Dissertation

Thought I’d upload my dissertation. Please download A Tour of Ashfield Flats here.

Dolphins

Cement bags shore
bulrushes
wooden sleepers
casurina obesa
limestone blocks
jarrah jetty
eucalyptus marginate
old car tyre
concrete slabs
a cormorant, still baking
its black feathers
moving in water reflection
caustic lighting.

Bamboo stands
fallen tree
banks quite high
fresh kills, land fill
a stratum of ripples
gravel blocks concreted
together, piles of palms
dirt bank
broken brick bank
deck chairs, a deck across branches
fence between houses
a movement underwater
makes ripples
eucalyptus rudis, a swing
the green leaves yellow in morning light
you can heard eastern highway throbbing
violence, the wake
high tide algae
constant smashing of foamy water
a shag swallowing a fish
the paddle breaking the surface
knock of metal on canoe wood.

Sand, cream grey orange
many footprints
a divet you can see the bottom in the water
but the sky, the shimmering trees
a twenty eight, rosellas ripping
tuarts to pieces
a rubbish truck, its dinosaur armature
great roots occasion the air
a tree rerooted after fall.
The fall loud and raucous in early morning
when owls chase mice
smashing their skulls
single skulls, single rocks
a blue heron pulls up on a log
blue rocks, a moved quarry
a house worth of blue metal
looks quarry-like as a bank
the shore stabilised
by a inflated yellow balloon
a house worth of blue metal
dumped in the river.

Cyclist.

We move into the cool dark,
the long line
the earth moved
two times a day
shadows marking the edge
of the channel
mulloway stalk prawns
mullet jump, sometimes
ten at once all around the canoe
half a dozen dolphins
in a feeding frenzy
a sudden feeling of excitement,
we move closer.

The dolphins roll, a dog, barking
swims out to eat them.

To play with brushmatressing,
parallel to waves, dolphins
settle, galahs fire up, squawking
sickly dorsal fins, their breathing
almost too often, thrashing
and violence the arch of their back,
Redcliffe bridge in the background.

For Patrick Ford

A quick thought on Landscapes

In John Dixon Hunts’ book Greater Perfections in the chapter ‘Word and Image in the Garden’ he discusses the role of the word and narrative and experience in landscape architecture. In context of narrative, he argues:

“[N]arratives that recount times past do so in the present, which with landscape architecture is intimately linked to the configurations of the site that functions both as setting and presumably as prompt for the narrative to be recounted. Further, the “reader” is thrust into prominence; the narrative of a place relies on the verbal skills of its visitor, who has to infer or “translate” from the given materials, which can never (qua narrative) be as complete as they would be, for instance, on the pages of a novel.”

Thus, the verbal skills of a viewer, reader or visitor in a didactic, narrative designed landscape can never as complete as the reader of a novel. This is because of the “translation” from the abstraction of the inscriptions on the materials of the site, and the site itself. Therefore, for example, a plaque by the ocean may describe the anchorage of a ship in a port two hundred years earlier. The visitor reads the plaque, looks over to the position of anchorage, and is imagines a ship there. The argument put forward by Hunt is that this scenario is not as complete a narrative on the pages of a novel. However, I think there are grounds for a contrary argument. A visitor with verbal skills may have their experienced enhanced by looking out to where the boats set anchor. A purely fictionalised novel has no landscape equivalent to compare the given materials.

Unless of course, Hunt means that a plaque can never be as long or as big as a novel. In which case he is correct. He concludes: “in short, the site qua site may play a greater or lesser role.” When, I think what he means to say is: the abstract site (narrative) within a real landscape may play a greater or lesser role.

Sites within sites, narratives within narratives; the way our minds work and our body moves through a site is immensely complex. There are an infinite amount of impressions, senses, ideas and events that coalesce to complete our understanding of a landscape or site. While historical narratives within sites seek to represent a true interpretation of a sites past, what of the fictional impressions we gain from a site? How does a shift in scale, an imagined people of the past, an animated artefact, the re evaluation of the ugly change the way we read landscapes? Can, or do we reach neutrality by championing the fake and the ugly when best practise seeks to promote the good and feel good?

Ashfield Flats

Im conducting a site analysis of the Ashfield Flats; a wetland near where I grew up. On the 19th of March I walked through the flats with a video camera. You can watch the video here:

And first poem analysis:

Site Visit Ashfield Flats

Part of the river begins here, car carcasses
Filter run-off, houses fenced off
Red tap on top of fire extinguisher.

Buffalo grass covers a culvert
Large concrete block monuments
Pine bollards and a steel gate.

‘No unauthorised vehicles passed this point’
The sign, twenty metres beyond the fence;
Galahs cackle overhead.

