ISSUE THREE Lyre is an Australian-based independent literary journal. Operating on a not-for-profit basis, Lyre does not receive external funding. Subscription information and other details can be found at our website. EDITOR: Michael Holmes DESIGNER: Amy Christensen STAFF WRITERS: Yalei Wang; Eleanor Houghton WEB: lyrejournal.com EMAIL: lyre@lyrejournal.com This compilation copyright ŠLyre Journal. Do not copy or redistribute without permission. All content copyright Šrespective authors, artists, contributors. Issue #3 continues at lyrejournalblog.tumblr.com
Cover art by Amy Christensen
THIS ISSUE EDITORIAL BRISBANE WILD Eleanor Houghton THE WIZARD OF EXPOSITION Brendan Foley SUEA JAI DEE Adina Thavisin FREE REIGN Doris Chang TITLES AND STANDARDS Yalei Wang HIGHEST RANGE IN THE CHAIN Alexia Derbas ISSUE #3 CONTRIBUTORS
WELCOME TO ISSUE THREE
CALL OF THE WILD We know the ‘wild’ as many things, metaphorical and literal. We are often ‘returning to the wild’, or ‘going wild’. But of course, we were always wild in some sense. Our insistence that we, at some point, left the wild, or are now somehow removed from it, is an interesting idea—and one that philosophers and writers have always drawn on. Our ordered lives seem far removed from the chaos of nature and the wild. The ancient Greeks had Gods to associate with all aspects of their lives. One in particular was Dionysus, the God of grape harvest and winemaking. Dionysus was worshipped as the God of ecstasy and madness, and, for the Greeks, represented the inner ‘wild’ we possess, a shade of humanity that is primeval and impulsive, but is nonetheless a necessary part of being human. Nietzsche explores the Greeks’ theatrical approach to light and shade in The Birth of Tragedy, where he uses the idea of dichotomous Gods, Dionysus and Apollo, to signify the disordered and ordered aspects of humanity. However, these two forces are not mutually exclusive, rather they can only exist in unison. As we see with the ancient Greeks, alcohol was as an important part in their culture as it remains to be in most cultures today. And in literature there have always been authors interested in exploring the primitive, unfiltered realms
of our minds: Dr Jekyll’s transformation potion; Hunter S. Thompson’s LSD; Aldous Huxley’s Mescaline; and so on. And if we’re not finding the wild in ourselves, we’re searching for it in life. Shakespeare enjoyed the connection between the city and the wild, and in many of his plays we see folk venturing away from their cities, represented as places of order—but also of corruption and deception—and into the wild, where they find wholesomeness: a place where people are free to act as they like, unhindered by the conventions of city society. And this idea of escaping the order of daily life remains an alluring prospect for many. The wild is presented to us in many ways, but uniformly, it is our common ground: our oldest and deepest connection with the Earth and the universe. This issue serves as an exploration of the wild as we encounter it. ***
We have some fantastic work in this issue, with art by Amy Christensen and Doris Chang, as well as the continuing story of Brendan Foley’s Thumpington. I’d also like to welcome two talented new feature writers to the team: Eleanor Houghton, a Brisbane writer and music-scene blogger, and Yalei Wang, a writer and social commentator from Melbourne. I hope you enjoy this third issue of Lyre Journal. It would not have been possible without the ongoing work of our small team. I’d like to thank all of those who submitted work for this issue, and those who continue to support us by reading, sharing, and enjoying the journal. Michael Holmes Editor
BRISBANE WILD ELEANOR HOUGHTON
Dear Brisbane, You do something to me. Not to sound strange, but you make me feel things like no other township can. You have a powerful, magical hold over me, my heart and imagination held captive by the untameable wilderness you barely hide. It lies not in, but behind your BjelkePetersen era office buildings, their brown tinted windows automatically ageing the outside world. It is under your many bridges, off each and every verandah and in your thick sub-tropical air. When I sit in the park on a Sunday afternoon, watching picnic-goers trekking to their cars with arms full of empties, it begins. The sun starts to dip behind the mansions, whose owners are the subject of much cross-river speculation and story-telling, and you put on your own rose-coloured glasses. Sudden whooshes overhead mark the beginning of the bat migration that fills your sky each night like a new-romantic’s wet-dream. Tens, then hundreds of bats flap from the trees, their bodies red and as fuzzy as the brains of the cider-soaked patrons that gaze up at them.
They soar over the roses that are all the same colour in this sunset light, a failure of a colour-blindness test, and onwards towards the wetlands. The trees change their tune, the Moreton Bay Figs becoming a dark and evermoving swarm, and the Jacarandas filling to the brim with Ibises, nature’s prehistoric garbage trucks. Much like the leatherywinged friends above, but much better smelling, I head home when the lights of the city glow on the horizon. I follow your river, the focus of far too many snake metaphors, as your muddy brown changes to ink. This oily black serpentine thread, with sequins of lights wobbling on its surface, is the stuff of wistful legend. The enigmatic effect this waterway has on me can inspire shamefully naff lines, and glances and sighs worthy of any BBC telemovie. It is tempting to make the connection between the vein of water running through this town, keeping it alive, and my own circulatory system, suggesting that they are one and the same – I won’t, however, as it is common knowledge that the river
contains bacteria and hydrocarbons so heinous, that were they to enter a human body would result in almost certain horror. As any local journo will tell you, the man that drank his open tinny after rescuing it from a quick fall off the side of his boat was never the same again. On top of unidentified, infection-riddled bugs, the river is also a thriving Bull Shark habitat. Lurking in the dark, murky depths of both the river and local nightmares, the creature so volatile they named it after two angry animals has feasted on numerous two-and fourlegged buffets. An important part of every relationship, however, is looking past flaws, and it is on this note that I return to my love letter for you and your tidal heartbreaker. According to those who came before me, the river once ran clear. Up until the dirty ‘30s, the riverbed could be seen from the surface. In even earlier times the Turrbal people used to hunt and fish, without fear of growing incurable cysts. Walking around my waterbordered suburb, I can’t help but feel slightly haunted. Not in the typical old lady
painting or sketch that depicts you in your pre-boom form, the sun drenching fields with small river-side cottages, the volcanic cliffs noticeably absent. What is much harder to find is depictions of what you were like after the sun fell and the bats took flight. The darkness that must have blanketed Queensland and Australia alike fills me with both fear and longing. With dark as black as the wings that glided within it, candlelight would do little to stifle it in a house hidden amongst thick mangroves. The sounds would be formidable, left with no constant buzz or whisper from traffic and electricity, and with text-book wilderness scratching at your doors (if not crawling under them). Even after a warm day like today the sound of crickets can be enough to cause a ringing of the ears. Bats cackle as they drop rotting pieces of fruit in backyards and possums scream as they fight and topple off powerlines into shrubs, almost always outside a bedroom window, it seems. The sound with a night-sheet over her Pamphlett and John Finnegan, of nature‘s dominance a head kind of way, but in a two of four freed convicts century ago would have been way in which I can’t help but who got blown off course a deafening reminder of acknowledge what it must from Sydney, were the first mortality in the hands of this have been like for those who white men to discover your otherwise sleepy little land. could see below the surface. river. They found themselves In slightly more recent The original owners of dumped in a humid land, the times, your foreboding cliffs, course, would have been air thick with mosquitoes and after 230 million years of comfortable when they had the forests full of monsters. stillness, were quarried by it to themselves; this is and They lived with the natives, convicts to create the buildings was their land for longer than who could navigate and tame that slowly replaced your any memory serves. Those this remnant of Gondwana, wilderness. Brisbane Tuff, they that followed, fresh from the until more of their own came called the offcuts. You’ll be clipped gardens and cool air and began replacing your pleased to know that those of Britain, would have had mangrove shoots with their buildings still stand strong. a rude shock on landing British flags. Other buildings hold on for There is many a historical dear life on the edges of the on your shores. Thomas
cliffs, their teetering stilts and glass fronts selling thrills to only the highest of bidders. Then there are the blocks which you have reclaimed much more quickly than expected. It doesn’t take long for a vacant yard or unused block to fall back into a version of wild; wild lite perhaps. I know I am the victim of a strong imagination and a love for romance and nostalgia, but I feel as though you would be far better to see from a little wooden boat, travelling up the forest-lined streams from a makeshift jetty, than from inside a bus where everything smells like petrol and body odour. Your storms would be just as spectacular, whether or not there were overpriced apartments to watch them from, and the break from your heat would be even more satisfying without the advent of air-con. One night last summer I took a walk along the riverbank, on a boardwalk
