siobhan colman
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Chemotherapy

long tendrils of green
dragged by currents
strong enough to drown a freighter

like the thoughts of the dying
 
I try to grasp them
follow where they lead
but they are fluid
and reject my need to hold them
 
I find myself drifting
my mind stripped of certainty
like coral bleached clean

the ghostly bones
once a thousand colours
lie still


 

East Of Hobart January 2013

These blackened shores once knew feet
bare and hardened by salt and bush
from a time never measured by clocks
knew again the feet of men in chains

Port Arthur  Eagle Hawk Neck   Dunalley 

they hemmed the fringes of Marion Bay, Boomer Bay, Susan’s Bay, Frederick Henry Bay
to the ferry beyond Dodges Hill.
 
Fear stalks these beaches now
the sky above roars red
lungs fill with smoke

dreams become portraits done in charcoal
 
The water is cold
it will carry the charred remains
to bury with the kelp and shells 
on beaches such as these
 
a returning home 


Coming of Age 

There’s a tiny nun in my room

She looks down on the place I used to sleep

Silent

Dark in her vigil like a friendly crow
 

In my mother’s house

My childhood self never sleeps

She lies awake all night

Ears pricked in the darkness

Listening to her grandmother sigh each breath

Waiting for the light to pierce through the windows

And fall upon the cupboard

In which secrets are kept
 

She painted the ceiling in blues

Challenging the white clouds above her head

She wondered how long they would last

Didn’t imagine that at thirty six

She’d find herself lying on the floor

Tracing patterns from those clouds

Marvelling at the plans she made

At fifteen
 

She has come of age from her fifteen year old self

On the threshold of decision

Who she was then is still there

Waiting

To break free

                                                                siobhan colman 1999

 
 
Archaeologist 

I am the archaeologist of my mother’s life

Bloodying my nails in the dig

For the fragments of truth long buried

Beneath layers of secrets

The thick detritus of falsehoods

And gentle fabrication

 

My blood calls me there

To the deep and airless dark

To the broken bone and spirit of the woman I knew

Yet did not

I hear her whispering

Through the fissures in stories told like records

Stuck

Like riddles caught in the throat of a senile old woman

Seven seven seven seven

Unto infinity

 

  siobhan colman 2009

 
Mtoto Potea (Lost Child)

I was born a child in a land belonging to others.
Privileged and pale and unaware of the wasted faces of deprivation.
Yet I loved those dark skinned people
who held my restless body
when my mother was busy      running
the small estate. 

One woman I loved more than sunlight.
Her warm, black-coffee skin was soft against my own
as she carried me in the garden to watch the monkeys
and pick flowers;
sweet scented
and glorious
in the tropical heat.

My Ayah.
My Esther. 

I was three years old.
I did not realise I was not her child.
I did not see my paleness as a chasm to separate my life from hers.
I did not know that when my family left she would remain behind.
I did not know I was not of her people. 

Not even when she held me
tight against her apron
and blessed me in Allah’s name;
buttoning my cardigan as my mother packed the car
with the last of our possessions.        

I watched her beautiful body bent in grief;
her apron over head
until the dust on the road swallowed her whole.

It took me years
to realise I was white.
Less time to discover that privilege was a fragile thing.
And life; a lottery my own mother was destined to lose. 

No grand house and tropical garden.
No servants to love and hold me when my mother shut herself down. 

I discovered the reality of a life on an invalid pension,
the comfort gained from clothes handed down. 
Blacktown. 

Despite the distance fallen,
I realised
as I grew older,
that the chasm between myself and my Esther was closing.

I am over forty now.
A citizen of Australia.

And as I watch the news I realise that I am betrayed
by the colour of my skin;

the history of privilege it represents.


Like blotting paper it wipes away its stains. 

And I realise I cannot call such a place home.
For there is no safety here.
No refuge.

And I think of Esther

and wonder if she has followed me here.
To a life beneath these blue cloudless skies.           

And eternity behind razor wire.

Siobhan Colman        2007

.


Sharp Things
 

“It was only a pencil, Miss.”
Only a pencil.

They don’t allow me pencils in here. Not in here. Not in this room.
Poke, poke, scratch away. Peel off the layers. Reduce me to a fine point. Reduce me to….
Reduce
me. 

“It was only a joke, Miss.” 

Only a joke.
Only a sharp, pointy joke.

Sharp.

Sharpener
Sharpen … her
Sharpen

me 

“Don’t poke her with the pencil, John!” 

Sharpen your tongue!

You look sharp
You looked sharp
You looked. 

“The pencil’s mightier than the sword!” 

Both cut me open.
Sliced me down the middle …flayed me
Like a fish 

“But it’s only a pencil.” 

“That’s not the point!” 

But it is the point.
The very point.
The very apex of my destruction.

Thin, poisonous point.
Sharper than a needle.

Do they allow pencils on planes?
Do they? 

They don’t allow pencils in here.

Not in this stark, white room
Where sharp things are kept away
Things that point and stare and jab and poke holes.

Too many holes.
Too many holes
And I’m falling through them into

This place.

 

You promised me you wouldn’t leave me here.

You promised me

You promised me when you signed the paper.


You promised me, your finger a pencil on the bleached bone page
Pointing.
Pointing sharply at all that had been written.
My life in lines of graphite. 

You promised you wouldn’t leave me

You promised you wouldn’t leave me

Here. 

               siobhan colman 2006
commissioned by Blacktown Council


Written in response to the artwork of Kenzee Patterson’s  H 2005  H grade graphite pencil

 
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