Leaving Home

PETER SKRZYNECKI

About the Poem

This poem describes the poets individual experience of
emotional preparation and frustration in obtaining a job that
moves him away from home, it is a physical journey to a new
destination.

Leaving Home examines the feelings and thoughts about a

journey that is imposed on the persona. In this case, he has
been sent to northern NSW to work and he has no choice in
the matter.

The poem expresses his feelings of frustration and

powerlessness. It may subtly relate to his parents i.e. two
strands of memory combined his parents similarly had to do
things they had no power over, in their personal experiences.

Stanza 1
My first country appointment
Was the last thing we expected
Three of us, caught unaware
By ignorance (lack of
knowledge) and faith
(belief/trust):
Our dull-witted (ingenious
humour),
frog mouthed obedience
To the letter of the law.
Poet and his parents
believe in authority
without question. Used to
this treatment as
oppressed people and
immigrants (metaphor)

Contrast between
firstlast
dramatises the
physical journey the
poet is about to
embark on.
Peter Skrzynecki, has been
assigned a position away
from home, this relocation
he does not appreciate and
feels powerless. This is seen
through the metaphor
dull-witted frog mouthed
obedience

Stanza 2
Counting door handles, ringing telephones
And office boys with denture (set of false teeth)
smiles,
I waited three hours
For a two-minute interview;
Watching myself outside in the rain,
My severed head under one arm,
Body upright best white shirt and tie
A black suit to outdo
The Pallbearer (person who carriers the casket at
a funeral) of the Year!
A red-and-white sign at my feet:
Cabbages for Sale.
The fiddler (violin player) from Chagalls (a Russian
surrealist artist) village
Was inviting me to dance.

Stanza 3
The man behind the desk
Never once looked me in the eyes
His face the back of my application papers.
Hawk (pointy)-nosed, crew-cut (short
haircut), with
A Tally-Ho (small sheets, rolls, or leaves
of paper, which are sold for rolling
cigarettes) paper skin,
He was the millionth person
That couldnt pronounce my name.
No more, no less,
The verdict came next day by phone:
You must go.

Stanza 4
We packed the car
Like a war-time train
clothes,
Books, records, the
poems
Id started writing;
Said goodbye so
quickly
I forgot for a moment
where I was going.

Stanza 5
Three hundred miles
Up the New England Highway, I stopped;
Unloaded my bags for the night;
Swore that Head Office
Would not see my face again
Unless I became my own Scipio Africanus
(Scipio Africanus was a talented Roman
general who commanded the army that
defeated Hannibal in the final battle of
the Second Punic War in 202 B.C.)
Dreamt of three headless crows
Flying in a room
Whose walls were silently burning.
Bald, toothless faces
Stood at a window, laughing in the rain,
Clapping to a fiddles music
Their naked, hairless bodies
The colour of sour milk.