Synecdoche
The train delivers us cleanly.
Our host had said
the top deck made the best
viewfinder.
She has to doff her magazine
every time,
a commuter’s mark of respect.
It is a fitting carriage:
modernity’s chariot
terminating
at the site of its leisure.
Saturday doers
nudge the turnstiles.
Sublime is right, but
a complex descriptor:
there is the architect’s gift
of course
but crowds too have always
made me conscious
of infinity.
A couple asks a stranger
to foster their camera,
directs him to
just fit in
as much building as you can.
The lens levels
not at their bodies
but through, a compass
divining its version of proof.
If you bought a postcard here,
bought several,
you would recognise the pose,
not quite instinctively –
rote learning is
not quite wisdom.
But you know
the candent carapace
with or without
the Sydney scrawl,
despite the sunset having weakened
to a greenish canker.
Or maybe
that card arrived once
rolled up with the gas bills
and beneath an inky stamp
was that familiar recline,
a theme varied, hawked
world-wide
in school-books and gazettes.
The city’s autograph
blanched
by cheap inks:
moon moulds
in silhouette, parted
cockatoo crest.
Up close, angles are
just angles.
Whites differ.
Forced to look,
it’s impossible to see
anything
but parts for the whole.
The clouds are filmy
sacs, slowly
ballooning.
The shells become shelter
when rain bursts.
One Hour Opera
One Hour Opera: Mobile Impressions of an Icon, 2010
One Hour Opera is an independent zine project featuring photography by mishobaranovic, and writing by myself and whilebird. The project documents our impressions of one of the world’s most documented tourist sites, during a recent trip to Sydney.
Click on the cover art above to view the magazine on Magcloud. You can also purchase a print copy there.
Feel free to email us on onehouropera@gmail.com if you have any questions/comments about the publication. Or, let me know your thoughts on here!
