Reversal Process


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Reversal Process

These poems are available in print in John Tranter's Selected Poems, Hale & Iremonger, Sydney, 1982, ISBN 0 86806 029 1.

I think the instructor's pointing

at you, darling, asking 'Who invented

the perfect colour process?' On the moon

space invaders, back home it's speed reading -

moonlight in a Chev convertible at ninety

and the pages flapping, bright pictures,

the fully-saturated colours are a meal

reading 'Lesbians: A Luxury Moonlight Cruise',

'Flashing Blue Lights in the War Room' or

'Sex and Central Heating - Hidden Dangers.'

At Bondi the beach is freezing and the girls

are mandied, depressed and overweight,

fumbling for sex and money in the Fun Arcade.


           2

Lift-off: now the computer tells you the time

like an aphasic baby, its purple numerals

skidding across your eyes. You want to be car-sick

but you're too busy, wow, another heroine,

did all this happen just for you? That

plausible scenery, the light metered perfectly,

those people moving like giraffes, just for you?

The graph paper says it's all external:

'it has existed forever, independent of meaning'

but you know that's bullshit: 'Photo,

ergo sum' and you can feel the girl's

moist little hand, it's meant for you,

isn't it? The huge harbour glittering

with coloured lights, the way the Leica

looks up at you and just asks to be used,

the way the young girl looks up at you

and slips off her wet bikini, blah, blah,

the two-step, the headache, the pain in the neck,

the bike skidding on the tarmac, the hospital

lit up like a vast mausoleum, it's irresistible -

the illustrations stammering at you

reading: Go, lady, get it while you can.


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