Poetry Creatrix - Issue 7 December 2009

Selectors/Editors: Peter Jeffery and Anne Dyson
Administration: Sally Clarke

Poets in this issue:

Derek Fenton

Sue Clennell

Laurel Lamperd

Flora Smith

Gary Depiazzi

David Barnes

Rose van Son

Colleen O’Grady

Sally Clarke

Meryl Manoy

Annie Otness

Natasha Adams

Brian Langley

Paula Jones

Dean Meredith

Michael Williams

Coral Carter

Judy Paice

Janet Jackson

Geoff Stevens

Jacqui Stewart

John McMullan

Tony O’Donnell

Liana Joy Christensen

Peter Bibby

Ron Okely

 

 

 

 

Rocking Up On A Distant Shore

 

At Augusta in Flinders Bay

on the southern tip of WA

there is a derelict jetty

with only a few rotting pylons

which once serviced a thriving

Karri timber industry.

 

Dotted among the flaking supports

are foreign misshapen rocks

brought from the Cape of Good Hope:

ballast, discarded and left to fend for itself

in shallows as beautiful as those from where they had come.

 

For over one hundred and fifty years

the ocean has hewn and polished them

so that, unless you were told,

you’d think they had been there always.

 

I paddle in the freezing pools among them

as I had done as a child in Cape Town

and wonder how long it will be

before Australian life rounds off

my sharp, misshapen edges.

 

 

Derek Fenton 

 

 

Rhythm and Blues

Missing Persons

 

I looked all over the United States,

but I just could not find them anywhere.

They had met the most terrible of fates

and seemed to have vanished into thin air.

In most places where they had tried to shout

their blasphemy at a poetry slam,

Derrida, Foucualt and Co. drove them out

onto a witness protection programme.

 

But they are persistent little buggers;

Reginald Rhythm and his brother Rhyme:

in a poetic scrap they are sluggers,

leaping from the canvas time after time.

When you think you have delivered the fatal blow,

they’ll be up and at you before you know!

 

 

Derek Fenton

 

 

Home Sweet Roam

 

My home is a backpack on wheels:

my front window two bloodshot eyes.

No idea how homesickness feels.

My home is a backpack on wheels;

different table for all my meals,

every day a pleasant surprise.

My home is a backpack on wheels:

My front window two bloodshot eyes.

 

 

Derek Fenton

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Angry young girls

 

Angry young girls

come out at night

to bury the bogey man,

buy houses bite necks

gatecrash glass ceilings

with back lane ladders

write graffiti on boys’ hearts.

Chic to the bone they

taste of ginger salt and sand,

wind snakes around wrists

dip their toes in stock markets and

keep love letters in kitchen drawers

next to the corkscrew.

 

 

Sue Clennell

Previously Published by Speedpoets.

 

 

Black Genesis

 

I shall paint a tapestry of colours

with my blood

soil red, sun orange

bone white, think hot.

This is the centre heart

my heart beats with it

against it, a part of it.

 

I shall lick the brush

spittle becoming a pool, cool,

green not green, blue.

Blue mountains when they are really green

it is the air that makes them so

and makes the rock purple.

I did not mean to do it

but it is good.

 

The people will be brown

they need no clothes

the earth is theirs

to wander.

The man goes hunting

paint still fresh on his body

said is the woman at the going.

 

This is the way of it parratya,

the man kills the snake

karnalu pitiya wamana

or the snake kills the man

karnana pitiya wamalu.

 

From my armpits

goannas

from my groin

all which is bitter, sad, sweet.

Mine was the beginning

yours to finish.

 

For me

you too will paint

in caves

metals, plastics,

skyscrapers.

 

Your souls will galah screech at me

your wings will soar

to places I've forgotten.

 

So long as you remember

you are part of my picture

I will find it good.

 

 

Sue Clennell

Previously Published by Poetry Australia.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Toxic Bloom

 

We saw the ibis

rise above the marshes

soaring in formation

towards the sun.

