An iPhone 5c, pink, filming, in a park, John Ashbery’s poetry collection A Wave, with watchers
Hunter Smith
1
Sun was out in the park where they ate, sitting.
‘Munch any louder.’
‘Trout’s a weapon.’
‘Trout’s a fish, pretty sure, actually.’
‘Aw go on mate, go on, make another one of your little sandwiches—’
‘Like I need permission.’
‘Can all see that.’
‘Aw listen to him.’
Light was clogged by cloud, doddering. Cloud, on occasion, they knew—they knew—did this, made, in its doddering course, light, lone traveller, fickle, occasional.
Their arms under lunch, they’d approached. The bench, beneath sun and buildings, had held them for lunch for the last week: of wood, flecked the paint on the steel legs, the memorial plaque for a man dead, ‘Greatly loved’, steady. While they went they noticed people grouped mildly further off; going, they tipped furtive looks, noted the few that effervesced mildly further off. The people grouped were filming, on an iPhone.
It was pink, a 5C.
A body in folds above, shooting.
Indelibly, to mark light, to turn to light turning, inconstantly turning: to mark the moments of perforated foliage and mottled floors before the leaky swaddling: over it, their arms hugely around it—nothing, then: they cradled general shadow.
‘Stop,’ she said, with her arms moving. ‘I said stop. Ugh. Don’t make me say it. Don’t make me say it. Stop. Ugh. Cut!—stop!’
2
Cloud undignified puffed along in slippers, veiling things that shimmer.
One ran their hand through a plastic bag and, pulling ingredients from the tract, proceeded to make, from white bread, tomato sauce, and devon, a sandwich. Said:
‘The one slice the devon the sauce then the other.’
The other, replying, said:
‘Reckon the running commentary of your sandwich-making is making the world go round.’
‘The one slice the devon the—’
‘Just shut up.’
‘Or what.’
A hand swept into his grasp a lacuna, sending the sandwich towards the pavement, upon which, expectedly, it fell, a dollop loosed.
Birds arrived then, swarmed.
They were parted through the middle, like hair.
‘Hi. Have either of you got a lighter I could borrow?’
‘An aligner? D’you mean like a level, to get the camera straight?’
‘Oh sorry no it’s for my cigarette.’
‘An aligner for a cigarette?’
‘A lighter, mate, she said a lighter. Here.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Oh, a lighter! Of course. Here y’are.’
‘Oh, it’s, uh, it’s okay, I can use this one. Thanks, though.’
‘What are you, mate, bloody empty between the ears? All that bloody devon, mate: it’s turned you into a bloody devon.’
‘Have a listen to this guy.’
She laughed, said:
‘That’s okay. Thanks for that. Uh, here.’
‘N’worries, mate.’
Diaphanous curdles crept upwards towards, eventually, the sky.
She had two arms. They formed in front of her an L, one a tenacious ridge joining the hips, the other at rest, propped by elbow on ridge, with, crookedly pointed upwards, the cigarette, its end ablaze, orange.
Herself fair, her hair was dark, and her clothes were pastel azures.
They remained two-thirds seated. On each face, playing: amusement at novelty; they were silent and still. The floor, a locale frequently enstared, was, for them, still, and stared upon. They stayed, the bench theirs, the grass, beneath her shoes, hers.
‘You—ah—you, involved,’ he emitted, squeezing, ‘with all that over there?’
‘Sorry?’
‘The filming, and that—What are you’, his tone taking on a tall censoriousness, ‘doing? All of you.’
‘Oh, the film, you mean the film—yeah, I’m with them. Yeah. Yeah.’
Through leafed trees, light, light, light.
‘What are you making, then?’
‘Oh, um, it’s—it’s an adaptation, I made.’
‘What d’you adapt, then?’
‘Well, actually, it’s a book of—’
‘Oh, that’s why you haven’t gone back: they’re in the middle of a take, aren’t they—you go back and let in a noise or some smoke and it’s ‘Cut!’ and again from the top. Won’t make you popular, ay.’
‘What, mate?’
‘Cracked it, ay.’
‘Er, we—’
‘‘Cos if she goes back she might fuck it all up.’
‘Let her finish devon boy.’
‘Sorry, sorry.’
‘Well, it’s actually kind of a sinking ship, really—’
‘What is?’
