“The smell of hospitals in winter and the feeling that it’s all a lot of oysters but no pearls.”
6 stops on a tram from Richmond
I indulge in Vodka and tears
As day falls away into the street lamp orange sunset
The silvered fish stand tall on hidden tails.
See, the Melbourne eye is blinded
Cataracts are being removed one by one
The shock of winter has fallen away to surprise at warm days and freezing nights that betray the fact this city is masquerading as a coastal one.
Yet another implied assumption that is buried in the dust of reality.
It is a desert here, although it shouldn’t be.
Moving through structures made of sand,
Life stalls on ribbons of road cutting off communities
There, under freeways and train lines and roads filled with endless golden arches, they can hide away, boom gates ensuring we are all stopped from crossing over.
The famed laneways offer up a mixed bag
Fearless rats scuttling about and snakes hibernating in bins
Or in bars, sardonic, hobo-chic cocktails, glass held in paper bags, where it’s all suddenly chic and unaffordable.
On the Upfield line, beer in paper bags is plentiful and on Little Bourke Street a cocktail in a paper bag will cost a cool lobster.