frequented by the Lorna Jane and lycra clad. It was late enough for them to be at home, eating cleanly (although who knows if they ever really sleep). A small collection of tourists, with wine bottles in hand, warned me as I approached. A snake, copying the curves of the river it was sliding above, covered the length of the path. It is an unwritten rule that poisonous reptiles get right of way in situations like this, and strolls and jogs alike came to a halt to admire the power of nature. It is small reminders like this, calling cards from the flora and fauna, that remind me that you are a city that is not quite tamed. When I walk through your streets, under your trees and over your bridges, I am glad that there are still those hints of what once was. They aren’t overstated or obvious, but they are ever-present. In a laneway that I regularly walk down there is a small block of flats, older than
most. In the top window I always see the same man, probably as old as the building he lives in. Whether brushing his teeth, or shaving his face, a glass of water sits on his window sill, with a sprig of eucalyptus inside. His neighbours’ houses are held under the thumbs of Strangler Figs, leaving a trail of uprooted light-poles and cracked footpaths in their wake. If we were all to leave you, Brisbane, closing our businesses and turning off our cars, I believe it would be a matter of days before you began to return to the wild. I think it is this that haunts me when I stand on your bridges, looking into the water that even sun can’t penetrate, or under your leaves, watching the bats. It is the whisper of a wild thing, lying dormant under the bricks and timber, at the bottom of the river, waiting to come out and make my heart sing.
THE WIZARD OF EXPOSITION BRENDAN FOLEY
SUEA JAI DEE ADINA THAVISIN
My name is Muay and I was born in Udon Thani province, on the first day that the rainy season of 1980 descended on Thailand. My parents named me Muay because it means ‘almond shaped eyes’, and it’s a pretty good fit as our third-generation Chinese lineage is written all over my face. I recently turned sixteen and my father threw a party for me in our backyard with pink and white balloons and a banquet of all my favorite foods. Our whole extended family and my school friends attended. The festivities went late into the night. My mother gave me a jade ring that my father had given her when they were first courting. It’s too precious to risk losing so I put it with my other treasures and pocket money in my prayer amulet bag under my pillow. Every night I take it out and hold it before I go to sleep, and I feel like the luckiest girl in the world. My friends would say the best thing about my family’s sprawling house is the blue concrete swimming pool or our gaming room, which is said to be the biggest and best in town. My favorite thing in the house, however, is the stuffed tiger that stands in the foyer guarding the marble staircase. My grandfather shot it back when it was still normal to hunt such trophies, and, to my grandma’s chagrin, had a taxidermist preserve it forever. It stands on a dark wood base with one paw extended, baring its off-white teeth in a silent roar. You’d think that such a pose would scare a girl like me, but the peaceful expression in his glassy eyes somehow calms my heart every time I lay eyes on them. When I was small I used to climb up onto its stripy back and gently touch the spots on the back of his ears. When my mother saw me doing this she scolded me more sternly than she ever had before and told me that I mustn’t disrespect the spirit of the Tiger, that it was once a living being and deserves dignity—even in death. After that I still paid visits to him everyday, and began to refer to him affectionately as Suea Jai Dee, which means ‘good-hearted tiger’. When I told my father this he chuckled through his cigar smoke haze and told me nothing has a bad or good heart,
