Garry McDougall – author, poet, traveller, lyricist, photographer, painter, novelist.
Novels
Belonging
Starts With C
Knowing Simone
Blacksmith and Canon (Volume One, The Viviers Chronicles)
A Blacksmith’s Life (Volume Two, The Viviers Chronicles)Travel Books
New South Walks Heritage Walks
Great North Walk, two editions. Sold 9000, Australian market only
Pilgrimage series (10 eBooks and paperbacks) France, Spain
and Portugal
Damn! Creative Journey Across Spain
Border and Soul, The Pyrenees (in progress)Australian Poetry and Short Story
Inner FlashProposed Documentary Series for TV
BordersOther In Progress:
The Mission (Volume Three, The Viviers Chronicles)
The Intertidal Zone (photography series)Member: Diverse Poets, Write-On Authors.
Numerous painting & photography exhibitions, from 1978 to the present.
Former Lecturer, Art History, Uni of Western Sydney.
Feature Poet, Sydney Writers Festival, 2017
Numerous performances, Sydney and Wollongong.
Artist Fellowship, Tempere, Finland. Numerous international publications.
Winner, Peter Cowan Short Story Prize, ‘Patting the Dog’, 2015.
Most eBooks available at Smashwords, also at Amazon, Kobe, Apple – some books in Paperback only.
Spiral into Pezenas
frosty morning air drumming our sun roof
car park as welcome as a glove
crossing to Cafeland still sleeping
the old town’s trinkets dangling
stray dogs confused by daylight, nothing to bark for.
Bumping into you Pezenas
green-framed in Michelin map
knowing you and your charming Moliere
giant of French theatre, seasons you
with hilarity and storm, imaginations fired.
Your Rue Jean Jaures is wide and bent
like a beggar
Champs Elyse with a limp
in memory of his assassination, regrets endure
shops closed, architecture scuttled.
Spy the medieval town, arch-framed
on rising hillock, legacy of disease and torture
domination and trial-by-mire
your preserved cobblestones
beating on paradox.
Adore the hocus-pocus of yesteryear
Jewish quarter a’ gache, its plaque recall
your prisoners of identity
today’s residents at plaintive doors
haunt, blush and blunder
fumbling with locks on the tourist eye.
Pezenas, prosperous and love-crazed
keeper of Langue d’Oc, lonesome for Moliere
You gathered craftspeople to your galleries
decorate your good self with statues of bronze,
musee and oisseau, cats and dogs unleashed.
Your people sweep, serve and converse the good air
sell knick-knacks and handbags of leather;
your visitors see shadows for nothing
in courtyard studio with ceramic giraffe
cane flamingo and gorillas with erections
hidden behind frightened palms.
Expectant tourists borne on carefree wings
Thunder storms before
retreating to cafes of innocence
‘Bon Jour’ and ‘L’addition, s’il vou plait.’
Pezenas serves lashings of poetry with almond panache
cream of onion soup, all your ways lent to welcome.
In Nazi years, Pezenas’ unflappable Baron
craved love
gifted twenty-generations treasures of
Eternity’s dress rehearsal rooms
of lush tapestries on Empire walls
finery in muslin and taffeta, silk
shining-cotton and Georgette of the Good
and Wealthy
a hundred beau garments worn by worthy men
and bettered women.
Your halles turn heads, visitors drawn
to one-euro muse.
There!
Impatient Moliere in the back room
breathes the sweetness of lavender and musk
launders his clothes in hot water
shatters crockery, offends the mistress
and bites his tongue.
There! Moliere stripping their pretense
mingling with diplomacy, the women
of high hair, heels, doublets and cuplets
powder and lace (a fainting spell so easy to waist)
men without baldric and sword
in tights that harden the nipples.
Jean-Baptiste sits with ink and quill
milk and dill, all genius for the noble nothings
gifted wit and mirth to a master’s babble
his servants gathered in the pink-striped pantry
plucking ducks with duplicity
scullion of thunder and gambol
piping-hot denial, cramp and scornful brogue
giggles in the kitchen, patent broth and cough
and Madame wiggles her toes
glancing sideway to a fellow rapt in rags.
In forgotten corridor, hail Le Poulain
your totem colt with a purple fringe
olive oil and garlic-encrusted centuries
of perfumed wood to a frightened eye
once riding high on nine men’s shoulders
as festival musicians dance abandon.
Moliere saw man and woman ride Le Poulain
peasant and royal sharing pageantry
knew betrayal and wretched illusion
the once promised soon abandoned
stage-giant sharing a peasant’s cruel fate
laughing at life fit for a dirty silk glove.
Crave love Pezanas
today’s young and talented artists
inhabit your warehouses
alleyways and potent perceptions
lusting fame and audience
sensuality and surprise
parading their Enlightenment heart
with something thrilling.
Crave love.
May’s visitors are absent-minded
when they patrol the Mediterre for sun
Marseille hosts Francois Hollandes
Pezenas lonely and forlorn.
Few survey your cobblestone hind
expiring minds on parking meters
soon departs for Arles.
Jean Baptist beats the drum, beats the drum
when idle shopkeepers lean on hungry doors
brooms raining on idle conversation
dust retreats in rainbow corners
visitors harried into cafes of chocolate wings.
Moliere beats the drum: ‘Awake Poulain
Come along. Come along.
Join the highways of desire
the crossroads of liberty
the marketplace of fraternite’.
Come along, to faire Pezanas.
Play minstrels, play.
Let caravan dreams wend their way
to your doors.
Crave Love.
For other contributions by Garry McDougall, please follow the link below:
Poetry in this post: © Garry McDougall
Published with the permission of Garry McDougall