 

Below the red gum forest

waited their return.

 

The marsh is dying

said the scientist.

Civilization has tamed the river,

harnessed it

used it

for things alien to the land.

He picked up a stone

and tossed it

at the dead trunk

of a red gum.

 

 

Laurel Lamperd

Previously Published in Grass Roots August 1994

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Pure Bull 

 

I am Blue Ribbon, Best in Show,

my head held high, huge testes low.

Reliabull, dependabull and infinitely capabull

of impregnating any old cow

from paddock runt to well-bred dam.

I show those cockies what I am

and when and where and how!

Adaptabull and sociabull, I charm them all;

so affabull, so truly incomparabull! 

 

 

Flora Smith

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Begging

 

The beggar casts a pitiful look

fishes my depths for compassion.

My eyes avert to the sea of pavement

sidestepping to avoid the hook.

 

His circumstances unknown

all that exists presented here.

The unshaven face, city grimed

clothes that decry fashion, discards

an odour of more than city streets.

 

Drink to conjure it all away.

A life that never ends well

drifting away, wrecked out of existence.

 

Proffered hand presses closer.

A hand that once held

a life, the world

tender, creaseless

now calloused, sullied.

 

A hand that has caressed coldness,

craved overfilled bowls, grasped

endless handrails as he staggered

the streets searching for security

warmth of heart.

Unfound in a sterile city where people with

unseeing eyes rush to be somewhere else.

 

My step falters, something reels me in.

A camaraderie born of necessity

pangs of the Samaritan

or barbs of self-reproach.

 

Reach into my pocket for loose change

for this one touched my soul

gripped my heart.

For a moment our hands touch

and we stumble into each other's eyes.

 

Loneliness knows no bounds.

 

 

Gary Depiazzi

 

 

Drought

 

And the drought begins to kill

sons and daughters fall prey.

Unseasonal dryness desiccates

the strongest will, shrivels

the most buoyant spirit.

 

Dust, fine as angel hair

billows in roiling clouds

rolling the landscape

fresh painted.

 

Seething carpet of grasshoppers

gnaw brittle twigs.

Crows caw, black shadows

in midday sun, a consort

of clouds flap their emptiness.

 

Emancipated sheep flock

green slimed troughs,

nuzzle life’s elixir, eyes glazed

on distant rememberings.

 

Farmer walks clouds of dust

each step loosens flocks

of dollars to the wind.

 

He tries to recall how big

this paddock is.

 

 

Gary Depiazzi

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

on the edge

 

if you could hear me

screaming- not being heard -

invisible in this world i did not shape.

 

an ageing man

eyes looking for shadows,

of where I have been, where I am now.

 

if you could see the shrunken soul

Curled up in silent solitude,

incapable.

 

i must close windows- pull the drapes

lock doors; the time of the interloper’s draws near -

two legged crows are what they are.

 

Crows would delight in my delicateness-

 

 

David Barnes

 

 

Materialization

 

Today I saw Picasso

in my kitchen,

he glanced at me mournfully

a sinister jaded green, stark within the frame

on my wall ...

 

thin, gaunt, haunted,

haunting eyes, frail flesh, skin on bone.

So much grief

cleaved to canvas.

 

Did he ever understand

understand the impression, he would leave …

 

that millions would pass,

through colors ...

in to his world, of worlds within.

 

His gaze left me,

feeling ...

Somehow, a work of art,

paint,

 

ready to dry out

drying, deteriorating with age.

 

I deduce one day,

my son will say of the picture

he holds of me;

my flesh, skin on bone, was pastel,

not jaded green;

 

and in my passing, I was no, Picasso.

 

 

David Barnes

 

 

footprints fade

 

as i hiked

along a blood-red sand track

of bush, with scattered gum-trees;

 

an elderly woman

wearing a sweat-stained stock hat

shuffles before me,

occasionally stooping over seas

of diverse wild flowers,

with arms, sun-blotched

withered by time.

