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Elegy


in memoriam Martin Johnston, 1947-90





Listen to the Poet Read

 Not the smoke from the truck driver's cigarette

wreathed with gold by the early morning sun,

a delicate arabesque of light and shade -

      he's unloading flagons of moselle,

      hock, white burgundy and claret

      in the driveway of the Toxteth Hotel -
     
     
Not the scent of meat hissing on the grill

at the Balkan - the tables are filling up -

early one evening somewhere in the seventies

as the shops along Oxford Street come alight,

buses winding through the traffic, and

      Nicholas puts up the Mickey Mouse poster

      in the window of Exiles Bookshop

      advertising a poetry reading -
     
     
Not the sound of his wife's voice - "Oh,

put out your bloody cigarette

and stop snoring!" - as she

      tucks the blanket in - late winter,

      the cat curled at the foot of the bed -
     
     
Not a tricky ploy with a bishop in the final moves

of a game that seems to have fallen into a pattern

remarkably similar to Botvinnik's closing tactics

in the 1949 Moscow Chess Olympiad - don't you

      think? - the party still going at 4 a.m.,

      an old Miles Davis record on the gramophone,

      the ashtray spilling over - your move -
     
     
Not the pop! as the cork

comes out of a bottle of cold retsina -

      Malamatina brand, the green and yellow label

      picturing a little man drinking

      from a tilted glass, the rays of sunlight

      blazing down from a Mediterranean sky -
     
     
None of these things can now delight

Martin Johnston, his journey at last

written out in full, Sydney to Sydney, via

      Greece, love, alcohol

      and the art of poetry.
     
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