Monday, April 1, 2024

Love Poem: the Ancient Greeks

Love Poem: the Ancient Greeks

i
A continent full of snakes and spiders greeted
Paris on his march into Troy. He thought of Helen
while inside the Trojan horse, marking his love
for her on wooden beams with his sword.

When he dreamed of her, the seas whooshed him
back and forth to a bedchamber of camel hair
and wind-chimes.

ii
When Psyche brought home Cupid his dazzling
red hair was not her parents' concern, but more
his two wings that echoed a mellifluous lip music.

They were not impressed with the non-human
aspect of his sailing around the room,
fluttering and lifting her high above.

iii
Pygmalion's love for Galatea was not carnal, sexual
or Greek-style. They did not mention war, or a parent's
non-approval. They stood stiffly around in the blue toga

of the day. He polished her eyes in a mirror image
of his. She gazed back, without end; a woman
he could never domesticate, covet or ruin.

Sunday, February 11, 2024

Market: A Prose Poem

Market

A market shows a difference of colour and the possibility of taste especially when an assortment of nylon and lace are mounted. It could be that sizes are too small too young and not tolerable for the older wearer if the decoration is suggestive, but a younger buyer might determine the daintiness of the objects swinging, and there is a spectacle swinging in the breeze which makes for a sniggering and in any case these showy garments once bought will later be undercover or rolled away nicely, nicely in a top drawer with perfumed liners. The amusing side might bring back pleasure each time the buyer slips these panties on, possibly remembering those colourful cartwheels of fitted pink and lime lace and the lengths to which the market stall proudly boasted skimpy, skimpy.

Saturday, January 6, 2024

The Ozone Café : 2nd Edition OUT NOW!

The Ozone Café is about three separate owners of the café and its demise through political corruption.
Hagemann delivers a vision of 1960s and ’70s life in a small NSW Central Coast town. The novel is a homage to a café of the same name and of a distinctive P&O design in her hometown of Ettalong, New South Wales. It is also about the struggle of past and present cafe owners to save the cafe from demolition. Here are my cafe owners: -

Vincenzo Polamo, a Calabrian, builds the Ozone Café with his builder-brother in 1957 in fictional Satara Bay. He meets three children, Winifred, Casey, and Nicolas, creating a seascape mural on a café wall that includes them. The café changes from Italian to Australian cuisine. However, due to long hours of hard work and Vincenzo’s wife unwilling to migrate to Australia, Vincenzo sells the café.

Joe Pendlebury suffers setbacks with too few customers, poor health and problems due to a violent storm causing structural damage close to the mural. In major scenes, Pendlebury goes missing, and Nicolas dies from muscular dystrophy, heightening Winifred’s concerns to keep the mural sacred.

Con & Dion Lasaridis experience problems with the damage. Unable to convince the Heytesbury Shire the café is sound after a rebuild, they lose ownership in a court battle; the Shire evoking a Demolition Order, 1946. The Lasaridis believe this is due to an undercurrent of well-known council corruption; Mayor Tyrone being a principal player in corrupt land and property dealings. Vincenzo (et al) removes the mural reinstating it at his home. The mural becomes a lasting memorial to Nicolas Battersby, as well as the sole surviving piece of The Ozone Café.

At the time of commencing the novel, I had very little to go on. Then half-way through I discovered a pic of the Ozone posted on Gosford's Historical Library page on FLICKR. I therefore acknowledge the library Gostalgia, and that I have been given permission to use the picture on the cover of my 2nd Edition of The Ozone Cafe. I am also grateful for the research carried out by actor Felix Willliamson (son of playwright John Williamson) in his search and playing the role of Phil (the Jew) Jeffs in Underbelly Razor - a TV mini series.

Gostalgia: local history from Gosford Library

Phil Jeff's house, with cafe beneath, Ettalong.

The above photograph was taken by Press photographer Sam Hood. It is believed to date from around November 1945, when Phil "the Jew" Jeffs died in St. Vincent's hospital in Sydney. He is buried in the Jewish section of Rookwood Cemetery, under the name "Phillip Davis". The building is of a style known as "P & O" an interwar style that reflected the architecture of a ship's bridge. Unfortunately this building has since been demolished. Aerial photographs from 1957 reveal that Phil Jeff's former house was on the corner of Beach Street and The Esplanade, Ettalong Beach, near Memorial Avenue. The house faced due south, looking straight out to Broken Bay and Lion Island.This was THE prime spot for views in the area, and the site is now the location of Mantra, Ettalong Beach. Nothing remains of Phil Jeffs house in 2011. A brief report of Phil Jeffs death can be read at:nla.gov.au/nla.news-article56436952 Another former Razor war criminal, Kate Leigh, was embroiled in an assault case at Woy Woy in 1931.Read about this case on the Trove newspaper website:trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper