The Gentleman Asks the Lady to Dance

From tongue to tongue she was sent
With words of praise and punishment;
Lusted, criticized and on display,
Her heart-broke, I heard it say:

"Oh my men! Can you cry,
Do you hear my anguished sigh?
Now you look at breasts to see,
Now return and dance with me."

Longing, I dropped a tear:
But then I saw another near,
Who asked, "what pretty delight
Calls the gentlemen of the night?

I am set to clear the floor,
Of all those who dance no more:
Follow me, not where you have been;
Pretty wanderer, live your dream."

In his arms, she discovered her leisure,
Her beat, her smile and her pleasure,
And in that dance that we fell before
Innocence was found and returned to all.

An abolutely ordinary night in multicultural Sydney

The word goes round the women with their cocktails,
the murmur finds men over their brandies,
in the band, artists look up from sheets of music,
the bar tenders forget the change in their hands
and men with condoms leave the toilets:
There's a naked lady on the dance floor. She is alone.

The que to get inside is banked up half an hour
and full of motion. The crowd are edgy with talk
and more come hurrying. Many run in Sydney's back streets
which minutes ago were busy main streets, pointing:
There's a naked lady inside. She is alone.

We all surround her, but only one man approaches
and asks her to dance, not as a man wanting sex
or a samaritan protecting a lamb, but as a man of his own means.
She looks, smiles and takes his hand and joins his clothed body
with her naked body - yet the dignity of her dancing

holds us back from their space - the hollow they make around them
as they glide around the floor, retain us in amazement.
Tongan bouncers back in the crowd, who wanted to seize her,
watch her, with confusion in their minds,
while the gentleman and lady give comfort to each other.

The Chinese will say, in the years to come, a halo
or force stood around them. There was no such thing.
The English will say they were shocked and would have covered her
but they will not have been there. The most acidic tongue,
the most puritan mind, the deepest lust amongst us

trembles with silence, and burns with unexpected
judgements of longing. Some on the dance floor feel shame
who thought themselves proud. Only the most naive minds
put down their drinks and move away from them,
as if eunuchs taking pride in their chasity.

Ridiculous, says an Italian man near me, and stops
his mouth with his hands, as if it uttered vomit -
but I see an Aboriginal woman, shining, stretch her hand
and smile as she receives the gift of dance from men;
as many others follow her and also receive it.

Some Australians commence a dance for sheer acceptance, and more
refuse to dance for fear of all acceptance,
but the dancers, like the earth, require nothing,
the naked lady ignores us, and dances with the gentleman
with his ordinary body, moving with her extroadinary body,

not breasts, not thighs, not lips, but movement;
two people sharing music, strangers meeting in strange land,
and when the music stops, she thanks him and walks between us
with her body unclothed, but with the dignity of a
naked lady who was asked to dance, and now has finished dancing.

Evading the hunters and scavengers, she walks down Pitt street.

About the poet/painter