CLINT GREAGEN
Clint Greagen was born in Geelong in 1973 but has spent most of his life in Mortlake and Warrnambool. He completed an Arts degree while working as a youth support worker from 1995 to 2001. He is a regular on the poetry circuit in Melbourne, has been convenor of several readings. He is currently co-editing the poetry journal Salt-lick.
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MY BACKYARD 4 – EVERYTHING THAT ARISES
When it rains
my ducks stick their beaks in the mud and search for things –
slugs and bugs I guess.
They have white feathers.
Their whole bodies, apart from the orange bits, are white.
Despite this, they spend hours slurping around out there.
It seems a little strange
but they stick together.
You should see them – I could watch them forever.
There is no point to this.
They are ducks.
They stick together.
Their white and orange bits are covered in mud
and, it seems, they are happy.
It’s very challenging,
you have to watch and watch
but if you keep watching
things you once thought of as important, will pass
and days of seeing nothing
but white feathers and black mud
will tell you something, at last.
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MY BACKYARD 6 – PERSPECTIVE II
Outside, the ducks still run away from me,
fighting for the tightest position on the fence.
They are quacking quickly and sound
like a boiling kettle. When I take a step forward,
their quacking grows louder.
As if it helps, they bend then stretch their necks.
The rain that first made me wet
has now made me wetter. It’s okay,
I’m used to it. And I’ll stay here
until the ducks quack less.
Until they peck at things and shake their tails.
Until they move from the fence
and jump in the water.
Inside, the house smells damp
suddenly. And I’m thinking about the ducks –
their fear, their love of water,
their thoughtless, pure actions.
The channel is turned to Jerry Springer,
the sound is down
the guests are running madly
back and forth, towards and away from each other.
In my ears are the ducks –
their sounds coming back
and Jerry makes sense to me
suddenly. The way he ridicules us all,
the way he ridicules it all
to us.
I hope we haven’t sprung a leak
but my nose will ignore the damp smell
eventually. I’ll grow used to it.
In a sense, it will go away –
the world is dull outside my window,
inside, the world is wonderfully grey.
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MY BACKYARD 12 – CO-ORDINATES
My ducks are uncoordinated,
more suited to swimming than they are to walking.
Their legs are at the back of them.
Their necks carry their heads too far from their bodies.
They are, it seems to me, in a perpetual state of falling forward.
When I am bored,
I walk behind them with an inhuman intent.
They waddle away from me.
They waddle slowly at first
but the faster I stalk them
the faster they waddle.
I’ve worked out, over a few months, that if I raise me knees with each step
the ducks will see this as an increase in pace
and they will waddle faster than their natural structure allows.
There is something I find rewarding
about increasing the pace of an animal’s gait –
my ducks are armless,
they struggle with balance,
I hate to see them suffer
but when they reach their ultimate speed –
when they fall over and quack
I like it.
I like it –
that I can cause that to happen is affirming.
Most things are beyond me,
there are things I have no control over
but when the ducks reach their maximum speed,
when they fall over and quack as if their lives were over
I like it.
I like it.
I do.