poem
WRITTEN:
1983, 16
AUTHOR'S NOTES:
It was the end of Year 11 and I was sitting in the quad near the Maths department, idling away my "free" period. Some Year 9 or 10 students were having a PE class in the quad and were playing handball. Both teams were mostly made up of boys, about a quarter of whom were the younger brothers of boys in my form. I was keen to preserve the flavour of the moment, and hence wrote The Game.
The style is influenced by a book I read that year that had a tremendous impact on the remainder of my school "career", and a significant impact on the remainder of my teens. This is Barbara Pepworth's Early Marks and is typical of the kind of thing I was into at the time (other examples of which are David Malouf's Johnno and Raymond Stow's The Merry-Go-Round in the Sea).
The children are playing.
Their game echoes across the bitumen.
They are playing a game of great co-ordination and skill.
It is beyond my understanding.
Faces watch from windows. I watch from the sidelines.
Frowns scatter and gather in time with the hits and misses of the players.
Long shots and low shots. Hits and misses.
Players move out of the playing area. They missed.
Out.
Cries bounce-bounce between the teams, bounce-bouncing.
Insults fly with greater volume than intended,
bounce-bounce-bouncing
to the wrong ears, the ears in the windows.
The players move out of the playing area.
They goofed.
Up.