A Letter To Donald Friend (1915-1989)

Dear Donald Friend
Where are you when your country needs you?
The angels are bordering the neurotic legends and all of the rats are sinking through the water like hands into pockets
We are the information givers
The velvet men who feel
With purposes not yet forgiven- for which we are alone in houses watching fires spill onto hearths
We wonder why should we be forgiven?
Why should the destruction of our lives be reason for art?
Oh, Donald Friend, we are the honest ones- men who who don't know the real meaning of existence and probably never shall, yet we go on searching until right becomes left and life leaves us alone
Donald Friend as I write I am sitting in the National Library of Australia
I know what their drawers contain
I know what treasure lies up those elevator shafts
I burnt down the Art Gallery for you on your birthday
It was a day that no birds flew and no words were written.
The taxis were all still and I was half awake
I burnt it down for you as they had not one of your pieces up for the children of my generation to see
Not one piece for the friends of your days to see
And now I am holding my pen so tight, like a man who is writing his letter ever
I want you to know you make me run for those pictures that are so far away
Those that are covered in dirty fingerprints and sperm
The glittering moon holds so many and the barking angels watch them
They guard them with rusted swords and yawning faces
They are tired on their watch
No one has gone to tackle your genius, steal it, grab it and carve it into the jewellery of gods for oh so long
London it calls me
It wants me to fall into its trap
So it can break me and force me to suck the cocks of artists and poets
Men who try in vein to educate me on the new renaissance punks
Those networking heroes whom you knew so well are all dead
Or toothless and waiting for death to drag their dribbling souls into the fog of the bay
Donald Friend who are your friends?
Australia is now your enemy yet you always knew this would happen
You even brought this information to her
And below her coat she holds a knife, sharp with gilded handle
Stolen from the kings of Africa
There were never any paintings in the gallery Donald Friend
There was no love, no laughter, only Pollock's sweat and de Kooning's haze
Where were you today?
It is as if you have been erased from the easel
Nolan is a jerk
His art is that of a man in love with his own paintbrush
Not with his paint, not with his own love
Professionalism be damned! Drown the isles!
Drown the queen!
And here I am writing to you
My last ever letter
Shall I describe to you the muddy Canberra weather?
Should I describe to you how the July sky weighs barely enough for 6 cranes to hold her up
The clouds come cliding over looking for boats on the lake to mimic
The joggers wish themselves away while watching the world disappear
The do not see the blossom buds forming on the branches of the plum trees
Puddles grow larger although they are empty
Merely waiting for that next sweet downpour of rain
The thoughts of a thousand men are flooding the toilets in the library here
The laughter of the women find its way to me
I clog my ears with dust and my own electrified speech
Marble surrounds me, marble and wood panels
None of the blinds are really open
Yet every light is on above me
Except one
The one that will show me the way to your easel
Do I think of art more than I think of my bed and who is in it?
Do I think of life more than death?
Was Wilde a true inspiration or merely the northern beaches?
And what of the army- where did they hide your young thoughts for all those years?
Albury, Brisbane, Labuan?
Where are those men who you lied to but could not divulge written truths too?
The beast of the situation is that no one cares anymore
No one believes you anymore
Hunger pangs for you are felt by a few- growing fewer
Everyone is getting fatter on the neon nudes of kit homes and hash-tagged pornography
The blackboard on which your rosy chalk was pressed against has become smudged
With the perfumed hands of the lonely masses who believe they are alright in the hands of honourable Australia
Australia who has betrayed you
Here at the National Library they sell your diaries in four volumes
Thirty bucks a piece
Here at the National Library they are holding an exhibition of treasures
Patrick White spectacles are featured everywhere you look
I wonder what you would say to this
I wonder, Donald Friend, why isn't your paint box featured?
Where is your manifesto?
Where is your suit of Armour?
And the invisible people, soldiers all, become complacent
Become victims of their own honesty and breeding
The art gallery has been destroyed, its ashes are on the wind
The sirens still echo loudly, their blue and red song loud and piercing
Within this building I am so tired, thirsty, alone
Needing that hard embrace below those february poplars
I need to be punched in the gut
I need to be thrown out of the house for being deviant
For burning money at the table
Donald Friend, who needs honest breeding when you are on my mind?
Who needs Australia when the ashes of art are floating on the lake?
Who needs discussion when the grunt that appears on the compass appears once more on soiled sheets?
Stiff sheets loosen any curtains of smoke
And who was it that caught you D.F.?
Who believed in you the most?
Who fucked you the hardest?
Who offended the imagination that built your life?
My God! Donald Friend, we could be the strongest men alive and still we would not be allowed to test that strength!
People would strike us dumb with their whips and boundaries
But who do I believe in?
Whose tongue's song should I let into my heart?
And my thoughts flow to Africa
Like yours did
Yet the circulation has stopped and gangrene has set in
Should the wine come in useful?
Will the gun come in more?
And now the debates have started over who is the real man and who is the sketch
Who the real lover is behind the target
They have hanged you Donald Friend
But your colours have not faded
They are stacked against one another in a darkened room with neither light nor food
I am sitting here in the library and I can hear them all wheeze in my mind
I can hear you coughing waiting for the whole country to drown in the ashes of the National Gallery of Australia
Lately Donald Friend I have been feeling as though it is time to resurrect you
How would you feel about this?
Please let me know within the hour

Fondly yours,
TIMOTHY