‘You are properly fucked, mate.’
‘Well, the film we’re making. It’s not going anywhere, it’s not moving, it’s about to drown.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Well, I wrote it. It’s an adaptation of a poem, or more—’
‘Oh yeah. What’s the poem’s name?’
‘It’s not a bloody dog, mate. “What’s its name, it’s got cute feet,” y’reckon.’
‘It’s actually a collection. It’s called A Wave.’
‘Who’s that by again?’
‘John Ashbery.’
‘A yea. Dunno him. Actually, might, rings a bit of a bell.’
‘You can’t fuckin’ read, mate.’
‘Can, mate. Can read what it says right there on y’shirt.’
An old trick, and he stared, ashamed, upwards, towards, eventually, the sky. Momentarily, he remained that way. He'd looked down. Tending to the finger pressed to his upper sternum, he craned curiously, letting bulge some surplus of sudden neck, to read ostensible words. He looked down, then up. He was swept up by a finger flouting his gaze's direction, and he bore, like a couch of velvet, the mark.
‘Says “muppet”, hah!!’
‘Cut!’
And laughter pealed from them.
3
It was, then, poetry, that played, lingering over them as did light: wind had toussled the layers of cloud so that through them sun could cleave. Things proceeded, the scene unspooled. Distended words were swapped by the speakers at the listening camera. With it they wanted to watch, their eyelids were egregiously packed, but they abstained; their interest might have muttered across the cast of attention and attained memory, made a mark, presumably.
Moreover, they could watch the grass.
‘Are you two working nearby?’
So steep the silence scaled by the question—like a wave pronouncing its heft on the bank of a puddle—it brought about, initially, additional silence, only. But response eventually came.
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Together?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Nice.’
Together:
‘Yeah.’
They looked at the grass.
‘Movie’s moving along by the looks of things.’
‘Movie’s moving, y’reckon?’
‘Move in front of a bus, I reckon.’
‘Oh. D’you reckon?’
‘Fuck off, mate.’
They looked at the grass.
‘Yeah, I suppose so. Yeah. It’s just. It’s just that it’s a sinking ship, really. Honestly, I kind of just want to run away. I don’t really think I want to be a part of it anymore.’
‘What d’you say old mate’s name was again?’
‘… What do you think it was?’
‘O.’ He pulled certain air through his teeth, ‘tschhhh. Forgot. No—hold on. No. No. No, clue… Waltzing Matilda.’
Laughter.
‘Who bloody killed her, mate.’
‘Stray slice of devon, mate. From heaven, mate. Fucking sauced her, mate. Bang, mate—Wham!’
Laughter.
‘It was John Ashbery. A Wave.’
‘Sto-o-p, sto-o-p—cut! Kyle: you’ve got to look at the camera as it turns to you. And look at it like it’s an actual iPhone! And don’t say things like a simp assembling an IKEA closet. Oi, don’t laugh—that’s how you sound!!’
4
Creased cloud kept above itself reflected in pools it created, ruffling itself there reproduced with ongoing rain as if regretful of its reflection.
They sat, the shelter a bus stop.
‘Oi!’
A car had struck the gutter at speed.
‘A wave.’
Big drops had signalled the onset. Since, an unsteady flow had fallen, letting up for a moment before again cleaving down in torrents loosely. They slinked away first to a tree's bole; in unison, unspeaking, they soon fled, it growing heavier, to seek a cover with fewer chinks. The friends had also fled, but earlier, because, probably, of the general and prolonged lightlessness, and without a wave: ‘They're probably mad at me. Whatever. I wrote it.’ They smoked. Diaphanous curdles crept upwards.
‘—no, so, it’s not just a poem, it’s a whole collection, like, its own book, sort of thing. “A Wave”, though, is a poem—the last poem, of John Ashbery’s collection of poems A Wave.’
‘Mate. Who knew she sells sea shells by the sea shore was so bloody complicated.’
‘That’s not a poem, mate. Doesn’t even rhyme.’
‘Well, poems don’t necessarily have to rhyme, though.’
‘To be good ones, but, they do. Like “Waltzing Matilda”—like he and me rhyme. Like old John Ashley probably I reckon.’
‘D’ya reck’n, mayte?’
He exclaimed and threw his arms about.
