A Castle in Spain

By Daniel Neumann

Daniel Neumann was born in England in 1951 of German-born parents, and has lived most of his life in Australia, in Canberra and then in Melbourne, where he works as a psychologist and as a musician. His poems respond to landscapes, texts, paintings, music, and conversations real or imaginary. They inhabit spaces from Australia to ancient Gr

• Language: English
• Publisher: Debbie Lee
• Release date: Jan 11, 2018
• ISBN: 9781760414870

Book preview

A Castle in Spain

A Castle in Spain

Daniel Neumann

Ginninderra Press

A Castle in Spain

ISBN 978 1 76041 487 0

Copyright © text Daniel Neumann 2018

---

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the copyright holder. Requests for permission should be sent to the publisher at the address below.

---

First published 2018 by

Ginninderra Press

PO Box 3461 Port Adelaide 5015 Australia

www.ginninderrapress.com.au

Contents

A Castle in Spain

Notes

Acknowledgements

A Castle in Spain

Three-Thirty

---

One night I dreamt enormous bubbles

grew in the asphalt schoolyard.

Something to hatch, I thought, and here

at last it comes:

a sturdy mistress of monkey bars

and off-ground tiggy swings on the frame

three rungs at a time or shins up a pole

to traverse a six-foot bar… I tried

that too, and the principal crossing the yard:

‘What else can she do that you can’t do?’

Plenty. And her sister can dance like a leaf –

two children airborne, ladder-bright

while dad works out on a pillow of stones.

Top Paddocks

---

Our family’s not the sort to settle down

same place we’ve been brought up. Liking the slope of this

I got it with the money when mum died;

and never married. Though, I could have once –

she had a body to her like these hills,

if they stood up they’d be tall like her. See how

they curve like tits to a belly, grazing the stock.

She’s withered, I hear (well, I have too: the ills

the flesh is heir to) but I never went to see.

There’s not been time with having a place of my own

and labour’s dear; it’s hard work now

not like the old days. Besides

men remember where married women forget.

I wrote, of course, years back: she never replied.

Life Cycle

---

There are three well-known chapters. First, the young

pushing of city limits, the coastal creep,

a clearing of trees or a miner’s exploration.

Next the glamorous, well and frequently sung

proof and dance of courage, the gay brave leap:

a desert