 1On a whim
she took to her wings
she looked through the eye of a fish
at things
"Look you!" she said
"Yonder I wish to journey,
it looks mysterious and,
topsy-turvy"
*to take wing - to fly off suddenly: to depart without warning
* look you! - please observe what I am saying |
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 2Upon the whole, seh was on the case,
she held her ground
and trained her gaze.
She tried in vain
to place a grid
upon the things
she said and did.
* Upon the whole - taking everything into consideration
* To hold her ground - to maintain ones authority or influence |
---|
 3She aimed her pitch and
sang in the ditch, then
talked to the horse with
patted remorse.
"Take to your heels,
see foreign faces;
the lines will fall
in pleasant places".
- to take to one's heels - to run off
- the lines... pleasant places - I am fortunate in my worldly surroundings |
---|
 4Paint stripped back,
from here she knew that,
soon she would unship her oars.
Her breath evaporating,
a scotch mist lay waiting,
along the sheltered shores.
- to unship the oars - to remove the oars from teh rowlocks
- a scotch mist - a drizzling rain |
---|
 5The rubicon she faced
hid the future, frozen
'neath the eaves of the forest
The doors she had chosen.
- to cross or pass the rubicon - to take a decisive step to venture on a great and dangerous undertaking (The Rubicon is a small river separating Republican Italy from Cisalpine Gaul) |
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 6A year or two, no, only two weeks,
The travelling lady
was out of the woods
but still she shrieked
"T'was not a cupboard love
of a curled darling
but a nostalgic flame
for a long lost dove!"
Or so it seemed at the time.
- out of the wood - free from danger
- cupboard love - affection springing from an interested motive
- curled darlings - petted and pampered young men
- flame - a sweetheart |
---|
 7Her prospect bent
through rocky face
between the fallows
pitched by space
and so she cleft
and beat the hoof
at hack and heck:
alone - aloof
- to beat the hoof - to walk
- hack and heck - profusely |
---|
 8She wandered into Lombard Street
a china orange amidst the attic-salt
and bowls of porridge
"Look, it is the shallowest sea I have seen in ages:
Do you feel it as jelly or layers of pages?"
Her query not heard
from the bath-tub she rose
translucent and no longer patient.
- Lombard street to a china orange - something very valuable staked against something of little value
- Attic salt - wit or refined pleasantry |
---|
 9Painting the town red
in a colt's tooth dress,
old stones worn with smiles
and wool-gatherer's vests.
She thinks of the calm river
filling with leaves
and the shoe-polished hillside
brown-scented with teas
well, vineyards, rows of trees:
Will they remember me?
- Painted red - given over to merriment and high jinks
- To have a colt's tooth - to have juvenile tastes
- Wool-gatherer - one in an absent-minded state |
---|
 10At the first blush
all seemed too much
she might never had known
what a sight of things
she did own.
"Carry me to the station"
she cried
pushing her hair to one side
- At first blush - to look hastily for the first time
- A sight of things - a great number of things |
---|
 11She sees with half an eye
she smells with one nostril
she measured noses at the hostel
They saw eye to eye
while the sand ran out
and after a while they started to pout.
- To see with half an eye - to see with great ease
- To measure noses - to meet
- To see eye to eye - to have the same opinions on any subject
- The sand has run out - the appointed term has come to an end |
---|
 12I see her on the horizon
eating bread and sewing interfacing.
Stark evening night baking
sillouettes of industry.
She is thinking:
"A rolling stone gathers no moss,
so I must take time by the forelock!"
leaping upon her chariot
horses one black, one white
she rode off into the sunset.
- To take time by the forelock - to act promptly
- A rolling stone gathers no moss - a person who is always shifting about makes no money |
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You and The View: 12 Eye Exercises
Centennial Park, Sydney 1994
A series of interactive sculptures take the viewer on a walking circuit through many of the park's richly constructed landscapes.
The idioms in the poetry and materiality of each work, evoke the quintessential 'Journey', of being in a new place, of the ups and downs and transformations that make up travel and relationship to various places.