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Calm Voice

by
April 2024, no. 463

Calm Voice

by
April 2024, no. 463

On a fatherhood weekend, the men drag
a dead manna gum, chained to a ute, into camp.
They’re talking innocence. Is it inborn, or clad
layer by layer by behaviour? Around the grey stump
the men start chainsaws and crack beers, open
a phone (there’s reception), search innocence definition.
Blamelessness. Chastity. Childhood. But also
integrity, which means innocence. The confusion
– that integrity means wholeness too –
heats up when one man says he heard children
arrive with sin. Then two-stroke fumes
drown the twilight bush’s scat-and-pepper scents.
They cut it. Some of the men scream, some don’t,
when spiders erupt from the warm hollow.

From the New Issue

Comment (1)

  • I belong to an international Book Club called the Tough Guys Book Club. In essence it is simply a men's book club with a central organising body. But for some reason when men gather to talk about books it is framed as a mental health support group, whereas every other non-gendered book club is simply a discussion and friendship group for book lovers. It's at once frustrating and powerfully revealing about the challenges of communication between men who perhaps simply have little training in how to do meaningful talk.
    Posted by Patrick Hockey
    15 April 2024

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