Two Poems

funk n wagnalls, collect the set

our neighbours are both mathematicians
they have two girls at school
the younger girl is about 10
walks around churning a rubiks cube
can solve it pretty quick
her dad is proud but says
shes just using a brute force algorithm
soon shell be ready for more sophisticated algorithms
itll be much faster
damn I think
maybe all i have is brute force
i remember hitting that wall in maths
maybe later than most
but hitting it hard still
and in all these other fields of life too
at least i read a lot as a kid
no so much a canon
but anything with words on it
newspapers
car magazines
womans day
atlases, yellow pages, white pages
books on the deep sea
books on dinosaurs
stats on the back of basketball cards
my parents didn’t read books
but they bought them for me
it was the first half of the 90s
i was in primary school
was told by my family that the most important
tools were maths skills
general knowledge
and noticing things
in other words
problem solving
photo memory
and curiosity
this is a migrants world
wed go over to my grandparents house
and id check my babannes lotto ticket
wed play cards
my dede would write me up
arithmetic problems
and id ask him questions about the world
like, whats the history of pakistan?
hed have an answer
the world was enormous, i realised
and my world was small
hed stay up everynight
reading the turkish encyclopedias
hed brought over when they migrated
my mum was onto it
and started buying me encyclopedias
too from the no frills supermarket at westfield,
airport west
when you spent a certain amount
they were 2 bucks each
we collected the set
and id read them
like my dede did
dipping in anywhere
just to absorb it
but who knows where it went
what this training allowed
my mums mum, my anneanne
got her own set
tho she cant read english
i see them still, thirty years on
high up on her living room shelf
1 111111111111111111111
every single one is A–American Elk
and American Elk says
–SEE, WAPITI


family holiday

sophie says the way to defeat seasickness
is to look at the horizon
at the urinal im swaying and theres no horizon
only woodgrain wallpaper
i find a speck on it, what is it
how long has it been there and where from
we are on the spirit of tasmania
ezgi is 7 months old
and specks, especially on the floor
mean everything to her
at the cafe one worker says to another
you gotta keep your dignity
never change for anyone
i agree
its not an easy job spiriting tasmania
i wonder if theyre unionised
the boat sways
the boat stinks
on the deck i look down
foam, froth, seeking a speck
i feel the urge to throw a lifebuoy overboard
and watch it disappear
we are on our way to o-bar, eventually
thats how the french onboard say it
dilan and i go to the cafe
for coffee and the worker yells
number 108!
and no one turns up
and they yell it again
and still no one comes
and they yell it again, but even louder
and someone finally comes
this is not what i want my kid to learn
after my long black and her babychino
dilan makes a friend
on the playground
he is a joy
he wants to explore
he wants to pee
he wants to laugh loud
he wants to suck on his toe
his mum is seeing everything as a problem
the only positive reinforcement is when he obeys
then he gets a clap, GOOD JOB!
i learn later shes a casual teacher
sophie and i agree that we are judging her
but not for judgments sake! i say
its for the liberation of children under the yoke
of parents as bosses and managers
not as comrades and guides
over the p.a it is announced that
poetry will be recited
in the cinema at 230
a soprano will be singing at 300
and a juggler is roaming the ship at all times
it is also announced that the cafe has a pizza oven
margarita hawaiian proscuitto vegetarian
we wander over again
they use a metal spade to slide them in
and play it like a banjo for laughs
we get margarita
cheese so sticky and overwhelming
takes me right back to
tullamarine primary 90-95
pizza 1.50 from the canteen on fridays only
today is friday too, 2023 and the pizza costs 12
not bad i concede
given costa living
i relax
something withers away inside me, like the state
some tasmanian folk give us tips
dont go here, go there
apparently there r roadworks on highway 1
theyre from bagdad, tasmania
the explorer had been reading
arabian nights
i am reading a literary magazine
on the lift down to our car
an older couple looks too intently at ezgi
her lip trembles
she cries