we’re all just animals adapting to our environments. Every morning, an hour after dawn, my mother knocks on my bedroom door softly to wake me. I then shower and get dressed for school before heading down to the breakfast table on the patio. Usually my mother and elder brother P’ Yai accompany me for the first meal of the day. Father rarely joins as he’s always in meetings late into the night and he needs his rest in the mornings. After I eat my fill, my bodyguard and driver P’ Dum comes to take me to school. He drops me off at the front gates and waits across the road in our black BMW until classes finish for the day so he can take me home. Because of who my father is, no one asks why this is so, or whether or not he has a parking permit. My friends don’t treat me any different, but sometimes I get the feeling my teachers are afraid of me, as they speak to me more timidly than the other students. Mother says I’m just imagining things. I suppose you are wondering what exactly my father does for a living. The truth is, he does many, many things. He has been the Governor of our province for almost half of my life and has long been involved with gravel quarries, crop dealerships, and hotels throughout the province. He also distributes whiskey and owns bars and massage parlours on the main stretch of town. A crazy old man that used to sleep under a tree near my favorite ice cream stall once told me that bad and illegal things happen in those places. Unfortunately, P’ Dum scared him off before I could ask any more questions. The next time I went for ice cream I kept an eye out for him but I guess he moved on as I never saw him again after that day. Our home is always full of my father’s friends and work associates coming and going, drinking whiskey, and playing cards in the game room and den, day and night. I refer to my father’s guests as my ‘uncles’ as they are very much a part of our family; always there with their gossipy, jewel covered wives in tow during our family birthdays and other special occasions. My father says they would do anything to help him run the businesses and for this I am grateful. The uncles and aunts call him Jao Pho (godfather) so I know how important he is to them too. Ever since my big brother P’ Yai turned twenty one he has been spending more and more time with the uncles, and going on business trips on my father’s behalf. He told me one day at breakfast that in the future he will be in charge of the family empire. I noticed my mother wince at this but, eventually, she nodded slowly and said that it was good he was spending more time with father—as they’d never got on too well previously. Clashing personalities I believe it’s called. My father is charismatic and gets along with everyone, filling every space with his hearty belly laugh. My brother’s more guarded, and hides behind
shifty eyes and a sharp tongue. My father dresses simply, t-shirts, slacks and sandals. P’ Yai prefers the flashier things, tailored suits and a gold ring on every second finger. Mother affectionately calls them her own personal Yin and Yang. When I was woken up by the sound of screaming, I thought a snake had found its way into the patio and scared one of the gardeners again, but my wall clock said 4am and this gave me a weird feeling in my stomach. I sleepily got to my feet and opened my bedroom door to see what the fuss was about. I was stunned to be met in the hallway by my mother, her nightclothes were stained dark red and her face was as white as a sheet. I ran to her as she crumpled on the tiled floor. Pressing my hands into the crimson dampness of her gown, I found her unhurt, but she was shaking and mumbling uncontrollably. Two maids quickly appeared, both hysterical and in tears. ‘Bless the Jao Pho!’ the first one screeched. ‘Your mother just found him in the den’ the next one added, fighting back sobs. ‘What did you see mother?’ I asked as calmly as I could. Her usually gentle, laughing eyes were dark and faraway, and she didn’t seem to hear me. ‘Forgive me for telling you this, but for your own safety you should know’ interjected the bolder maid in a whisper, ‘your father has just been murdered.’ My heart jumped to my throat and it
took all my strength to pull my mother to her feet. I told her we had to get out of here—we’d go to grandma’s house down south by the ocean until it was safe to come back. I darted into my room and quickly grabbed my prayer amulet bag and a blanket to throw around my mother’s shoulders. The maids were still caterwauling when I returned, and I told them to go home and be with their families, that we’d be safer on our own. I led my fragile mother on tip-toes down the corridor towards the back staircase. As we painstakingly made our way down the stairs, I heard a male voice echoing from below. I pushed my mother back up the stairs and left her to crouch behind the top banister. Edging quietly down the dark steps once more, I squatted to peer through the gloom. My heart skipped a beat when a light flicked on in the far lower hallway. I squinted as a faraway figure came into sight, barely recognizable under a caking of blood, and carrying a machete that was stained the same shade of crimson. My mouth fell open when I realized it was none other than my big brother, P’ Yai. As he paced back and forth in the hallway I noticed he wasn’t alone, my fattest and most shifty uncle and my bodyguard P’ Dum joined him on either side. ‘You did well’ I heard my uncle say as he clapped him on the back, ‘I’ll have someone clean up the mess and tie up the loose ends tomorrow’. P’ Yai pulled a