Laughter.
‘Cop that—how are ya.’
‘Like you don’t sound the bloody same, mate.’
‘Yeah na, what’s that on your shirt right there?’
‘Aw stick it up your arse.’
Mirth.
Then falling, it fell: the rain wrapped the shelter, the water worn on glass. And they sat in the centre.
And the passing buses were empty.
‘Look, I’ll tell you what you never see. You never see them change the ads on bus stops…. This one yesterday was for glasses.’
‘Ugh. I hate this one.’
‘You what?’
‘I hate this ad.’
‘It’s an ad, mate.’
‘Yeah. But this one especially. It’s so obnoxious. And it makes no sense. Like, look—this girl over here, holding on, OK—fine—but this girl here, off to the side, what’s she doing? She’s empty-handed. She’s just idle, on the fringe. And—’
‘What’s it even for?’
‘Sour cream.’
‘No good on devon, sour cream.’
‘No good on anything full stop, mate.’
‘Goes alright on a bagel.’
‘A bagel! Mate, I don’t even do donuts unless they’ve got jelly in the middle.’
‘What are you, five, mate.’
‘Aw, mate, the 7-eleven jelly ones, I could down a box.’
‘It’s just stupid, like, those two, are they friends even, just there?’
A horn, rich and full-bodied, stretching, radiating from some crux or kernel, noised past, pitted the air, and little laps of water splashed onto the path.
On its trail—quiet coursed.
‘Who knows.’ With her glare affixed to it, the thin advertisement mirrored the traffic oncoming. Dampily along, a truck, cars, a cyclist; each was, enduringly, imbibed. She itched, resignedly, her nose. ‘No, no it’s not, though. No, it didn’t ever come.’
‘It, mate?’
‘Oh, my bus! See you.’
‘Bye.’
‘Bye.’
New space that neither moved into. They were pendently upon the steady bench; over them, the shelter, steadily glassy, and ever more pieces of rain and leaf falling, locked out from layering civilians, instead resting in large number on the transparency that kept the floor dry, and the girl, gone: bye bye.
Beneath grey clouds that produced rain he shook vigorous hands, flailed his fingers, having cracked them.
There he was, on a bench, beside him, rain in the gutters.
Surfaces of occasional smoothness and slanted everywhere under rain bore coursing rivulets.
Traffic passed. Tall buildings were there.
‘You drove today, ay.’
‘Na. You?’
‘Oh. Na.’
‘How you getting home then?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Yeah. Neither.’
‘How’d you get here?’
‘Eh?’
‘How’d you get here?’
‘Today, you mean?’
‘I guess, yeah.’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘You can’t remember?’
‘Nup.’
‘Right then.’
‘Why d’you care?’
‘Can’t remember.’
‘Right.’
‘She’s gone?’
‘Suppose so.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Yeah.’
Body rocked, a stertorous inhale, and exhale.
Bag of plastic, opaque, rustled. To between the wrist and elbow he’d ventured his arm. The hand pranced, patted the contents. And the other arm went in too. He moved the rustling bag to his lap. Cars heaved past; one struck effectively the puddle, sending hugely over them both a wave.
Their open mouths puffed particular air, ablaze.
Their vigorous hands were shaken, their pants patted over and over by sweeping palms.
The bag had caught water and had now a puddle of its own, wobbling.
Leaves layered the shelter above. Through the interstices, damp bodies padded about on the damp floor, sheltered but wet between leaves and rain lapping.
‘Barrelled.’
‘Putrid, mate, there’s probably fucking shit in there.’
‘Yeah, you’ve got some on you, right there, on your shirt, piece of shit, where I’m pointing.’
‘I’m not fucking stupid, mate, get your shit off me.’
They sat.
Again the bag rustled: a sandwich, dry.
‘At least I’ve got this still.’
Wet, with a forelock pinned to his brow like a welt, he bit.
‘Ugh! Ergh! Ergh! Ugh!!’
‘What?’
‘It’s just sauce, mate. My sandwich’s empty. I forgot the devon.’
Hunter Smith is from Sydney. He is currently studying at Macquarie University and will graduate in 2023. He reads, writes short fiction, and lives and works primarily in Bathurst, on unceded Wiradjuri land. Currently he is writing bits of short fiction.