 

i picked up a stem

of a dry, fragile leaf,

with asymmetrical

etched gossamer veins

its vascular tissue

visibly thin.

 

it reminds me

of a still image, an imprint

to the brittle leaf

I hold.

 

 

David Barnes

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Church: Old Town Warsaw

 

Her mother married here

where mosaics

carve windows

blind sky

 

Her mother

in childhood red

kneeled altar thin

to pray

make amends

while all around her signs of war

trembled walls

 

marbled floor and flowers

bell-like shrines

 

Maria in icon

halo shroud

 

Her mother married here

scarved in white.

 

Two from the back

her father draws a pew

remembers 

earrings she wore the

tear in her dress that night.

 

How Maria’s halo turned white gold

in light

 

Silence sanguines his brow

 

 

Rose van Son

 

 

Friendship

 

Do I pass you an olive branch

like notes we passed between desks

now that we no longer talk

tell secrets

the reasons for which we have both

long forgotten?

That last time we met the coffee was cold

long before your eyes closed the door

long before I had finished

licking froth from my cup

 

To speak of moments remembered

when we sat with small children

our knees knocking

the smiles on our faces

in bottles

birds laughed off the perch

taking time to talk

of nothing

special notes wedged between us

 

Mouthing words

locked out of our lives

 

 

Rose van Son

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Ghost Town of Big Bell

 

An hotel reared its lofty head

Beside a lilac.

No patrons now it could be said,

Not since way back.

 

The walls are dusty brown,

Once were white.

Inside curtains billow round,

Once were bright.

 

Pretty wallpaper covered in dirt

Peeling everywhere.

Drunken beds but no forms inert

Resting there.

 

Church with steeple rising high,

Pews in neat rows.

Long since pastor raised his cry

Of religious prose.

 

Bell no longer on its stand,

It tolls nearby

To call the boss and hired hands

Coodardy Station nigh.

 

House stumps stand neatly

Along the street.

Give mute testimony

Of houses once neat.

 

Pool is dry, hospital empty,

Creeper bloom.

Mine paraphernalia and shanty

Like the tomb.

 

Once a thriving community

But gold gone.

Now a dusty, dirty entity

A decade on!

 

 

Colleen O’Grady

 

 

National Emblems

 

I sit down to my humble meal

And see a new world there.

There are Mexican tomatoes and Inca corn

And English beef part of the fare

 

I gaze out of my window

And there I see with my eye

The Chinese rose, African Protea

And probably a Labrador fly!

 

Curious about our world now,

With things in such profusion,

I searched amid my humble home

And came to this conclusion:

 

My knickers were made in China,

My blouse is of Taiwan hue,

My jumper is off the Aussie sheep's back

And my jeans are United States blue.

 

My radiogram came from Britain,

My radio is Japanese,

A cup is the product of the Philippines

And a statue is Javanese.

 

My Atlas was published in Hong Kong,

My novel in Singapore

My history drifted from the Deustchland

And my poetry from the English moor.

 

That is some of my home you know

And now its down to me,

For I'm more than curious to know

Something of my ancestry.

 

My birth is that of Australia,

My ancestors of Irish stock

Mixed with the British and Spanish.

I guess I'm one of God's flock!

 

 

Colleen O’Grady

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Cloud Angels

 

Three days before Christmas,.

Gabriel flew over the suburbs,

large wings, celestial splendour,

mop of cloud-white curls

long robe streaming

in summer-blue sky.

 

Alongside him, a heavenly host,

haloes, wings slanting backwards,

flat-out, powering forward

like passenger jet liners—

having to go that fast

to get there in time,

alert the shepherds,

welcome the baby,

fill the sky with light and singing,

a two thousand years’ appointment.

 

Life not all rejoicing,

hopefully some would stay,

relinquish the honour,

gift soft white feather wings

to earthlings needing comfort

for saddened Christmases,

empty New Years.

