Peter Skrzynecki poems
10 Mary Street
For nineteen years
We departed
Each morning, shut the house
Like a well-oiled lock,
Hit the key
Under a rusty bucket:
To school and work -
Over that still too-narrow bridge,
Around the factory
That was always burning down.
Back at 5p.m.
From the polite hum-drum
Of washing clothes
And laying sewerage pipes,
My parents watered
Plants - grew potatoes
And rows of sweet corn:
Tended roses and camellias
Like adopted children
Home from school earlier
I'd ravage the backyard garden
Like a hungry bird- until, bursting at the seams
Of me little blue
St Patrick's College cap,
I'd swear to stay off
Strawberries and peas forever.
The house stands
In its china-blue coat -
With paint guaranteed
For another ten years.
Lawns grow across
Dug-up beds of
Spinach, carrots and tomato.
(The whole block
Has been gazetted for industry).
For nineteen years
We lived together -
Kept pre-war Europe alive
With photographs and letters,
Heated with discussion
And embracing gestures:
Visitors that ate
Kielbasa, salt herrings
And rye bread, drank
Raw vodka or cherry brandy
And smoked like
A dozen Puffing Billies
Naturalized more
Than a decade ago
We became citizens if the soil
That was feeding us -
Inheritors of a key
That'll open no house
When this one is pulled down.
Ancestors
Who are these shadows
That hang over you in a dream –
The bearded, faceless men
Standing shoulder to shoulder?
What secrets
Do they whisper into the darkness –
Why do their eyes
Never close?
Where do they point to
From the circle around you –
To what star
Do their footprints lead?
Behind them are
Mountains, the sound of a river,
A moonlit plain
Of grasses and sand.
Why do they
Never speak – how long
Is their wait to be?
Why do you wake
As their faces become clearer –
Your tongue dry
As caked mud?
From across the plain
Where sand and grasses never stir
The wind tastes of
For nineteen years
We departed
Each morning, shut the house
Like a well-oiled lock,
Hit the key
Under a rusty bucket:
To school and work -
Over that still too-narrow bridge,
Around the factory
That was always burning down.
Back at 5p.m.
From the polite hum-drum
Of washing clothes
And laying sewerage pipes,
My parents watered
Plants - grew potatoes
And rows of sweet corn:
Tended roses and camellias
Like adopted children
Home from school earlier
I'd ravage the backyard garden
Like a hungry bird- until, bursting at the seams
Of me little blue
St Patrick's College cap,
I'd swear to stay off
Strawberries and peas forever.
The house stands
In its china-blue coat -
With paint guaranteed
For another ten years.
Lawns grow across
Dug-up beds of
Spinach, carrots and tomato.
(The whole block
Has been gazetted for industry).
For nineteen years
We lived together -
Kept pre-war Europe alive
With photographs and letters,
Heated with discussion
And embracing gestures:
Visitors that ate
Kielbasa, salt herrings
And rye bread, drank
Raw vodka or cherry brandy
And smoked like
A dozen Puffing Billies
Naturalized more
Than a decade ago
We became citizens if the soil
That was feeding us -
Inheritors of a key
That'll open no house
When this one is pulled down.
Ancestors
Who are these shadows
That hang over you in a dream –
The bearded, faceless men
Standing shoulder to shoulder?
What secrets
Do they whisper into the darkness –
Why do their eyes
Never close?
Where do they point to
From the circle around you –
To what star
Do their footprints lead?
Behind them are
Mountains, the sound of a river,
A moonlit plain
Of grasses and sand.
Why do they
Never speak – how long
Is their wait to be?
Why do you wake
As their faces become clearer –
Your tongue dry
As caked mud?
From across the plain
Where sand and grasses never stir
The wind tastes of