Almanac Poetry: ‘Vegemite’ – Tommy Mallet

Vegemite.

 

Summer rolls into winter,

into summer,
seamlessly consuming time.

 

We shop
an hour from our remote home,
every Wednesday.

 

Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday.

 

Or I do, depending on the wife.

 

Work finishes early,
so I can drive like a maniac
down from the ridge

to meet the school bus,
to drive like a maniac,
to give the kid 1/2hr of air,
some park,
then to swimming lessons,
to the supermarket,
for my shopping, our shopping,
the fuel pumps by the tanning sheds
for work supplies,
to takeaway tucker
for the skid lid,
the hour drive home,
like a maniac,
trying to beat my wife’s temper.

 

Under the pump, I forget anything and everything
not brought weekly,
not routine.

 

Back home we curse,
wringing one more life
out of toothpaste tubes,
one more week in the dark
of popped lightbulbs,

 

wash dishes using tired, dirty
rags.

 

   *****

 

This week, come Tuesday,

 

Tuesday, Tuesday, Tuesday,

 

I see the Vegemite is running low.
“Not this time!” I yell,
to the everyday,
to its friends
Fate, and Murphy and his Laws.

 

These things you are, that take
you down.

 

“Not, this, time!”

 

I write
‘Vegemite’
using one of the kid’s textas,
on my forehead.

 

Right there, above my eyes, big and bold.

 

“Not the Vege, you arsehole!”

 

   *****

 

The day’s hot,
a picture of summer
and work,
blue skies glimpsed occasionally
through deep gully canopy
and falling, scratchy fronds,

the one, thin brace of clouds,
spread fine,
reminding me of small,
low tide sandbanks,
lapped at by lazy waves.

Seen on lunch break
-cheap soup, head tilted back,
drunk from the can.

 

I don’t want to be here,
the week’s repetition filling me with pride
and dread,

 

year on year,

 

hard yakka, this skillset,
sameness,
that slowly breaks a body down.

 

   *****

 

Dirt sticks to skin and clothes
black with sweat.
I enter the supermarket a horror show
on loop.

 

Wednesdays, Wednesdays, Wednesdays.

Yet, the kid’s crook,
not here.

 

I’ve worked late in the bush,
to the equal of her
swimming lessons,
to pay for them all.

 

The Wednesday race is still on,
as it is each time she’s crook,
but to get home before
her bedtime.

 

Wednesdays, Wednesdays.

 

   *****

 

The day’s end grows into an easy dark,

as I drive back
over the ranges towards the fall home,

 

drinking the same poison bourbon,
listening to
the same shows, same shows, same shows,

 

knowing the same potholes.

 

“Shit!”

 

The Vegemite.

 

   *****

 

I march back into the
supermarket on close,

 

“Not! This! Time!”,

 

ropeable with myself and any and everyone,
angry with people long gone.

 

“Why did none of you tell me!?”

It was written on my
fucking head!
Good for a laugh.

 

Which is funny, that they
didn’t.

 

In hindsight.

 

Too scared of weirdos.

 

   *****

 

The day’s back has been broken.
The kid will already be asleep.

 

It floods into me
between isles 11 and 12;

there’s no more need to rush.

The supermarket’s winding down,
all customers,
urgency, if not stress,
feel gone.

 

The staff are winding down,
killing
time, time, time.

I stroll, adopting their world.

 

*****

 

A reflection of a tired man
catches my eye.
My forehead has too much dirt on it,
the comically drawn word
lost under knotted hair,
a blur.

 

Letters of some sort, maybe –
who knows?

 

Briefly, I’m no longer another
dirt-weighted orange work top,
another chip-eating seagull,
I’m that awkward kid
in school again.

 

The laughing pretty girls
were right.

 

Weirdo, weirdo, weirdo.

 

   *****

 

I buy the Vegemite;
another product neatly stacked,
along straight, well-lit,
stain-free isles,

 

give it the passenger seat,
in my otherwise overflowing cabin,
on the easy drive home,
to wife and child.

 

Home, home, home.

 

Thinking of Thursday.

 

Thursday, Thursday….
prep being planned,
and in that, already underway,

my head consumed with it,
work,

 

you don’t get paid for.

 

   *****

 

At home, the wife is sleeping

with the kid, in her bunk
again.

 

A shower wakes me enough
to write a bit, as it does

 

most night, most night, most nights,

 

before I go to bed without her,
one thousand frogs
underpinning the silence.

 

I miss her flesh,
that’s how bodies should sleep,
touching each other.

My final thought;
only routine ages you.

 

 

 

 

More poetry from Tommy Mallet can be read Here.

 

 

More poetry from Almanac Poetry can be read HERE

 

 

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