hanky from his pocket and scrubbed at his face furiously, ‘I should hope so uncle’ he replied with irritation, ‘I wouldn’t want the Persian rug to be stained’. My uncle chuckled nervously. ‘What of your mother and sister sir?’ he asked quietly after a pregnant pause. P’ Yai stopped pacing, and turned to P’ Dum with a subtle nod. P’ Dum lowered his head, lifted his shirt and grasped his gun as he turned walking swiftly down the corridor. I jumped up like a spooked wild animal and ran to my mother’s side. I grabbed her hand and dragged her back up along the top hallway. Before I knew it, we were halfway down the main staircase with the front door in sight. As my foot reached the bottom step I heard the unmistakable click of a safety catch. P’ Dum stood five metres to our right, half masked in darkness, with his handgun pointed right at me. I opened my mouth to plead but all I could manage was a high-pitched squeak. I could hear my heart pounding in my chest, and I closed my eyes tightly, wondering how much it was going to hurt. After holding my breath and squeezing my mother’s hand for what felt like forever, I opened my eyes to see P’ Dum’s quivering hands slowly lower his gun. He briskly trotted to the front door and opened it, gesturing for us to make an exit. As I coaxed my mother onwards and down the front path, I looked back to somehow express my thanks, but the
door was already closed. I dread to think what kind of punishment he would face for our sake. As we ran, I whispered a prayer for his good karma in this life and the next. By some stroke of luck there was a Tuk Tuk, or three-wheeled taxi, whizzing towards us as we stepped onto the street. The driver looked at us dubiously but after I waved some of my pocket money he took us to the train station. There I bought two one-way tickets. A few hours into our day-long trip, the scenery became green, and eventually thick forest surrounded the train as it snaked towards the sea. I looked out the window, breathing the fresh air and trying to make sense of everything, glancing occasionally over at my frail mother who was curled up, battling nightmarish dreams on the bench opposite me. As I brushed a sweaty clump of hair out of my face, I thought I saw a flash of stripy fur disappear into the tree-line out of the corner of my eye, and I smiled for the first time all day.
DORIS CHANG Free Reign
Titles and Standards The inevitability of new standards with time YALEI WANG
An old friend of mine relayed this piece of paraphrased information to me from her fine art lecturer: ‘Every year, standards of what is good—meaning quality, substance, and what’s attractive—gets updated. Most people catch up a little bit, but only a few truly evolve to that new standard and produce whatever it is they produce to that new standard’. I took that piece of information away and mulled it over in my mind. Standards are always on the verge of being updated, changed, and modified, with the huge sample of people from our world and communities at large. It’s people who change and update standards. Standards of looks, technology, quality and innovation. No wonder standards change when there’ll always be new people out there, offering new ways to re-package things in accordance with demands of shifting times. Inevitably, if you once held the standard as having the best X, one day, probably sooner than later, that status as having the best X will be awarded to somebody else. But once a best seller, always a best seller (at that point in time), right? If you won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000, you’ll be referenced with that title for all time. This is true, and the merits that come with a reward that celebrated will always be a badge of honor to any writer’s career. But what about next year? Well, you’re ‘old news’ by then. Good work is never old news and nobody gets sick of talent. However, today, titles are worth more than content because titles are also standards: the most beautiful woman, the state-of-the-art mobile phone, the most acclaimed novel of the year. If you no longer hold that title, then you are no longer the benchmark of that standard. Whether we agree or not with who receives particular accolades is a matter of personal choice, but if there is any such a thing as an objective reality, then that reality is what the media decides it to be. Although it is clear now that standards are constantly getting updated, what about the icons who defined the fields of which they were a part? Legendary figures like Mozart, Shakespeare, and more recently, Steve Jobs. Despite the fact that time does raise all standards, the work of legends will always be ‘legendary’, and thus impervious to time and/or the new cream of the crop figures of the contemporary beat. But because they are so celebrated, they are also completely irrelevant— especially if they are deceased. Legends are legends because nobody can replace them. Until you become a legend, your prestige and position is up for grabs.