 

 

Sally Clarke

 

 

statuette

 

handspan in height

she squats

on sandstone plinth,

smooth lines

exuding buddhist peace

calming our windowsill view

 

fresh from the river

sarong-wrapped

hibiscus-knotted hair

brushed and brushed

to sunlight smoothness

magnolia petal feet

crossed at ankles

elbows/knees make

pointed meetings

palm-to-palm lotus hands

supporting right cheek

 

almond eyes closed

smooth-browed

half-smiling

contemplative

 

she is serenity

 

 

Sally Clarke

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

A Sonnet

 

The sea like a capricious child

exhibits violent change of mood 

some days quite restless some subdued 

at times more boisterous and wild.

The weather may be calm and mild

with no disturbance to intrude 

on thoughts so often misconstrued

of currents running deep inside.

The child is also quick to change

a mood of joy to one of doom

emotions have an octave range

from high delight to depth of gloom.

So why do adults think it strange

that children sometimes rage and fume? 

 

 

Meryl Manoy

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Stitching

 

In the summer that I stitched it seemed that with each stitch

I lashed down my thoughts and sewed them fast

To make a garment for the winter night.

 

The seconds were each a puncture of the silk

And dipping and diving, the needle made out a design

On the formless fabric of my years.

 

Long days inside I stitched away, and locked the wind and sunshine out,

I pinned my soul into each piece, and appliquéd my mind,

Seamed my heart and wore it on my sleeve.

 

An hour was measured in an inch of thread

The pattern was lost that summer that I stitched

And all the colours of the world were dyed or dead.

 

 

Annie Otness

Previously published in Thirst.

 

 

Dream Lover

a narrative poem in rhyming couplets.

 

Awake one morning surfacing upwards from the deep

She carried a up bright dream from her sleep.

There was a shadow in that night’s vivid dream

That fell beside her shadow, and would seem

A presence that was a featureless shade,

But cognizant of every place and thing she made

All day. There was no place or thought

Or task or song or dance or work that brought

A millisecond’s grace or freedom from his presence.

Then walking in the sunshine of the park, she felt a sense

Of company beside her on the lakeside path, with no escape.

Then looking down, she saw a shadow taking shape,

Blending with hers to make a conjoined pair.

But looking up saw only the clear winter air,

And in a chill wisp of breeze, his voice,

Echoing the dream. He said ‘the choice

Is made’, and understood the soul remembers–

That past extinguished fire, flaming from the embers.

 

 

Annie Otness

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Note on Front Door

 

Dear Burglar,

 

Please don’t break in today

you see I’ve hardly cleaned

the floors are in a mess

and I haven’t Mr Sheened

 

I hope you’ll understand,

good help is hard to find

and I can’t do it all

I barely have the time

 

With visits to the spa

and classes for my art.

My nails have just been done

I don’t know where to start

 

I need to hire a Nanny

And find a gardener too

A housewife’s life is hard

a stressful thing to do

 

You mustn’t see my house

in such a wretched state

kindly check your times

and advise another date

 

My cleaner comes on Friday

so could you come back then

please RSVP below

and let me know just when

 

Yours Truly

Merrillea Faux-Pride

Lady of Leisure (L.O.L)

 

 

Tash Adams

 

 

Nothing Rhymes with Orange

 

I sit here

in my office cell.

 

I’m surrounded

by grey partitioning

that multiplies

like a virus

into endless

grey cubicles.

 

We work

like battery hens.

 

Grey people

with grey faces,

hooked into

grey computers.

 

I need a break.

 

I walk

a few metres

to stand

by a grey photocopier.

 

I stare

at a gyprock wall

with grey scratches.

I wonder how

they got there?!

 

Nobody talks.

We’re not allowed to.

We do our work

and go home.

 

Its dark

when we leave for work

and its dark

when we get home.

 

People die in offices and sit there for days

before a someone smells their stench.

 

I eat the same

food every day.

Sit in the same

lunch room with the same

twitching

fluorescent

light.

