Records of The Loss Property Department of Gardiner Reserve

By Brendan Gleeson

The book is a poetic examination of the necessary human experience of loss. It does this through picture poems that are variously soulful and satirical. This little 2021 drama is set in and around the environs of Gardiner Reserve in North Melbourne, Australia.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shiel Street Press
• Release date: Dec 2, 2022
• ISBN: 9780645351521

Brendan Gleeson

Brendan Gleeson is a resident of North Melbourne Australia. His academic career has been in the social and spatial sciences.In recent years he has turned his hands to poetry which is published through Shiel Street Press where he is Honorary Editorial Adviser (on leave in 2022).

Book preview

Published by Shiel Street Press, Melbourne, 2022

www.shielstreetpress.com

Copyright 2022 Brendan Gleeson

Cover design, layout and typesetting by Sharon France (Looking Glass Press)

Typeset in Bernard Condensed, Brandon Grotesque and Century Schoolbook

All images sourced from Wikimedia commons and the author

Municipal Gum reproduced with permission from Wiley

(Oodgeroo. My People: A Kath Walker Collection. Jacaranda, 1981)

All rights reserved

ISBN: 978-0-6453515-3-8 (paperback)

ISBN: 978-0-6453515-2-1 (e-book)

Marginal Marks from the Secretary

I.

It’s a bit strange to laugh

And cry

At your own workings

Especially when you

Live alone as

I do

But sometimes

I do

II.

A mis hijos

Municipal Gum

Gumtree in the city street,

Hard bitumen around your feet,

Rather you should be

In the cool world of leafy forest halls

And wild bird calls

Here you seem to me

Like that poor cart-horse

Castrated, broken, a thing wronged,

Strapped and buckled, its hell prolonged,

Whose hung head and listless mien express

Its hopelessness.

Municipal gum, it is dolorous

To see you thus

Set in your black grass of—bitumen

O fellow citizen,

What have they done to us?

Oodgeroo Noonuccal Kath Walker

The Readers

Alison Blacket

Alison Gleeson

Jane Gleeson

Brian Gleeson

Patrick Fensham

Lucy Groenhart

Sam Alexander

Claire Denby

Laurel Johnson

Geoff Woolcock

Craig Czarny

Graeme Davison

Jacinta di Mase

Guy Gibson

Stephen Horton

Sharon France

Stephen Horton

Elizabeth Barnao

George McDonnell

Annis Andersson

Stephen Regan

Contents

Municipal