On Harris Street

Today it was very hot on my walk through Darling Harbour and on to Chinatown. I got onto Harris Street and saw an unusual truck with big black and yellow squares painted on it. There was a ute behind it also painted in glaring colours. The truck and the ute had illuminated electronic signs on their backs that told drivers coming up behind them to stay clear.

The two vehicles were making their way slowly up Harris Street taking down signs put up to make a clearway for New Year's Eve. The event finished and so the signs need to be taken down. The men in the two vehicles were jumping out of them to put up ladders and unscrew or otherwise unfasten the bright yellow signs that had been posted all along Harris Street before the event.

I made it back home after buying some sushi for lunch. After eating, I lay down and had a nap, knowing that I had to go to a psychiatrist's appointment later. I set the alarm. Before it went off I got up and left the apartment. I had to wait for about 30 minutes in the clinic's waiting room. I was somewhat restless due to the delay but reminded myself that it was like this every time I came to the psychiatrist's office. I always had to wait. When my turn came, the psychiatrist came out and called for me, so I went into his room and he closed the door.

I sat down in the chair he has assigned for patients' use and he sat down in his own chair. We faced each other and I talked about things that had happened recently, including the fact that I had gone to see a movie which was a musical. I talked about how rhyme and meter live on in popular culture even though in high-culture poetry they have been abandoned almost entirely. If a poem in one of our small literary magazines uses traditional rhyme and meter it is always striking for that reason, because since the 70s most avant garde poetry has eschewed rhyme and meter in favour of free styles.

My psychiatrist noted how I seemed to become animated when I talked about poetry, and it's true, I love poetry but I haven't written any for about two years. I haven't felt like writing anything during that time and it might have something to do with the move to Sydney, the fact that I'm not caring for mum any more, or something else. There are a number of reasons why I have given up writing, but it's not something that I regret. I just live with it.