Gabriel's Gully
I thought of them, sweaty West Otago days
swimming in the creek at Gabriel's Gully.
Janet Paul's paintings chronicling the
banged-together ugliness of most recent
built environment. The only miner's memorial
an unpainted concrete block flush latrine.
Behind my painting of Fi's crusty banana
birthday cake for McGregor, I keep seeing
my requiem painting for Mike. Eric's taken
us on a ride up the Waitahuna backroads,
It must have been a standard pattern —
we're bumping over a suspension bridge.
Mike and I are waving goodbye behind
Brunswick. When people say "You just write
on your paintings because you're deaf" I
think of Mike's memorable verbal suaveness.
I boil up another coffee. I'll do a second
painting of McGregor's cake, He's been in
and out of hospital. This last piece is
much travelled. Irrestible. And the blue
and yellow 44 gallon rubbish drum Mike
loved in my 1976 Humpty Hammocky Hummocky
Hills. And the Sweet William McGregor put
in an ashtry on black velvet.
Sleeping in
Heavenly Peace...
McGregor's cake
1997 acrylic on hardboard 400 x 600mm