The Window Cleaning Sequence

These poems form a cycle. They were written in the first half of 2003.


Work in the recession

So we fell into windows:
I'd never found a job after high school,
though I'd worked the benefits system.

Dad had his mid-life crisis, moved from
psychology to rubbish removal and dragged
me along with him.
We picked up some good crap,
but the real estates are slow payers,
and always wanted a cheap job —

Windows were a better choice, and
better reflected the qualities
my father preferred:
"Clean windows
make a clean house
immaculate."



Wastrel

to be read
one face of the die must always be
pressed against the floor.

Equality between the points, planes and numbers
only comes when thrown.
Inverted and spun,
standing through centrifugal force
the die can become other
half-seen in the blurred oscillations:
the next deal of pot, soft smack for the gutless.
It was bravery or inebriation, or something else,
that led Charles to climb the Chinese elms
growing about the tomb
oblivion,
and all I knew was the toilet seat,
vomiting into darkness.

Perhaps that's why I didn't fall from the
seventh storey ledge when the
sash broke and the window slammed down,
as fast as I might have,
onto my hand, which,
after the rest of the windows were clean,
stretched out to collect the lousy seventy
bucks already spent.



How to really clean windows.

Don’t work in the sun, wind or rain;
you will not do a good job.
Try not to use the ladder when you are tired;
Those moments when you lose balance and
have to grab to avoid falling will increase in frequency.
Always use a chock on uneven ground
You will need the right tools;
those that put water on,
those that take water off.

Fill the bucket with enough water to last the job,
but not so much that it spills at each step.
Don’t put too much detergent in; soap leaves streaks.
Don’t put too little detergent in; grease leaves streaks.
Be careful of the bucket, especially in carpeted rooms.
If you don’t keep in mind where the bucket is each instant,
you will step in it, or knock it over.
The bucket must be longer than the scrubber.

The lamb’s wool scrubber needs to be squeezed of excess
water when you are inside; stray drips are
unacceptable, unprofessional, unwanted.
Be sure the scrubber is not too dry or you will leave streaks.
Apply it to the window, get right into the corners.
Use the non-scratch scourer on the kitchen window,
or any other heavy with grease spots or the like.
To avoid washing it twice, feel as you go with your
fingers through the suds for aberrations and remove them.

Outside, more water is needed for
the dust on the window and its frame.
If dirty streams mark the wall below,
respond with a sluice from a soaking wet scrubber.
Don’t get too caught up or you may do the entire wall.
Don’t worry about cobwebs clogging up the wool,
they can be picked up easily enough.
When you come across the yellow spots or drips of insect excreta,
use those fingernails you’ve been growing to scratch them off.
It is quicker than scrubbing, scouring or scraping.

Avoid using the razor blade scraper:
paint spots don’t especially matter and
can be picked off by fingernails.
Don’t use the scraper on the first visit,
unless it is a builder’s clean or in fact should be.
Don’t test its edge with your thumb.
Watch for where an angle grinder may have sparked onto the pane.
The flecks and glass bond and will chip the razor.
If: the blade is rusted or chipped or blunt,
there isn’t enough water on the window,
the sun is full on or there is a hot dry wind;
you will scratch the glass.
Don’t tell anybody and you won’t be liable to replace it.

Be sure to have a number of squeegees;
windows vary in their dimensions.
When the glass is washed,
take the towel over your shoulder
and rub it along the top of the window.
Swipe the corner of the squeegee across the
partially dried glass so that there is no water remaining.
From this small area, slide the squeegee to the opposite edge.
Be careful of the drips of dirty water that dribble
from the squeegee when taken from the window.
Dry the rubber on your shoulder towel.
On successive sweeps, tilt the squeegee so the end
overlapping the dry glass is down most;
otherwise you will leave streaks.

You need a perfect right-angle on the
black rubber blade of the squeegee:
If the edge is worn to a curve it will leave streaks.
Be careful of the clips that hold the rubber in the channel,
they tend to lift the ends of the rubber,
so that, at the end of the stroke,
where the pane meets the frame,
a thin sheet of water may remain;
when it dries the shape of it will be seen.