 

I think I’m going to die here.

I spend my whole life

here. I’m dead already,

really.

 

I throw my head back

and take some vitamins.

 

I wouldn’t know

what season it is

’cept I can smell someone

peeling an

Orange.

 

Ahhh

Winter.

I love that smell.

 

 

Tash Adams

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Just a Butt

 

Was just a butt I tossed away.

I know I’ve often heard you say,

“That’s all it needs, one tiny spark,

To start a fire, to burn a park.”

 

But I just didn’t think that far;

I flicked that butt out from the car

And drove away quite unaware

That single butt lay smould’ring there.

 

A seed, that in a few short hours

Had grown to massive flaming flowers,

Consuming all, as on it grew

Livestock, trees and houses too.

 

Destruction, total in its wake.

I find it’s just too much to take.

I can’t believe I caused today.

Was just a butt - I threw away.

 

 

Brian Langley

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Katharine's Companion

for KSP

 

Shall I be your companion, dear lady?

Here in the growing gloom.

At the fraying edge of day.

As the parrots fill the sky with cheap talk.

In the buttersoft remembering,

or the hard forgotten?

Down the hall from the place where Hugo

finally fell.

The verandah still creaks with his step.

 

Beside the breathing, open fire

with flames like small stories

eager to chatter and be known.

Close the door. Let the copper kettle hiss.

 

Shall I be your companion

now that I am alone in this light?

Now that my coal grows cold

and the mandarins turn sour.

There are legends about this hill,

some are khaki; others black.

Men roam and men march these slips and knolls.

The crows hear their calls and cry.

In this living room there is me, and you.

I do not carry your story stones.

I do not know your song.

Let me be your companion, dear lady.

Let me share your load.

 

 

Paula Jones

 

 

Long Way from Home

 

Afghani boy in the classroom,

dark against the white-topped desk

hums so quietly a hill song

as his blunt pencil traces Spiderman

on his clean, flat worksheet;

blackens the eye sockets

leadens his skin

adds dust and grit beneath his toes.

 

Afghani boy in the schoolroom

cool and quiet as stone

hums a song of his grandfather

tall and thin and faraway,

caught in a web of caves and rock

his fingerbones clasp warm metal

his dry lips crack open a smile.

 

Inshallah, the tune carries

God willing I see you once more

Inshallah, the boy remembers

God willing you shall return.

 

The pencil continues to scratch

as the fat teacher scolds,

her chin the skin of a goat.

Umut! her voice bleats, throaty and deep

Time for you to do some work.

 

He throws the song off a distant rise

swallows it down like bitter weed.

Inshallah, I will see you once more

Inshallah, I shall return.

 

 

Paula Jones

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Going Things

 

And when you’re gone…

I’ll have one less thing…

And until all my other things go

I’ll have them…

And when they’re all gone …

I’ll have nothing…

Which is at least a word?

 

 

Dean Meredith

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Some Call It Dawn

a pantoum

 

The rising sun has broken night;

some call it dawn, some call it day. 

In this morning’s growing light

the dark of night creeps quietly away.

 

Some call it dawn, some call it day,

as with my pen this verse I write.

The dark of night creeps quietly away,

the moonlight and stars fade from my sight.

 

As with my pen this verse I write

a multitude of thoughts flash through my brain.

The moonlight and stars fade from my sight,

and I’m aware that it is dawn again. 

 

A multitude of thoughts flash through my brain

in this early morning’s growing light,

and I’m aware that it is dawn again,

the rising sun has broken night.

 

 

Michael Williams

 

 

Overnight Sounds

 

Sharing my insomnia,

carolling magpies

provide a 2am descant

to the rumbling bass

of loaded semi-trailers

passing towards the wharf.

 

Eventually, I doze off,

lulled by this orchestration

of overnight sounds,

and wake later

to find my pulsing bedside clock

winking a red-eyed 4.30.

