmuring, hesitant herd,
all denim-corded, jumpered, shirted
sneakered, coated, combed and belted
cropped and bobbed and patterned socks and
throwing back their laughter-heads, talking
‘another beer from the fridge?’ and then
something forgettable someone said....
And suddenly finding a glass in my hand
heavy with bright, floating,
marigold-bits, the
colour of shouting, the colour of
jam, I’m tipping it down the appropriate hole.

 (past TENSE)
I talked a loud, banality-banter to the
row of three guests, reclined on the sofa:
the schmick, older brother (thinner, shorter),
the greenie, female fitter-and-turner, and another bloke
ranting, in a matter of seconds, on the
‘data-base privacy of info’ debate -
a grinning, live-in, opinion-machine, who
let the three of us know, quite fanatically,
‘They need to know, caring, protecting
lives, in responsible, registered hands’ - he was
harmless but tedious, a prolific species:
common  garden-variety bland.

 (present CONTINUOUS)
Leaning back breathing,
I’m avoiding the sight of him,
loquacious designer with Cannondale bike shoes
similar to mine, I’m hiding down deep
in the pristine white couch with the
plump, well-stuffed arms, and a
lime-green fur cushion that I’m starting find
almost ‘strangely consoling’
I turn and confide to the
narrow-haired woman  clamped up on my right
slim and polite, sipping on Invalid, creamy-topped stout,
risking a laugh at my waiting-room humour
she’s wearing three piercings in
both of her ears, and her small tic-tac teeth
peak out when she speaks about
machinery, the 9 to 5 and
changing her life.

 (past TENSE)
I caught a few glimpses
through drifts of the chit-chat, of the
blonde, long-chinned host, as he
mingled with friends, getting
loyally drunk and nostalgically stoned
out of respect for him and
habit for them, and they
seemed to be such an
incongruous crowd, but I
so barely knew him, and
had not foreseen this,
(he wears shorts over trackies, and his
friends are like this?) and my
edginess peaked when they
started up play-station,
indignantly restless on
New Fabric Slab.

 (present continuous TENSE)
Then deciding to rise,
getting up, straightening legs,
to force a safe distance from an argument that
I’m not going to start, this booby-trap talk
I’m not going to play at convincing this guy
(bleating inside: I’m just grumpy, just tired, and I should
be more friendly, just try to be nice), with a
slippery, cold glass of leaving-boy water
warming up wet in my nervous palm, but my
body is freezing in the veranda door  draft - so
applying  the suede coat (the fur-fire remedy)
at last to the skin of the back and the arms,
fending off quivers, in my square, emerald smock
- stiff op-shop taffeta, with satin-cream
sash, two metres of wrap, dripping
sweet like vanilla , like dessert from around
my goose-bumping, dry-ice,
diaphanous throat.

 (present TENSE)
I stumble to the tiny fire, I
weave my way, careful not
to kick their stubbies, or
stub strewn toes, to the
fan-shaped, cast-iron
black fire-plate, with
orangeade splut-splutter coal
that barely puffs just luke-warm air
at floating bodies and menacing walls
too far away, too ambitious for
embryonic embers, but good up-close on
stockinged legs, the question begs:
calves or thighs? I turn and extend my
arse at the room, quite content
to study the painted mantel and
modest menagerie of memorabilia bits.
 
(NOUNS)
Two wooden monkeys;
A couple of brass ones...
Several CDs, or game CD-Roms;
A small, fluffy rabbit, at the end of a key-chain ;
broken, something taller and a
Star Wars figurine - spider war-machine
metal claw, on spiteful legs
picking its way through a  carnage field, thorax
all fat for men and weapons
computer-controlled
designed back-to-nature
the future going Creature-Comfort
 
(present TENSE)
And aware of not participating in
the gesticulating, incubating of
pungent, silver sharing-smoke
rolling smooth between the digits,
rolled around the lolling group:
fragile, protective, wistfullish weed, and the
passing of treasure-chest, black-ritual, stash-box,
released with relief to another wired pair
of fidgety hands, gladly employed
in the demanding and widely commissioned
work of preparing and crafting the
white-worm delicious, engineered so
precisely for Chinese-mouth-whispers and
steady burning, while I’m just yawning with
bed-hungry boredom.

 (conditional TENSE)
Could look at this wall for quite some time
could keep warming woolly legs, and suck in the fire
through anemone-hairs, I
could avoid turning ‘round to the composting bodies
sprawled and skew-whiff on the carpet and chairs,
Could stick it out for a little while more, before
(with regret in my voice) excusing myself
explaining: ‘I’m really sorry I have to leave
but last night I barely got any sleep,
lovely to see you, have a good trip’.

 (past TENSE)
But just moments before, I conclusively shut
my residual interest in talking at all
a stray conversation struck up on a side lounge,
quilted like a catchers mitt, salmon and round, with a
broad, quirky mouth in a spectacled face, that had
two extra goggles perched high on the head, pinning
down a wool beanie, and the
comforting smile of the proximate girl:
tinkle-blonde friendly, scarlet-style, and we
pleasantly talked, starting (late as it was)
a warm, non-opinionated exchange for a
time, while the couch tipped and slid
and we prattled of retail, learning Spanish, and other
unremarkable things, and although I was tired
- in my now nineteenth hour - found
relief in a meeting
inconsequentially nice.

 (PARTICIPLES)
-Announced my departure with sorry-politeness
-Accompanied quite graciously down splintery stairs
-Diverted by accident down the body-tight corridor
-Lead by the host to his privacy-lair
-Lit up by red, enamel double-barrelled cone lamps
    (To check out a poster, newly acquired
    A teenage, myth-tapestry hung over the fire)
-Took in the bedroom, the boy-cave, the bed:
    Monumental-masculine, heavy, precise-
-Stifled a gasp, as it hit at the stomach:
    A brick of desire, a bolt of sex
-Glimpsed a computer, a stereo… desk
-Imagined the music, and the hands on the keyboard
-Commented quietly, ‘Oh so, you like to build things...’
-Struggling for words as blood drowned the legs
-Backed our way out through high, noisy hall
-Opened the threshold, cold blast door
 
(future TENSE)
At this point, I think, well be joined by the snow-boy
mountain, south-American, crazy pipe-developer, and
we’ll finally have a three-way, most excellent (but
still a bit shuddering, from bedroom digression)
talk about art, and poetry and making, and
we’ll breathe in properly, late Brunswick oxygen
quite chilled when compared to the air midst the bodies
and I’ll turn to go...
I’ll be mimicking crispness, but he’ll offer his face
and, unthinking, I’ll lean
my chest and mouth forward for a
kiss on the cheek, just above the two beards, and
I’ll walk to the tram, with my pulse playing tricks I’ll
put down to fatigue, and perhaps to a wee bit...
of sleep-disruptive, flush-in-the-cheeks,
post-interaction
butterfly-curiosity.

July 2000.