in the park By Stephen House

the town i’m currently living in has a park where homeless people hang out / it’s clear they’re homeless as they have bedrolls and bags and shopping trolleys of possessions with them / i pass through the park a few times a day / coming or going from where i’m staying to head to the beach or main street / i’ve noticed a guy in the park who drinks a six pack of bourbon and coke cans every day / he begins at about eleven in the morning and usually finishes late afternoon / while he’s drinking his six pack he listens to music on a portable device / sometimes after drinking a few cans he starts dancing / and he’s a good dancer too / often later in the evening he drinks wine with other park people / things can get chaotic / the group sometimes become loud and shout / occasionally a fight takes place / 

this morning i noticed the bourbon and coke guy coming out of a bottle shop in the main street with his six pack / he was with another guy who also had a bourbon and coke six pack / they were laughing and chatting / this afternoon on my way back from the beach i saw them together in the park singing and dancing to music / they were smiling and looked happy / that made me smile / they waved to me and i waved back / heading home this evening after having dinner out with a mate i saw both the bourbon and coke guys drinking wine with some others in the park / they didn’t look happy / no smiling or laughing / someone in the group was shouting / no music or dancing / i continued walking home / hoping a fight wouldn’t happen / but thinking there was a good chance it would //  

Stephen House has won awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s been commissioned often, with 20 plays produced, many published by Australian Plays Transform, and produced nationally and internationally. He’s received international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts to Canada and Ireland, and an Asialink residency to India. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His poetry is published often. He’s performed his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain from 2019 to 2022.