Angles

By Carmel Macdonald Grahame and Karen Throssell

'With freedom of movement and association seriously curtailed during lockdown, Carmel Macdonald Grahame and Karen Throssell found instead an opportunity for liberty of mind - to recollect, richly embroider, and feel into other lives and vistas. This book showcases the agile creativity - dress-up boxes of the imagination - of these two eloquent p

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Nov 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781761094231

Carmel Macdonald Grahame

Carmel Macdonald Grahame is a Western Australian teacher and writer now living in Warrandyte, Victoria. Carmel has previously lived in Canada, London and Korea. Her short fiction, poetry, critical essays and reviews have been published in journals, periodicals and anthologies in Australia and in North America, and she has had three stage plays performed. She has a PhD in Australian literature, and for several years taught courses in literature and creative writing at secondary and tertiary levels in her home state of Western Australia. Personal Effects is her debut novel.

Book preview

Angles

ANGLES

CARMEL MACDONALD GRAHAME

KAREN THROSSELL

Ginninderra Press

Angels

ISBN 978 1 76109 423 1

Copyright © text Carmel Macdonald Grahame

and Karen Throssell 2022

Cover: Bry Throssell

---

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

---

First published 2022 by

Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

CONTENTS

Angles

Acknowledgements and Author Notes

ANGLES

Calendar

---

January always begins, like an eldest,

time starting with fireworks and kisses,

first of the first, standing over the year,

arms folded, laying claim to old ideas

about fresh starts and good intentions,

like a pastor assigning annual penance,

to which I objected conscientiously, well

before resolutions sounded like wish lists.

---

Anniversary month for us, of long ago

antique vows, made with fingers crossed.

Although, these days when he leaves

I miss him as much as then, but absence

creates unexpected possibilities, like time

to be sitting here sifting through language

that might describe this window light –

ambitious words, I want; precise, clear.

---

Which is why, at a nondescript minute,

I happen to be in this chair looking out

at this view, thesaurus open at lucid,

hearing this plane as it passes overhead,

and how this mudbrick cottage creaks…

I can smell patchouli, my fetish pen leaks –

all minutiae, but on the strength of which

another year has started climbing over me.

---

Carmel

Pretending to be Slow Loris

---

Limbo month, life on hold or upside down normally

bustling inland towns suburbs empty vacant void vacuous

they’ve left for the coast or hiding hibernating hunkering down in or on couches with cricket or cocktails drowsing dreaming or drunk

---

Where is all that panting traffic weary schoolkids at bus stops heads down tapping tapping? Local haunts shut stunning shocked patrons: no coffee library gym no friends all on the beach with the plumber mechanic sparky all of whom you need of course in January when even the machines go slow go on strike or surrender

---

Now once quiet coastal towns become swarming cities – roads footpaths cafés bustling jostling tiny shops chock full of eager shoppers street swarming with swanning strangers with their bare flesh sunglasses and ubiquitous phones…

---

January metamorphosis – city shell sloughed-off suits ties heels stockings – and underneath glum uniforms waiting to emerge are summer butterflies! Pink and red and green and orange

sundresses shorts frocks spread their wings, thongs slap happily

---

But unlike other butterflies who emerge gorgeous energised full of flighty excitement we emulate the languorous slow loris – slow down slow melt slow food fold flop flump sleep in and on beaches lounges decks with our Xmas books holiday movies and endless repeats of Grand Designs

---

We can smell the roses or resolve to smell the roses or at least notice the roses but all the time rose-blindness lurks in a corner of our minds the work corner still there despite all that slow loris drift and waft it’s there poised waiting…

---

These days even more insidious

little pocketful at beaches cafés walking trails

all full of holiday pretenders work blinking bleeping bullying…insistently reminding them of their real lives bustling away in their beach bags backpacks pockets…

---

A pocketful of meetings agendas memos discussion papers risk assessments quotes appraisals training schedules performance reviews Quality Control Best Practice…

A pocketful of spoilers – twitching chafing

quietly sabotaging slow loris

---

Karen

Black Is…

---

what Renoir called queen of colours,

beyond indigo, out past the spectrum,

where light is not and rainbows switch off;

---

a cliché of magic, vampires, witches’ cats;

shades of intellectuals and existentialists;

hallmark of modernity, elegance, restraint;

---

manifest as Doc Martens, pointy-toed patents,

crepe, lace, velvet; little-dress proverbial

like satin sheets on antique beds and raven hair;

---

lustrous as ebony and jet; key to sharps and flats

and half a game of chess; shape-taking darkness

in the ecliptic silhouettes of mountains, trees;

---

sombre as funeral suits and widow’s weeds,

but well-worn as leathers astride a Harley,

a warrior belt, the eye that follows the fist;

---

found in ocean trenches and underground,

the stuff of caves and mines preceding signs

of tunnel-ending light; growls as bleak despair;

---

the gravely named lost-box of airline tragedy;

that which fills holes in galaxies, astronomical

dark matter, those elusive enigmatic WIMPS*…

---

but down to earth as lists, plagues, markets;

often worn, still, for burying a loved one,

and in mourning, enduring symbol of grief;

---

and now, what will spill into this waiting house

at dead of night, when in the end I leave it.

But first: this pen, this ink.

---

Carmel

---

(* Weakly Interacting Massive Particles in Space)

Black

---

Once whispering green, rustic ochre,

Elegant marble and solid sandstone – transformed:

Torched rubble, scorched wasteland, ashen obliteration

---

Funeral garb, homage to the colour of sorrow.

We wear the grave, the endless night

We are memory’s dark shadows

---

Dogs, or the one that hounds

you drags you down into that pit

Black as no colour – when colour is joy

---

Stealth fills the midnight room. A nothing so thick

you can’t feel the walls

Tunnels, caves – no edges, no end…

---

No colours any more, I want them to turn black

---

Thunder is black:

Cannon roar, war drums

Coal and oil, old friends turned dark threat

---

Cities seethe with it – a huddle of black

Funeral gear for the deathly office

Cool uniforms for conformity and camouflage

---

The soothing balm of dark

after day’s white heat

City lights obliterated, snuffing out pretence

---

Slinking panthers, sleek stallions, glossy bears,

whip slither of black snakes

purple/black of prancing bower birds

---

Epitome of elegance, style

Minimal, functional – a wide-brimmed hat

and that little dress

---

The black skin of our first peoples

disparaged by pink invaders

whose skin blisters and peels under the blackfella sun

---

Black was the colour of my true love’s hair

---

The colour of mystery and magic

Old women stirring healing potions

with their friends – cats, bats and crows…

---

If there were no black night

there would be no new dawn

and you would never see the stars

---

Karen

You Yangs*

for Patrick

---

Startling aberration sprawling on the edge of that flat plain,

mystically looming, like an arm’s length Hanging Rock

---

He loved the name, it had to mean something significant

to the local Wathaurong, had to be a creation tale, a fallen star

---

pushed out of heaven and turned into an ugly lump,

an Icarus star, punished for flying too high…

---