Royal Hotel | Poetry by James Lucas | HEAT (2001)
Giramondo

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Royal Hotel

A ute erupts from gravel skid,
no match for the drunken
matador who slaps the bonnet
off his hip. The bar
is shut. In my room a
straightback seat forced up
against a sawn-off downpipe,
the sealed-off ends of water
fawcets showing where
the hardware clerk ID-ed
the fittings with an inhouse
scrawl that says ‘60’ or ‘GO’.

James Lucas

James Lucas’ poetry appears in HEAT Series 2.

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What I am about to tell you is the truth. I witnessed it with my own eyes; and I am a reliable person. I have often been complimented on my reliability. I have won awards. I would not have obtained my present job – as the senior public relations officer for a respectable company that makes chemicals and plastics – if I did not appear to be trustworthy and believable.
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Elizabeth Bay Road

HEAT 2. Fitzroy to Freo
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Fruit machines accept all cards for very punter / there’s an addict doorframed, they punctuate the street / as in a Florence gallery when restorers airbrush out / aureole and child to foreground areolae puckered / for remedial teething, too pure or too stoned / for lewdness
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