Cosmic Anxiety — Devonport Milk Bar Tasmania

I was happy outside
The Devonport Milk and Soda Bar
since the time-warp parking meter took only five cent coins
and requested no one or two cent pieces.

But the pressed metal ceiling
gave me a feeling that the whole street façade
was bolted on by Mandrake's hypnotic gesture
and might come undone before I finished sucking on my straw.

With my skim vanilla
I consider: No rooms behind the walls
no back streets at all
all trompe l'ouil.

Perhaps it is a movie lot
good from one camera angle only.
I start to think about the black silence
at the back of an icon
and how in fact every thing comes apart at the seams

Jetties

There are jetties in the heart
where hardwood timbers
outlast all attrition
salt borers and fickle memory
a spine
resistant to all time.