poetry by r.c. torres

Constitution Hill

 Went the wrong way home, 
a 45 minute detour of low income 
art house movie scenes.
Western Sydney sun is
 harsher than the rest of Sydney. 
It wants to harm you.
Burn your eyebrows. 
Seep into your shoes
and burn your toes too. 

While I have breathed in violence, 
it has always had its own personality. 
If it's not “your” violence,
it takes some time to get use to. 

Graffitied basketball courts 
offer entrees to the main course, 
rows of council homes 
hidden like a secret amazonian tribe
only explorers care to uncover. 

I spot a stovetop landmark 
in front of a driveway 
and make sure to take a photo. 
It will make a great supplement to my travel stories, 
exaggerated over suburban dinner conversations. 

These hot and bothered streets ask: 
Where are all the criminals today? 
Is it too hot to be about? 
Lazy criminals. 
Only work between 25 - 30 degrees celsius.
Lazy criminals with their one way only signs. 
Is it because no one's ever getting out? 
Cycles, 
generations,
recreational grasses, 
now full time. 
Source the dealer. 
Take the dole.
Steal from your mother,
your sister,
your neighbor,
then a stranger.
Now that’s what you call progress. 

Sat on your striped barbecue chair,
in mid afternoon slump. 
You know that ambition lives only a few kilometers away,
but you never stop by. 
It’s too far away. 
Lazy criminal.
Play your part. 
(Do career criminals have  EVP’s?) 

Out of the estate now. 
Mansions on hills with views. 
Proud Marys positioned on front lawns. 
A nice little cul-de-sac of 
white- arab- asian-italian - south american- privilege. 

Disappointed to see everyone on their best behavior. 

The trackers

  I'm backseat cold,
waiting for tigers
to come pose,
somewhere in a “Forest”
in Rajasthan. 
My comfort is taken,
and so I turn to Oreos.

Our driver is rebellious.
Swerving off the road,
determined to be
the one who finds
the tigers. 
I join in his enthusiasm
playing eye spy with 
skinned trees
in this dead forest.

We journey to a peak,
next to border gate 6,
and wait in silence
for a bird's warning call.
Our guide tests 
the forbidden border,
our last chance he says
of seeing them.  
All six of us
are still.
All I hear are
the birds
and the
silence of fear.

Out of nowhere,
three trackers 
appear like
three wise men
behind the grey mountain.
One warns our
guide to lay off 
gate number 6. 

Walking with their 
giant sticks,
protruding in front
of their strides,
I respect them
like I would a
clean professional
government employee,
who's never been
convicted in a corruption scandal. 
I sense genuineness
in their blunt and
efficient procedure.
I would hire them.

They stand on their podium,
like gold medalists,
They are the kings
of this dry
dead reserve.
If they tell us
that we will see no tigers today,
that is the law of this land. 

Now the mood in our
4X4 has changed.
Our guide is defeated,
offering up monkeys and crocodiles,
as his back up plan.
Excitement no longer
lives in his eyes.
He wanted to show
us tigers,
and now he drives just
to show us out.