If Steve Jobs were still alive today, any member of his team could very well take over his position. Although it’s a long shot, as long as someone is alive, they can—literally—step down. To introduce an oppositional twist into the argument: Do standards really change, or is it just new people that usurp the ‘face’ of that standard? How much better can one person do one thing than the predecessor before them? This is the part where we find ourselves lost in translation. Terminology has an awful irony, in that it leads us into more obscurity; this is frustrating at best and misleading at worst. If you ask me, there is no room for individuality when it comes to titles, but there is when it comes to idiosyncrasies. The 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Alice Munro, but the world’s favorite to win was Haruki Murakami. Whether his work was ‘better’ than Munro’s is up to you, but the fact that they were in the prize pool bundles them into the same league. Munro’s claim of the prize does see Murakami lose his chance of the 2013 Nobel, but he and his work does deserve to be commended. He may get his chance this year, but until then, he is still the same author—professionally —as he was last year, without the
prize or the recognition that the Nobel brings to his name. Someone who ‘replaces’ or ‘takes over’ your spotlight is someone who takes over your title. They can never take over who you are, or the contribution that you make to your community, but that place—that title —is definitely no longer yours. As before, titles mean more to us than content these days because titles are short, sharp, and packed full of meaning that is communicable and accessible to everyone. No one has the time to get to know you; they want you summed up in a sentence. Murakami cannot say he was a Nobel prize winner. He can say he’s Murakami—which, to most literary minds, is a feat in itself— but he can’t say that he won it. As time goes on, you can be subject to the loss of your title, and the assumption of your relevance to that standard to others. It’s inevitable, but we don’t get less beat up about it. This is because of our sense of entitlement when it comes to defining something: we know that there are others out there who may do our job better, but we never realise that they can come so suddenly, much like how time—to us—creeps up on itself.
Between the confident nails of my forefingers rests the tiny pinkish mound. Snow capped and beautiful as the Atlas Mountains post blizzard when hungry dogs sit hopefully on the roadside waiting for generous humans in their too fast cars. The mountain’s joined by others along the ridge of skin from neck to shoulder and some are high enough for snow to fall on their peaks. Others aren’t and go unnoticed, for now. It’s the snow I’m interested in pinning between nails shaped and maintained for this purpose. High, Middle and Low. I want to destroy, the earth needs to be smooth. No room for adversity though the weapons can be colourful. All kinds of colours and even designs. Keratin navigation is blind. Eyes can’t guide through this landscape so the earth becomes spotty and spottier and spottier, the mountains cold and colder and whiter. Weapons are drawn for attack and the snow and sometimes blood of mountains nervously lingers on gloss in shades reflecting my mood for this day. Often boredom and anxieties surrounding growing mountains and stationary me. Charcoal nails make gentle popping sound and they don’t even touch. The white life withers in the oxygen
#3 CONTRIBUTORS BRENDAN FOLEY Brendan Foley is a Brisbane based artist. You can stay up to date with Thumpington and also help validate Brendan’s existence by liking his Facebook page at facebook.com/thumpington
ADINA THAVISIN Adina is a half Thai, third year student in Creative Writing Bachelor at RMIT. Adina’s hobbies include eating and drinking with no regard to moderation.
DORIS CHANG Doris Chang is an illustrator from Adelaide working primarily in watercolours and other traditional media with a thorough, detail-oriented approach to image-making from research and concept development to the final preparation of artwork. She often experiments with loose line-work and mixed-media in her work and has a special interest in the narrative implications of image-making and visual storytelling.
ALEXIA DERBAS Alexia Derbas is a writer living in Sydney.
Issue #3 continues at lyrejournalblog.tumblr.com Photo credits: p6. Untitled, Amy Christensen p7-8. Untitled #1; p15-16. Untitled #2, Michael Holmes