 

Outside, honey-eaters and kookaburras

incessantly repeat dawn’s password,

summoning spreading daylight

to progressively extinguish

the myriad pinpoints of starlight

which dome the fading night sky.

 

Unperturbed by their sleepless night,

magpies perch in silhouetted trees,

whilst down at the wharf semis come and go;

cranes lump their loads;

fork-lifts pallet their way about,

and gulls scream their dawn protest.

 

 

Michael Williams

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Lowbrow in the Artists Home

 

I see gladiatorial battles rabbits versus sheep limbs being torn half human half mouse red in tooth and claw frying babies fed to dogs metal men nibble burning haystacks skewered humans scream over licking flames blood sucking flesh flowers bloom skulls in burning oil with eyes that still see the dead enlivened again again again bandaged heads leaking wounds pantry full of genitals living machines pump blood into rivers dams of pus filtered through the mouths of babies holes in stumps homes for furry creatures of evil intent armed with blades implements of torture half brains living a life of their own in forests of injured legs broken bones through rotted flesh nests for birds broken windmills turn without wind horse drawn boats and bees holding up the sky.

 

 

Coral Carter

 

 

Getting Away with It - James (Live)

 

We eat sesame seed crumbed pork

almost roasted too long wedges

blood orange with rocket salad

Greek yoghurt, mint and garlic

we are filled with

 

delicious edible divinity

glasses of champagne brut

drank ourselves to girlhood

played the music louder

Daniel’s saving Grace

I adore with the singer

my friend bags the keyboard player

she’s out in deep water

I want the shirt glued to his body

his sweat really undoes me

I hope he’s a good swimmer

all poets are now singers

she shouts as we are dancing

we dance never ending

until she is in love with the keyboard

and I am in love with the words

that’s called living.

 

 

Coral Carter

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Wild North

 

The Kimberly land apparent.

Sparse desert, bottle trees.

Helicopters flew overhead.

Water trickled over ancient rocks.

 

I don’t belong here:

Corrugated.Vibrated.

Beehive mountains, red.

Moonlight on savannah grass.

 

I could perish here:

Waterless creeks of stone.

Blue winged kookaburra.

Billion years old gorges.

 

Parched earth, dead car bodies.

No fossils found, only art.

Unforgiven: I returned

To multicultural haven.

 

 

Judy Paice

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Graham Nunn reading

(The Queenslander)

 

Feet firm on his country's ground. Head

among its stars.

 

 

Janet Jackson

 

 

suck faint amity

 

At the end

the days are long and hot

and the nights are long and cold.

The only plants left

repel tongues, survive

fire. The only animals left

can hide anywhere.

The few remaining humans, knowing

no more, suck faint amity

from the bitter needles, greyish

trees, grey creatures and grey

and ochre rock.

Earthface thrusts out flare-flowers: one more vanity:

howl-azure, shriek-cerise, desperation-gold.

 

 

Janet Jackson

 

 

shitload of pain and all

 

I want to give you everything I have

while still keeping it all

for myself

And I want to take nothing, not your

freedom, never that

I don't want to change you

I love you just as you are

shitload of pain and all

for no reason at all: simply

I can see your depths

No, not to drown in

I want to put my own depths

beside yours

and compare them

 

 

Janet Jackson

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Shadow Puppets

 

on an earth

cut into deltas

a flock of birds

flatten themselves

in flight

 

 

Geoff Stevens

 

 

Bonny And Snide

 

Finders is not necessarily keepers

cheating is a steal

men commit grievous mental harm

women manslaughter.

Togetherness can be a life sentence

but solitary is always so.

Get yourself a partner in crime.

Love is murder

is the electric chair.

 

 

Geoff Stevens

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Accident

 

Knife slips easily

fillets my finger to the bone,

flesh like soft cheese.

 

Stupidly

I watch the thin red line widen 

into fear, panic pulsing like blood.

 

Bandages conceal distress,

comfort

the severed flesh.

 

But still I hear the muffled cry,

mourn the loss

of pale perfection.

