(Outsider Press, $4.95 Australian, ISBN 0 646 31380 0)
The Way the Shadow Falls contains nineteen poems by Peter Huta. Here are three of them.
Last night —
early morning 3 a.m. —
awoken by shouts, startled by screams,
I lumbered to my window
and watched in stupor as a man beat his wife.
They fought over a car,
a car that cost her bloodied lips
and swollen eyes.
It is the practice of our understanding,
a sign of what has become important in our
lives; it is the shame of our age,
that flesh must pay for steel.
"mercyful fate"
scrawled in black
on the mangled side
of this bus-shelter.
And on the back,
in a bolder hand,
the words "Bong On".
And a sigh is written in red,
between the swastika and the withered rose;
the simple words,
"NO FUTURE".
To your absent letters
I have written many replies,
all unsent.
To your unspoken questions asking of my life
I have phased a hundred wordy answers,
all unsaid.
Your imaginary greetings I give myself,
each a little colder.
And on leaves of curling paper I write
your name — just your name —
and end it crumpled,
between our callused hearts.
Copyright © Peter Huta, 1997