S e c r e t P l a c e s
S e c r e t P l a c e s
Hazel Smith (h.smith@unsw.edu.au) works in the areas of poetry, experimental writing, performance, multi-media work and hypertext, and her web page can be found at http://www.australysis.com. Her latest volume is Keys Round Her Tongue: short prose, poems and performance texts (Soma Publications, 2000). She has produced two CDs, Poet Without Language with austraLYSIS, and Nuraghic Echoes (in collaboration with Roger Dean). She is also co-author of a number of multi-media and hypermedia works, including Intertwingling on the How2 site. Hazel is a Senior Lecturer in the School of English at the University of New South Wales. She is co-author with Roger Dean of Improvisation, Hypermedia And The Arts Since 1945 (Harwood Academic, 1997). Her book, Hyperscapes in the Poetry of Frank O’Hara: difference, homosexuality, topography, was published by Liverpool University Press in late 2000.
S e c r e t P l a c e s
This is the story of Casuarina, but it is a story with several speakers.
This s my voice, not Casuarinas.
This is a story of separation, bt also a tale of threading lost needles.
Breaking to be, bleeding as healer.
hs is a story of forests and flight-paths, songlines and
shellfire, cos-pollination of time-warps and mind trails.
This is a story which spas for itself through mummified skins,
secrets as peeling.
Cathy, wha s the thought you were dreaming?
A man eving a room with a blood red door
When Casuaia was a child she grew the most
beautiful wings.Tey were white with purple spots.
Adthe spots were ringed round with gold. But her
father ctthem off, so she could never fly. But later
shedcided she could move just as well on foot. So
she et on her travels where she met a man who
promised he ternal life. Casuarina was fairly dis-
cerning so sesaid, if you give me eternal life what
do you want i eturn? And the man said, I will
extract my prie but you must agree in advance
without knowingte terms. You have everything to
gain and nothingt lose. Look at what I am offering
you. This chance il never come again.
Casuarina did not eitate. She said, I certainly will
not agree to that. ever pay for anything up-front.
Cass loves the simple things in life, coffeand cakes, skimming the
newspaper without taking anything in. This morning she reads about
the Siberian ice-maiden, undisturbed for 2,500 years, they think
she may have been a shaman. The dead in Sarajevo and the slaying
in Rwanda. The Hindmarsh affair. Shes pleased they are legalising
euthanasia. She likes TV and trash too, theres a woman on Donahue
who thinks shes reincarnated. She walks in the woods and finds a
shady spot to lie down. Its great to be alive! Most of all she loves
secrets. To be able to think anything and nobody will ever know. All
those forbidden thoughts, those veiled acts, those hidden faces.
Yet things trouble her, they knock
but she never quite knows who they
are. Rooms sealed with red wax. Casuarinas broadminddand reads both
Planes dropping bombs. Wounds
like tattooes. She thinks of the ice- Freud and Jung without feeligthere is any
maiden in her wooden coffin
roused from eternal sleep. Faces competition between the two. She lie to
come back to her, like the links from
a spreadout, recalcitrant sequence. imagine herself lying in a grovewth all her
clothes off. Faces appear from abv and stare
down at her but she doesnt min.She likes the
way they look at her, she likeste way they
stare at it.
<>nbsp;
Casuarina whats needling you?
I just realised when Im enjoyin yself,
its always at someone elses expens.
the silent slit from which voices erupt
&bsp; the threading of a needle with nerves
a word-web spun from the wildest text
a book which stirs out of crinkled kns
a story made by a woman from stone
the hollow cry of the hidden costs
a journey towards a land beyond loss
a place which is every and no place you ko
a wish that is never the want that you will
a meaning that moves as memory unpicks
Cass, which wastes do your thoughts inscribe?
which songs does your silence kill?
which secret sites are buried in blood?
W e h a v e t r a v e l l e d a l o n g w ayn but the
worst
is yet
to come
We stood in line at the de of the pit. They started to shoot. My daughter kept saying
mummy they are shooig people, lets run away. They shot my mother and father n
front of my eyes. My sister was a beautiful woman, with dark eyes and hi. She
begged to be saved. She met the guards gaze and said let me live. But he took
no heed. My daughter kept imploring me letsrun away. She was five years
old. He told me to give her up, but she would not go. A shot was fired, I
did not see, I could not look. Then he fired at me. I fell into the pit.
I knew nothing.
When I awoke I thought that this was the land of the dead. Then
I knew I was still in the world and maybe I had a chance to
live. The pit was corpse-full. There were limbs on top
of me, over my face. There were other bodies help-
ing me push. But I had not the strength and if I
had risen I would have been shot again. It
was still light. I waited till night, I waited
for hours, I could not breathe. Then
when it was dark, I climbed
out, crawled away. Now
I know the guilt that
survives.
These are the stories of Casuarina, but these fables leap
from several seedlings. These are my words, not Casuarinas.
This is a story of places and people but also the intertwining o pindles.
Blinding to see, wounding as weaving.
This is a story of pine-groves and pistols, bright sun and dark shd, links between
lines and rites beyond living.
This is a story which pleads for itself through dread and delight, secrets which listen.
Cathy, whose is the death you are grieving?
NZ flax, twigs, Linen thread
