Genuine poetry can communicate before it is understood.

Can you believe it? They can DANCE! Home, Geilston Bay. November 2010.

Four books this week, and all good ‘uns! The first is a short novel –perhaps better known as a film – from a master of Czech literature Bohumil Hrabal Closely Observed Trains.

Set in [then German-occupied] Czechoslovakia in 1945, the war is turning against the Germans and the presence of the Red Army looms not too far away. The story focuses on the life of one train controller, who has just be released back to work after an unsuccessful suicide attempt in the wake of a little premature ejaculation-incident. So straightforward then.

The ever-approaching war soon means that the morning trains arrive at noon, the noon trains in the evening, and the evening trains during the night, so that now and then it might happen that an afternoon train came in punctual to the minute, according to the timetable, but only because it was the morning passenger train running four hours late.

For such a short novel, Hrabal crams in a huge variety of characters and subjects, from pigeon fancying, official railway stamps as seduction-tool, welfare cheats, to the decline of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Although an effective comic novel, the narrative builds in the end to a touchingly sober and devastating climax. I will not give you any spoilers.

This is a tale about heroism of ordinary people, not about epic feats. Heaven forbid, it is touching and realistic, yet never cloying. This is a great little book, definitely worth the trouble reading.

The second is another powerful little novel, The Lost Honour of Katharina Blum by 1972 Nobel Laureate Heinrich Böll. Again, like Trains it may be better known as a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar-winner.

Given that it is essentially a polemic railing against the sensationalism of tabloid news and the political climate of panic over Red Army Faction terrorism in the 1970s West Germany, you might think that would seem dated. However, as with most good literature, it is much more than that. It presents a searching analysis of post-war, urbanised and bourgeois German society.

Structurally disjointed with a shifting narrative, getting through the first part can be a hard slog. That said, the effort is rewarded.

Then we have a philosophical exploration of London’s bus system – The Maintenance of Headway – by the always-excellent Magnus Mills. This one is definitely a keep for anyone who uses public transport, but like the other two books I’ve mentioned, it’s more than that.

In the usual Mills’ style, it is a subtle meditation on the dangers of trying to impose order in a fundamentally chaotic world. As ever, he writes in a very relaxed style, which lends very well to giving readers the necessary space to reflect. You know he has triumphed when even I can calmly accept the central thesis – essentially a celebration of the beauty of chaos – with a smile.

It is a good read. Check it out.

Lastly, we have another from Heinrich Böll, Soldier’s Legacy. This was his first novel, but remained unpublished for forty years. Semi-autobiographical, it is a good description of military service, with an emphasis on the excruciating boredom of life on the coast of occupied France, waiting for something to happen. Then they get sent to the Eastern Front.

Written in 1947, it is a very German book. The story is infused with a post-war resentment of officers who survived; based on a theme that the decent and intelligent died, and explores the nature of obedience and resistance within the structure of army life.

You can tell it’s written by someone at the beginning of establishing their craft, but in some ways it makes it all the more interesting.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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