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10 Mary Street (1 Viewer)

Myztery

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Jan 19, 2010
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2010
Hey i'm doing an assignment on Belonging and i want to do it on the poem 10 Mary Street by Peter Skrzynecki but i don't have a copy of the poem.

Can anybody please post a link to the poem or post it here, and also if anyone has notes on the poem i would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks.
 

randomnessss

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Oct 11, 2008
Messages
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2010
Uni Grad
2015
10 Mary Street

For nineteen years
We departed
Each morning, shut the house
Like a well-oiled lock,
Hit the key
Under a rusty bucket:
To school and work -
Over that still too-narrow bridge,
Around the factory
That was always burning down.

Back at 5p.m.
From the polite hum-drum
Of washing clothes
And laying sewerage pipes,
My parents watered
Plants - grew potatoes
And rows of sweet corn:
Tended roses and camellias
Like adopted children
Home from school earlier
I'd ravage the backyard garden
Like a hungry bird-
until, bursting at the seams
Of me little blue
St Patrick's College cap,
I'd swear to stay off
Strawberries and peas forever.

The house stands
In its china-blue coat -
With paint guaranteed
For another ten years.
Lawns grow across
Dug-up beds of
Spinach, carrots and tomato.
(The whole block
Has been gazetted for industry).

For nineteen years
We lived together -
Kept pre-war Europe alive
With photographs and letters,
Heated with discussion
And embracing gestures:
Visitors that ate
Kielbasa, salt herrings
And rye bread, drank
Raw vodka or cherry brandy
And smoked like
A dozen Puffing Billies
Naturalized more
Than a decade ago
We became citizens if the soil
That was feeding us -
Inheritors of a key
That'll open no house
When this one is pulled down.
 

Myztery

New Member
Joined
Jan 19, 2010
Messages
8
Gender
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HSC
2010
Thanks alot, and if anyone has any notes on 10 Mary Street could you please give me them.
 

birdflu

New Member
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Jan 23, 2010
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2010
Thanks alot, and if anyone has any notes on 10 Mary Street could you please give me them.
I like the way you do your assignments.
 

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