Winter’omen is a funny, reminiscent and emotional poem about winter in Geelong, blending experiences and comparisons. Written in 2003, Winter’omen explores the “feelings” of the people in and around the large town, from the country areas around Geelong to the inner metropolitan residents.
o how i wish winter would curse Geelong
where watched trains never boil
& out of service ATMs
are thrown under Belmont buses
how i wish
she’d undress foglonely fields, mountains, seas
with Antarctic weeping
& feet like coconut ice
she’s frosty Monday mornings,
especially Monday mornings in Geelong
(which wants to be bigger, like Melbourne)
Every 28 days Target has a 20% off undies sale
so the people on Ryrie Street
with icicle eyelashes
can be strapped into their knitting
winter is stubborn
like a Datsun 200B 1980
(may it rest in pieces)
& she incubates sheep statues in the fields.
Exposed by daylight
on the side of the Victorian train line
she makes you wonder
why life is such a long, fat mess
in this chaotic, wandering string of days
when half the calendar is forgotten.
She makes you hibermenstruate
& this confuses the Bureau of Meteorology
i guess winter is grumpy
‘cos she’s got PMS
“Winter’omen” is an excerpt from the book Things Like Sunday & Other Poems by Suzanne Day.
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Things Like Sunday & Other Poems Amazon Price: $3.99 From celebrating Chinese New Year in Footscray, to strange tales of Tasmanian boat journeys and taking drugs at the local laundromat, “Things Like Sunday” explores life, love, tiny towns and big feelings during the 1990s with a distinct Australia…..read more |
About Suzanne Day
This poem cracked me up! It definitely reminds me of Geelong. There’s a lot of “us” versus “them” in Geelong against Melbourne people and the way the city has changed in the past ten years, it’s pretty funny to go to the city centre now and see the attitudes of the yuppies.