Glass bottled milk and Hotel Bone

Yesterday I bought Trappist Dairy milk, from New Zealand, in small 225ml bottles. Glass bottles. It's wonderful how small things can send you back The smell of clove cigarettes immediately places me in Ubud, Bali, 1979. Fresh milk in bottles puts me back to the time when we had milkmen place two bottles of milk [pints I think they were] on your front door every morning. The cream settled on the top and was sweet to have on your porridge, with brown sugar.

I wear old suede Keens shoes. They been with me through Agen, Montpellier, Hanoi, Puymirol, Sete, Hong Kong, Amalfi, Austinmer, Hue, Nowra, Paris, Mong Kok, Fan Ling, Bordeaux, Kowloon Tong, Bowral, Castelnau-de-Medoc, Hoi An, the Montmarte, Tsim Sha Tsui, Carcasonne, and Coledale.

The soles have worn through now. The spring has gone. But they did take me to Jordan where I spent a beautiful few hours at the table with roast suckling pig, salted fried fish, gai lan with garlic, a mussel soup, some honey roasted pork, or char sui, and crab, poor spikey thing.

Talking with some new friends about Hong Kong life, communism, the movies, food, wine, and generally laughing at life's simple turns.

I also learnt that it's good to enjoy those things that you are not comfortable with, where you have to stretch yourself or take a plunge, even when the only thing you might have on is a band aid. Life in Hong Kong can be like that.

I'd like to introduce you to Samuel Wagan Watson, a strong poet from Brisbane. This is Hotel Bone from 2001. Search out his works, buy a copy, sit and read. They are a great hit on life in the hard times of Australia.

the street resembles a neck
from a wayward guitar
with Hotel Bone sitting idle on a vein,
wedged between two frets
where the bad tunes can reach her

these white stucco walls, I imagine, once carried a vision of pearl
now a gourd for asylum seekers
Iraqi, Indonesian, Sri Lankan
and one crazy Aboriginal... who lives with a typewriter
but not with the brevity of a visa on my head; no,
my longevity was guaranteed before I was born
in the 1967 referendum
the freedom to practice the voodoo of semantics
within the marrow of Hotel Bone

existence only 2 minutes walk
from some of the best latte lounges in the city
yet, white faces don’t come down here
until they’ve been classified, unfit for duty
no longer permitted upon the chorus line
of the cappuccino song
where multi-culturalism is in an airline format
first-class, business and economy seating

but those of us who submit to the chance of mystery-flights
end-up on the tar, of Hotel Bone

a haven from Saddam, Suharto, the Tamil Tigers
and One Nation
this Hotel Bone;
it is hard

it is reachable

it is home

I am not home yet. My Keens are still taking me to some different and strange places. I need more words.