As if in distrust of the drain
Houses a but the 100 year flood line
Stink from the drainage block.

A two foot foam toy stealth bomber
Discarded in the buffalo – ‘the F27C
Striker Brushless’ neglected, ignored.

Broken, landlocked like concrete islands
Bark shards and a dying tomato plant
Part of the river begins here.

My body moves expectantly
Barefoot, aware of tiger snakes
A stick wrapped around my ankle.

MWB infrastructure tagged with ‘SK’
As alien as the stand of tapping bamboo
Within phone range, without credit.

Sweet mud smell, the hill you slide down
On tin, the old man keen to shoot to shoo
You away, his property as far as his scope.

To kill the grass they kill the liquid amber
Yellow bamboo pole matresses
The ‘clean fill’ sand will absorb it eventually.

Salt bush tagged pink, ready for pruning
Fifty yards from a fence, ‘our home’
Our ten metre limestone retaining wall.

More graffiti on blocks thick with melaleucas
A safe place to practise, DK in red texta
On paperbarks, more practise.

Rows are rows of planted tulips: a concerted
Effort to pretty the place up, beside long lines
Of blackberry bush, an air conditioner hums.

Water collects here; lentic. Overflowing rubbish
Bins on the driveway, a baby crying
Her life begins here, mosquito coils.

I become impatient, lustful and lacking narrative
I pause on the authorised vehicle track
Parrots squawk, a German Sheppard barks.

Then, evidence of machinery; mown lawn
Drainage swales, designed drains,
Another Main Water Board Block: Stourhead Grotto?

Dead gums, kids playing cricket
Adopting famous players names
Recreating classic moments: the pathetic fallacy?

A netball ring attached to fence
Bark crunching, parrots munching
A train a truck an aeroplane.

A fences, a concrete path
A stream sidled by casuarinas
Hesitate to use the word weed.

A small stand of xanthorrhoeas, cleared
Drain fenced off for important revegetation
Vineless archways.

Dog shit on the side of the path
A few days old
Clear blue sky overhead, hazy at the horizon.

I imagine walking straight the swamp
With a video camera, a document,
Not now – not the right time, never the right time.

Go right, I go left, through the thicket
To much of a sissy I stick to the path
The birds becoming louder.

In imagining the future I left the present
And missed the approach to the foreshore
A flat pyramid of arrow, ground cover.

Velvet pillows jammed in amongst the limestone
Banks – a fisherman’s forgotten seat
Long neck turtles, high tide tomorrow.

A kelpie freaking out over rollerblades
Fallen trees, their rotten roots
Suspended in floating mud. Not a sculpture.

Nor is this paradise, the river, in pieces
Has kept clear, held back proper light
Part of the river begins here.

The DC266 Evenrude outboard dingy
Its fishermen, shiners of the torch
Throw cigarette butts in the water: 18:35pm.

The bridge monument – maximum load limit
Three hundred kilograms
Hugs the bank like Michelangelo’s staircase

The last of the sunlight, duck tracks,
Great Egrets picking at the rushes
Mistook them for a chip wrapper.

Still as salty as the day purchased
At the supermarket:
The Great Egret Supermarket.

I jump off the bridge – heading home
Find a toy walkie talkie, possibly from the stealth bomber:
You used to be able to see the bottom, over.

‘Surprised by the amount of water in here
At this time of year, over.’ No frog noises
So silence. Still, plenty of mossies and guppies, over

‘Copy, over.’ Walk around puddles.
Now it dawns on me —the camps—
We used to see as kids, the piles of rubbish

Buckets, blankets, remnants of small fires
Were aboriginal camps, a midden under my nose.
‘Fucking Hell’ sprayed blue on a she oak, a totem.

Car wrecks half way up the drain
When the water’s high become tip islands
Rusting ruins: they dont make ‘em like they used to.

Clay sediments and oxidise metal mixing:
Follies of the future,
Slowly leaking into the creek.

You can see the wet line on the side
of the drain, the high water water mark
A white horizontal line of phosphate

Part of the river begins here, car carcasses.

Self Portrait in Perth

Solitude is like Bali:
Vacant and full of Aussie tourists.
I snuggle up to SBS
Daytime is a corner in soccer.

My coffee is enough to entice you.

Here at the rally
The dust lets me forget
About my holiday in Hyden.
Playing golf on the red sand
And sheep dogs…

A kangaroo zooming
Above the Spinifex,
A 20 000 watt globe
Behind it.

Listening to the Dirty Three
Or Shellac
Gravity wrapped around me.