 

 

Jacqui Stewart

 

 

Burnt Toast

 

Toasting bread

I glance at horror headlines

 

Young driver

New licence

Admiring friends

 

see where a tree's embrace wastes

lives hardly begun.

 

Remember too that hot hot day

when anger drove our car

from airport bar at Don Muang–

while our young children, waited

at home

 

and wondered

why death always comes

at inconvenient times

 

before new words can be said

or postponed journeys

made.

 

Seared by cinders of the past

I throw away burnt toast,

reach for fresh bread.

 

A second chance.

 

 

Jacqui Stewart

 

 

Last Morning

 

Two days before Christmas

I watched our cat digging hole after hole,

squatting on each before moving

to the next

in a futile effort of will.

The children thought it funny,

but I knew she wasn't just practising.

 

As I stared at her

fear ambushed safe corners of my mind.

For seventeen summers she'd worn

our lives like a garment,

warm, soft and forever.

Was this now a trick

to get us used to her leaving?

A plan to dismiss our claims on her,

like an angry tenant looking for something better?

 

She stopped digging, paused

to rub grey fur onto my trouser leg,

waited for a scritch between the ears

before she was off again

to dig another hole,

hoping this time it would be different.

 

I knew it never would.

 

 

Jacqui Stewart

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Anglo-Saxon Eyes

 

My eyes are

Anglo-Saxon blue

attracting smiles

from doting matrons.

 

The memory of

my mother’s blue floral

dress brings a

glisten to my eye.

 

I treasure

precious moments when

sea and sky

seamlessly unite.

 

But nothing

can compare to

Antarctic ice as it

changes from light

blue to the colour

of a bruise.

 

My uniforms in

life are iris matched.

The suit, the shirt, the car

co-ordinated

to pass the test

of peers, or my

reflection from an

unexpected glimpse.

 

My genes set

off a wariness

in those whose

eyes are brown.

I know a careless

signal can be read

as red, so I

avert my eyes or

bow my head in an

unaccustomed manner.

 

I always

do my best to

open up my heart

just in case my

eyes emit an

unintentioned slight.

 

 

John McMullan 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Heroes

 

Progress...is a change of taste. As,

when necessity made hunters into heroes,

and there were generations,

dynasties of these

Heroes!

Heroes, who now are distasteful,

no longer necessary to our continuance.

 

I saw one yesterday,

one of those old-style heroes, (there are

still a few of them about)

his battle now for market share

of the pet-food trade;

his foresight telescopic, his mount

diesel-powered with

four-wheel-drive, its tracks

engrave its progress in

6-ply hieroglyphics

by Bridgestone.

 

He was not very heroic,

believe me.

If you looked at him, and

smelled him

and listened to him,

and thought about him,

you would not want

to touch him.

You would not want

to know him.

 

He was pathetic, this hero,

unlaved, unloved,

unshaven, unkempt and haggard;

for he keeps hunters' hours,

disturbing the darkness

with a Halogen spot,

a roar and rattle;

punctuating each

successful sentence

with a bang and

a whimper!

 

 

Tony O’Donnell

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Letting Go

 

Today I shall wear the river

striated in colours that become me

If clichés bloom like algae

blue-green, purple

let them.

 

I’ll not disturb the sediment

The soft sucking doesn’t scare me

as much as the toxins locked undisturbed

leave them be

 

Today I will float with the jellyfish

see myself in the silvered mirror

let myself lie

open to the whole untroubled sky

 

 

Liana Joy Christensen

 

 

Expectations

 

I did not expect the pest controller

to be seventeen

with skin the matte velvet

of moth wings

and pre-Raphaelite eyes

 

My startlement was no doubt

ill-concealed, but I tried

to keep my manner even

 

even when we crouched

 

side-by-side so he

could show me how my

dwarf peppermint housed

an empty termites’ nest

 

Driven out by black ants,

he told me,

touchingly earnest

 

Black ants

An unexpected ally in my

ongoing war against white ants

my shelter versus their food

 

It’s a dirty war I wanted to scream

Take you your youth and

your beauty and flee

Instead I simply refused his offer

of free rat baits or cockroach gel

 

 

Liana Joy Christensen

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Wheelchair in a Chapel

 

One would say at a glance there is much to pray about.

