Clouds Afternoon Jazz Sprinkles
By David Prater
Published 1 January 2021
For Jill Jones
(1) Clouds
Abercrombie Street, Chippendale
Reading your electrical poems in a Northcote bar
in winter was just too much: like trying to drink
beer sailing freely through the air: free of the glass,
sure, but harder than buckshot to catch between
your teeth. I longed for some o’ that Sydney where
July was windy and wet but not cold. I wanted to
perch in thatlaundromat on Abercrombie Street
just down from the Reasonably Good Café, chew
on anIncredibly All Right Ham Sandwich™, read
William Faulkner’s Light in August (i-in August!
& simply wait for September’s frangipani blooms
to disappear down the Chippendale lanes like odd
socks above Central Station or perhaps (sure, in
desperation, to close my eyes & also disappear.
(2) Afternoon
Fouveaux Street, Surry Hills
I could pretend to live somewhere else, I guess
but all I can think about is how darned clichéd
Sydney must have been in the 1920s,the futurism
of Bondi travel posters aside (oh undergrad hat tip!
I’dalready been there, once, maybe. With a girl.
I just wish I could turnto poetry the dismally banal
warehouse districts (c. bottom end ofFouveaux St.
& surrounds, CTRL+ALT+DEL everywhipped
palm tree by the Elizabeth St. entrance to Central,
blow up the blackboard menus outside the faux
‘cafes’ ‘adorning’ streets where journos used to
drink away the afternoon, like the one where we
caught up, once, in a previous carnation. Yeah,
everything was chic & Quadrant didn’t even exist.
(3) Jazz
Atlantic Café, Elizabeth Street
A little bird inside my cranium orders me to write
a poem on the subject of the old Atlantic Cafe but
I can’t do it. Who would care? All they ever seemed
to serve was steak and peas, & I never ventured
inside there anyway. Too busy moping, probably.
Why? They removed thesoul of Strawberry Hills
just to make housesfrom its yellow clay years ago
& the pub thatshares its name has since stopped
playing bad jazz. Oh yes, blows away the melody
it does, just like a windchime. Cue ragged Tibetan
prayer flags. The paper carries yet another article
about th’ Australianpoetry, written for the over
68s. Cue Transvision Vamp, baby. ‘I don’t care’.
(4) Sprinkles
Grace Bros, Broadway
I’mreminded of sprinkles, the way they insinuate
loss, orthemselves. That’s insider culture! & how
we insulateourselves from change (unless it’s the
climate at stake—in which case Sydney blows bum
notes all along ‘Broadway’. What’s left? Do I light
another CravenA? Crack a silver bullet? Or maybe
chomp down on the deadly sausages Bert Newton
ate inFatty Finn? Gawd, I miss Noni Hazelhurst!
Pardon me while I dream of the days when trams
lit up Sydney’d skies with meteor showers (or were
they sparks? Think I might take another space walk,
this time in the direction of Central Station, pop in to
Our Lady of Snows. Free meals, clouds. Afternoons.
Jazz. Wherever you look, cakes & lots of sprinkles.