Big Bill – Janet Frame

Focus on Frame!


Big Bill – Janet Frame

Big Bill, Big Bill, High School Boy, Accountant,
Cricket star, hero of Plunket Shield Play,
thirteen years ago I went to your wedding
at St. Kilda on a cold dark winter’s day.

What happened between then and now, Big Bill,
to bring madness, murder, suicide your way,
riding with us in a triple nightmare to your funeral
at St. Kilda on this dark winter’s day?

“It was all over so soon in the neat suburban street
with the faded flowers in the garden.
The time of firing, the number of shots, the angle of the bullets
are not relevant for long,
but love and dread are: love and dread stay.

Others may have the pleasure and curse of them now; not I.
No one will want to own me or buy me. Much wrangling,
cross-questioning, witnessing, will wear the time away
as I go in a triple nightmare to my funeral
at St. Kilda on this cold dark winter’s day.”




I found these poems in an old poetry anthology from school. Unfortunately there isn't a reference for where they originally came from.