Curling Waves Flying Insects

 

Time that is moved by little fidget wheels
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow.
Between the double and the single bell
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells
From the dark warship riding there below,
I have lived many lives, and this one life
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells.

Deep and dissolving verticals of light
Ferry the falls of moonshine down. Five bells
Coldly rung out in a machine's voice. Night and water
Pour to one rip of darkness, the Harbour floats
In the air, the Cross hangs upside-down in water.

Why do I think of you, dead man, why thieve
These profitless lodgings from the flukes of thought
Anchored in Time? You have gone from earth,
Gone even from the meaning of a name;
Yet something's there, yet something forms its lips
And hits and cries against the ports of space,
Beating their sides to make its fury heard.

Are you shouting at me, dead man, squeezing your face
In agonies of speech on speechless panes?
Cry louder, beat the windows, bawl your name!

Kenneth Slessor, Five Bells
Perhaps the most famous poems set on Sydney Harbour.

A police helicopter flying low over the Interncontinental Hotel was all I saw of APEC yesterday; passing on the crowded expressway to the Hunter. That; the traffic jams and the blizzard of news on the radio. Bush has arrived with three airplanes full of 700 staff and supporters; imperial in its size and cost. He had dinner with our Prime Minsiter John Howard last night. There are a thousand momenets when we could be lauded for our efforts; watching the traffic flow; the rooms of his own home looking new; as if he was seeing them for the first time; as if someone had been here while he was out; planting bugs, monitoring him as always, his paranoia deepening with each passing day.

But head down and go through the motions; nothing would change. The crazy ineptness of his own laughter would come back to haunt him. Coming fast on one another; the time was his unless he handed it over. His conscience would be there grating. There was so much that could be done. His death in Calcutta, with a chronic heroin habit, didn't have to happen. The stomach thudding slump into which he had fallen didn't have to be his life.

I haven't seen the wall yet; or the fence as some put it. Steel and concrete. Patrolled. The leader of Russia, China and America will all be here; the greatest number of world leaders ever to be in Sydney at one time. Wounded with the reconstrcution; the fence, the traffic corridors, the thousands of police, the short sharp competition for our attention was over. The city seethed. Through the Supreme Court the police have managed to block the proposed march of the Stop Bush Coalition on Saturday; but a number of other, police approved, protests have gone ahead. Waving placards and letting off steam; that's a democratic right. In the insane reaches of our heart; breached by the cold steel of our harsh reality days; the days of ferment and change; when all he could do was act invisible, knuckle down and keep working, only glancing sideways to see if he was watched. These days were upon us.


THE BIGGER STORY:

www.nzherald.co.nz

Traffic jams, road blocks and police checkpoints tested Sydney's patience yesterday as tight security for the first day of President George W. Bush's visit to the Apec summit brought much of the city to a standstill.

Morning commuters were hit by extensive traffic delays as Bush travelled in an 18-vehicle motorcade from his hotel, the InterContinental, to nearby government offices, where he held his first meeting with Prime Minister John Howard.

Hundreds of bus commuters were delayed entering the central business district across the Harbour Bridge, as police road blocks and vehicle checks caused traffic chaos.

The afternoon rush hour was also affected, when the Chinese President, Hu Jintao, and a large entourage were whisked from Sydney Airport to their hotel on roads cleared of traffic.

There will be more delays today when Russian President Vladimir Putin flies in on his first visit to Australia, and Bush travels from his hotel to Darling Harbour for an official Apec event.

At a joint press conference with Howard, Bush apologised for the inconvenience he had caused, blaming it on the threat of violent protests. But that was scant consolation for many Sydneysiders, who have questioned the expense and inconvenience of hosting Apec and the stringent security which has turned the city into Fortress Sydney.