I apologise for the full moon, Holden’s
Just beneath my skin
I am, my summer solstice
Streaking across the sky like an F-111
The joy of a laser guided slideshow
And a simulation of any situation you want.

Which one do you like best?
Im still tweaking it, making it heavier, new software.

From the bus, the Swan enters
Me like glass, limestone lapping as a dog runs
The coincidental beauty
Of bumping into a friend
who has to go. Your tear drop
in my hand and the hills ablaze
with sickness that could be love
or a new haircut
when you put on your favourite C.D.
and pick up that tamborine
it’s lonely drinking Solo.

Poem written with Shane Starling

Its fun to drive in a beetle
and see on the footpath
one kid punch another.
But its grand to barf that
V-Dub through any prepuce freeway tunnel.
there by the subterranean palominos needle hopping the strained motor putsch right there by the compression of hard plastics and aluminum crying
like a corked arm
searing within your accelerator
so compact the boots
leather is skin
killed
inside a pastel dream
and oranges are lost
until the multidirectional charge of
their juices slide
down tangerine tunnels
clasping bassoons’
fragrant tomorrow
we, of the hideous arsed
tribe, poised with moss
and vicissitudes
uncomplete (sic)
sick by the road
taverns
dumbed by trees we cannot name
burning XB’s amphetamine
fingering the Gods
lucid orifices after
decoding the oracle
that was the barmaid
serving liquid
gone impotent and sour
which amounted to me staring at her tits for half an hour as i consumed the tipple and felt increasingly impotent
until another beetle screamed passed
and i corked you in the other arm
there would always be violence
in this world i thought
rubbing a tricep
relieved in a way to been acted
upon
(we of the hideous arses)
profound movements
castrating the sting
as a
beetle divine now
lost the road chess
moving
through the autobahn
going as fast as possible
sunglasses and soft pack
on the dash of
the panzer he’s seconded
from barracks
which was almost exclusively
recognized as a shithole
even the earthworms who slid there
thought as much
the value, a real estate agent
said would rise if civilization was applied.
the cows appealed
the crocodiles left weeping

Fiona Stanley Hospital

Here are a few images from the Fiona Stanley Hospital Design: a ramp supported by norfolk island pines with a grass tree garden on top.

Unfortunately, you’ll have to click on the thumbnail first, then the image second to see the largest format, until I work it out.

roof garden

Thanks to Kukame.

Fighting

he’s a child.
he’s tossing his boxing gloves
off of the causeway
into the river,
laces tied
together.

the water soaks
the foam
and cracks the leather
the gloves
slink down
from light
stirring
the river bed.

there’s no thump
or punch.

Toward an Understanding of Attraction

Toward an understanding of attraction: I am astounded as to the origin of the force that overwhelms my being in the presence of beauty; in particular, beautiful women. For example, at a recent social gathering I spent part of evening seated next to a woman of remarkable beauty during which time an emotion in me was evoked. In that instant she was perfect and divine. It was as if normally intangible metaphysical dilemmas had altered so significantly that all pointless and purposeless wanderings had been irrevocably redirected by, and toward this woman’s disposition. Questions regarding the nature of reality and existence were rendered completely futile and impotent in her presence. In her, and beaming out of her, it seemed, lay all the conceivable answers. I imagined that if I shared the rest of my days with her they would be happy and trouble-free. Yet, nothing that she said or acted was any more extraordinary that anybody else at the gathering. I knew this, but despite that, by virtue of her attractiveness to me, I watched her movements and listened to her words with deep interest. In an attempt to conceal my infatuation I consciously addressed my remarks to anyone but this beautiful woman.

more here

Burning Brides Interview 26/9/2003

Melanie representing Burning Brides
James representing Pelican Newspaper.

Introduction: Burning Brides are a band from Philadelphia who have recently attracted a lot of attention after tours with Queens of the Stone Age and Audioslave.
Speaking to Melanie from the Burning Brides was really fun. She is the bass player in band, but she is also down to earth, warm, funny and enthusiastic.

J: I’m speaking to you from Perth.
M: Oh excellent! Where is Perth?
J: Perth is the most isolated city in the world on the west coast of Australia.
M: Cool.
J: Did you ever imagine that you’d be talking to someone in Perth about your music?
M: No, especially not about my band, no. How fucking cool is that?
J: Pretty fuckin cool. Burning Brides are pretty unknown here, tell us about yourselves.
M: We’re pretty unknown throughout the world, so don’t feel bad. We’re a band from Philadelphia. We’ve been together for about three years. We put out our first record a couple of years ago, printed it up, put it in the back of our van, toured for a couple of years, signed to V2, who re-released it around the world, now here we are coming to Australia in November. more here