There’s an old song of lechery that most
old women remember to quote. Tell them:
When you clean glass, you look at the glass.
If there are views that might be seen through it,
they remain as far away as their distance, or further.
You will walk through their home,
see their possessions, their photographs,
the paintings by famous artists,
break bread, drink and converse with them.
If they are happy with the job,
you will return, again and again.
You’ll learn how the sun moves around their house.
Together, you can chart a course across years.
Remember though,
you: are not their friend
are invisible—
are only their window cleaner.



When you’re working

On a good day, when the windows
are made for cleaning— single paned
and big, ground floor all the way—
it’s important to look for
moss in a secluded corner,
green against the slick black bricks, or
lorikeet feathers in spiderwebs,
rainbows floating in gossamer.

On a good morning, just after the big
skylight’s done— before the sun’s gotten round
and made the squeegee streak—
you can rest for a moment, think of coffee and
watch the view from the rooftop,
the kayakers and water-skiers in the bay below,
the trees creeping back across
that burnt out slope over the water.

The sun on your arm can feel warm,
the hairs illuminated in a golden glow
as they prickle up at a cool spring breeze.
The sky will be blue, deep enough to fall into.
Maybe gang-gangs will shriek and tumble nearby,
incredulous red crests, black against the canopy,
and you might think— these then,
these are the moments of beauty—



We couldn't see the Opera House for its windows

Dad came down to town, all the way from
Lismore, and we caught the ferry from Balmain
to Circular Quay — the wharves, the buskers, the tourists
and looming over it all the Cahill Expressway
where the cars take on the noise of the sea.

And we walked through the crowds as we'd done before
round past the reviled toaster, past The Lunch Set
talked about. . . well, we talked and then
there were the figs growing out of the bare rock,
the woman who sprained her ankle in the gutter,
the Harbour Bridge with those ant people climbing it.

And we talked windows, those three and half
years spent together, working. Before
Dad moved to Lismore.
We stood and looked out over the water at
Kirribili House, turned. The path further round was
blocked; renovations. So we looked at Utzon's masterpiece.

Like most architects, he hadn't designed for
window cleaners. The overhang from the shell,
its mirrored form in the glass below
all meant for no easy access.
Maybe an abseiler, if he could apply the necessary pressure —
a bitch of a job we agreed; also,
that with the bird shit and the other encrusted filth,
it couldn't of been cleaned since the day it was built.

And we caught the ferry back to Balmain,
back under the bridge, past Luna Park and
Blues Point Tower. . . there,
all along the shores, were houses we'd worked on
but which, and where was hard to tell.
Everything looked different from the ferry.



The Colour of Glass

Riffaterre, in his essay, the semiotics of poetry,
discussed the mimetic and hermeneutic and the significance
of poetry,
how it says one thing yet means another.

Mimetic means: you can see the word for itself.
Hermeneutic means: you can see past the word.
The significance of the poem: what makes it poetry.

Then there are distortion, displacement and creation:
the techniques employed;
soap suds may slide down the glass,
drying in the sun or wind to leave
a thin film that remains opaque.

You can see through a clean window.
You can see a clean window.
In that difference lurks
the significance:

if you touch it, it is gone.



Now I'm a telemarketer

Maybe it was:

the long drought;
without the humidity the dust wouldn't
stick, the returns stopped returning —

the brand new Chrysler Roadster;
just missed from a three storey fall and
no insurance —

the three weeks of rain, the grey
weather that settled and stayed
until all of the money ran out —

the timing belt, the rear
shock-absorbers, the alternator, the
bearing's hollow moans on every drive —

the back, and the right shoulder,
neck cracks each morning, the weakness
in the arm with the scrubber —

the three thousand dollar piece
of glass, scratched by a new razor,
scratched by a new razor —

It may have been any of these, any and more.
Possibly just
the reflections in a clean window.