Span: Journal of the South Pacific Assoc for Cwlth Lit and Language Studies
Number 32, 1992
Postcolonialism
Edited by Jenny de Reuck & Hugh Webb

Mark Truslove

SPEAKING TO YOU

Yes, I often speak to you

when you're not with me
in the hope that I hear
a whisper of your dress
and feel you
cover my eyes
when you sneak up from behind
and shyly say
"Guess who"
and I tremble from the beauty
of your mouse-sized hands

No I cannot speak to you.

CONTEMPLATING GREENOUGH TIME

Here is
an asylum atmosphere
complete with
shrieks & moans
and where my friend John
dreams of being
a tortured Czech poet 'cause
he reckons
suffering must have a reason

Musn't it?

Here is
a place where
Sundays midnight wheat trains
rumble past, beyond the hills
taking me nowhere
nor any of the
Largactil and Melerol dreamers
in this joint

The authorities tell visitors
that we are all
alive & happy
alive & happy
alive & happy

It's Sunday
(ten past twelve)
& the trains aint ran
near on
ten years
near on
ten years
since we both were twenty
& learned to bleed

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