Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Its swivels back and forth like a clowns head at a sideshow stall, a steady sweep like a flight of pelicans to the left then a yacht sailing to the right. Despite its best efforts it isn’t helping much. The humidity is heavy as a road construction roller, grinding me down. No sheets, legs hanging out at odd angles, yep, it’s one of those nights where the heat is trapped in the house and the outside temp has hardly dropped at all.

What we need is one of those bi-polar Melbourne cold fronts to arrive.  I just think I’ll whip one up from somewhere down near the South Pole and let it drift like a lazy cloud, an icy pole for my body.  My tongue is hanging out to lick it, this idealised Southern change, not those hot dry scratchy  winds from the red center kicked in on a swirl of dust and top soil, no, the cool Southern winds that have picked up moisture along the way on their journey. 

If it arrives there’s  going to be a Titanic clash in the sky with the warm air meeting the cold , they’ll bristle up against each other like deer fighting for mates that you see in  ‘in the wild’ documentaries , they’ll clash and the the sky will growl and one of them will go whimpering off into the distance still shaking its fist in forks of lightning  and mumblings of low rolling thunder. There’ll be rain- not too tropical, but a quick volley of tears- maybe even hail! It’ll play ping pong on the metal roof in hollow heaviness and then be gone. The house will still smell of the heat, the trapped humidity that has seeped into walls and door frames escaping, the house sighing after carrying the weight so long, and we, who give thanks for the temporary salvation of the fan – will get on again and forget the pain until next time.

So now I lie in hope of that change- not that the weatherman has said it’s coming, but I can feel it in my bones, or maybe that’s just a flower of hope trying to outweigh the groan in my soul. Maybe Air conditioning would be a better option……. 

Princes bridge near Flinders street station, he’s got a spot half way along where a neat alcove is built into the 1800’s stone work. You hear it from the distance a strangled drone, a Buddhist hum and then dancing spiders of notes playing over the top of it  emerging from the upturned legs of the dead animal. It groans and moans into the urban air competing with the stop start motion of  vehicles on the bridge. Competing with the leaden pollution pumping out from each single occupant car.

In the alcove he chomps down on the bit like its a tobacco pipe, a thin round cancer in his mouth, the circular breathing brings the dead animal to life until it’s chest is puffed up in its best ‘in the wild ‘ documentary style – saying “I’m the king of this land – you wanna mess with me”? The notes shoot out like poison darts to most passers by, but some reach into a pocket for piece of silver or gold and offer them on the altar of self sacrifice. He ’s in full regalia, a kilt and long white socks of a dragoon, a black beret, all part of the show. In some ways the haunting drone is reminiscent of his steady life, with occasional dot points of melody across the top but pretty much this is it. 

Not so much a piggy bank as a complex architectural conundrum, a frosted blue facia gives an insight into the insides of a square with mulltiple levels and walk-ways  and slots, the money will roll down the lanes and then free fall into the appropriate hole. The coins that leave smell of multiple transactions on your hands a fatigued metal smell, a ‘been in someobody’s pocket on a hot sweaty day’ smell, yeah, You know it. When the Frill knecked lizard and the possum drop down into their chutes they clack along the lanes and then drop with metallic chink onto their pile, home again. For days I would contemplate the growing pile of silver and copper, tempted, shoved in fact to insert the keys in the top and take it all out and spend it. Where does that impulse, that thought come from? The discipline of ’saving being tested sorely. Instead I rattle the box and flip the coins seeing if I can make one come out the way it went in – way to complex.

Of course yeah I did have the standard ones, it had a rubber grommit in its guts, easy to take out the dough and splash it on a set of model soldiers, or something for the train set – oh for discipline!. Its face looked pretty happy, it’s glossy body glazed into a sheen of pink luminosity, with a ribbon around its neck. when I was disciplined I’d go to the bank, it seems a small arm would have reached up over the counter and handed the clerk a well worn bank book, a passport for my money, figures entered in handwritten beauty- going home sitting on the bed looking at those figures growing for my trip to Europe, to buy the ‘big’ guitar. Contemplation of what I can put into the slot machine near the bed, what odd jobs can be done to earn a few more shiny bits of round metal to roll and clink.

Scrawny things, feathers lumpy and matted like they haven’t washed their hair for weeks. Thin too, like emaciated refugees, but they sure know how to gather. Just sit on a bench with a sandwhich or a pie or a roll,  as I do sometimes down near the housing commission flats. Elongated rectangles of architectural triumph. There’s a patch of green recessed into the earth about ten feet , a gently sloping edge leads to an oval and ringed with trees – Now why did they do that? It could be a haven, as it is for these pigeons I guess. As I chomp on the chicken and salad roll, the voice from the serving girl at N-Tran  jumps into my head in broken English – “Sol, payper, maynays’. This seems to be the catch cry of the others too as they maniacally fill elongated submarines of bread with condiments – roughly translated it means SALT , Pepper, Mayonaise. “Sol, payper, maynays’.

The pigeons are benefiting from flaky crumbs that are shattering from the outside of my French stick, with the inner dough a bit of a magicians trick- there’s the appearance of solidity but in reality, it’s lighter than a flick of dust. Beetroot and boiled egg shout at the peace within my mouth, flavours are having a carnival, a piece of thin sliced chicken saunters past the taste sensors before taking the high board leap down my throat. It’s Mardi Gras, Carnivale’ all rolled into one, and those pigeons keep looking on, those tiny eyes begging, pleading for another morsel , dutifully thrown. A bar room brawl unfolds on the worn dirt beneath my feet before the ‘heavies’ move in; a couple of waddling crows and a lone gull. The pigeons know the Mafia is in town and  choose their moments more carefully. I know the crows won’t mount the bench so leave a tidbit there. A flutter of wing and the bold  are victorious, but the perfect white gull is among them – I shoo it away with a sweep of hand. I aim at a particularly feeble looking pigeon in the crowd and shoot it a sliver of wet expired cucumber  It lands nearby but the others are on it in a rugby scrum tackle……