The chair stands empty at an angle to the altar.

A pair of wheels have the atrophied grace of athletes

On the blocks about to compete with one another.

 

The inner ring of the handrail, the outer ring of the tyre,

Circle within circle urging the ground to movement

But the brakes are on, the handles point backwards,

Suggesting what is past but always there behind.

 

The armrests imitate launching ramps

That know true aim and trajectory,

Canvas seat and upright back wait for—a weight.

Meanwhile the chair alone give thanks.

 

 

Peter Bibby

 

 

Garage Sale

 

One or two of these a week is usual but forty

per weekend tells you the town is going under.

The ground level ad, home-made and cheerful,

without commercial gloss or designer chic,

gives the latest address that someone is leaving

while they can still get out of the place

cut the losses, wrap the grieving.

 

At fraught crossroads and sweaty junctions,

running like a rash over traffic islands,

on cardboard boxes spared from the pack-up,

the signs are of what will no longer stack up:

dreams we can’t quite throw away,

things possessed too long for price,

junk that puts our frailty on display.

 

 

Peter Bibby

 

 

Benthic Beat

 

They debate the beach as a drive zone.

In it live worms that provision Siberia-bound birds,

Green turtles toil across it, egg-laden tractors,

and tenderest transparent sand-bubbler crabs

tiny as the fingernail-end of a newborn child

make miniscule devil’s marble arrangements

around a trillion trillion tidy holey-homes,

laundering the sand in grainy parcels.

Remade twice daily as the waters recede,

a crab conurbation, darkens the tidal plain.

 

At first there were only a few cars, now it’s traffic—

such fun does not stay long in the steering of a few—

they debate aesthetics, human freedoms, cultural rules

against reckless use, danger to infants, not crabs,

nor worms, nor migrating birds. With a hop and a flit

they can get out of the way, or dig for their lives—can’t they?

 

 

Peter Bibby

 

 

Girl Power Three

 

It’s a three girl burst,

A trio on the supermarket floor,

Close together, alternately

Leading, following

At a touching distance,

Laughing down the aisles

Hitting up the airwaves

With their game analysis

In their young team strip,

Red and black, bold colours

Gliding past the pasta banks

The aromatic rice and stuff,

All rattle, like an empty trolley,

Wondering what to eat,

Wolverine, voracious,

Deciding they’ll have chips—

Agreement about that,

And the courtside antics

Of a certain fourth party

Male of course, seen in retro,

Have them in fits. By the blush

It seems he was a fan, not just of the team.

Seems by the sighs they had it won

Until that last-second shot.

Damp patches, tunics cling.

How those legs had run.

 

 

Peter Bibby

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

SMS from Ludlow 

 

Dad, Hi

 

Just witnessed

a kite

swoop down

and almost catch

a bantam hen

 

Chook

just got away

by running

under the house

 

Spectacular

but not for the chook

 

John

 

 

Ron Okely

 

 

A Dog like this

 

With us–but not with us

Ninety-one years of living

Three years of slowly dying

 

Fractured hip

trussed up like a turkey

just out from the op

he was back on the mine

Just shift this girder Charlie

I can get myself out

 

In the ward

bright family idea

Let’s take the dog to see him

he loved it when he was well

 

Deep meaningful discussion with D.O.N.

Yes you can take the dog in

just don’t let it scratch my floor or

pee on the carpet.

 

Three flights of stairs

great fun for a lively German Shepherd

A few slips and slides

made it to the bedside

 

Old hand stretches out

to stroke the dog

 

Yes she’s great

My son’s got a dog like this

 

 

Ron Okely