Verse Start

360 Degrees

2010-12-28T09:13:00.008+11:00

I am aiming at a performance poem. From the second stanza it is meant to gather pace assertively in a rhetorical rhythm with a touch of southern preacher.

360 Degrees

The sign at Rosney Farm says Moonmairemener people

hunted kangaroo in the grassy forest,

shellfish from the river. Before the plough and barn

displaced Moonmairemener from their traditional lands.

Displaced

... a half regretful sort of word for theft.

So when is it just ok to steal

say sorry

… and not give the bloody goods back?

If we of pale face

need to wear the guilt of our ancestors lets repent

I say really repent

… or else I wish we'd all shut up

with the interpretive sign whinges

the whole steamy guilt reminder sauna.

St Paul gives the Greek of repentance

a complete total 180 degrees turn

a-round, 'I'm facing, I'm thinking

I'm stepping out in a whole new direction, brother'.

So if we really did an unprecedented bad

in all the Rosney farms around Australia

we should ... fix it

Not limp tokens

not interpretive signs wet with lament

not some marginal land returns

not patronising smoky ceremony

We really should just … give it back

pack up our copy of the gift of civilisation

in the suitcase and

head back to where we came from

and leave this country to the original owners.

I'm ready. I'll do it along with the rest of you.

Actually my own kit needs a little more space

sits in a shipping container

full of pumps and fridges and stuff like that.

Might get in the way after we all leave.

I'm going back to the USA ...

but wait ... I was bad there too.

Native Americans need that back

just like the aborigines.

I recalibrate my instruments

and my ship makes wake

all the way to mother England

clog the ports there with all the other Pommy ex pats

colonial bad boys and girls

waiting their turn with half of Australia

in the customs line at Dover

But then I remember my Danish grandfather and the pillage

loot and plunder on this the ravaged coast, the stolen land

My God man, send this ship to Copenhagen

but the DNA betrays me

and I'm also one of the raiding Celts from the east

raping the Danes and

they make me truck my shipping container back

on the highway

to middle Europe

home of the original Celts

and there with a long jake bark

on my engine brakes

I hang a slow left

toward the Slavs, my granny babushkas

all the way back to central Asia

and there maybe I can find redemption helping

the embattled Uighurs

my cousins who are trying to claim their piece of turf too

wouldn't you know

from the ubiquitous Chinese

who shoot them random in the crowd.

So maybe we can call in the Turks with a flotilla

(their specialty)

up the Yangtze river

to end this deprivation of human rights.

But the Chinese were here long before

making nice with my Slavic granny

and I'm in a few centuries easy steps

tracing my Mongol ancestry

down to the south Asia coast

down to the Spice Islands

displacing populations all the way

And arriving in my short sail canoe finding pearls

and fleshy comfort with

a black fisher girl

from the only people who never

displaced anyone

the place where the whole human story got started

on the hot beach flanks of the Kimberleys.

Damn. I was here the whole bloody time

and so I heave my rusty container

up on a pile oyster shells

crank up the generator

and pass out enough lemonades

to toast that old wisdom that says

we are all as bad as each other

but nothing a great slather of grace wouldn't fix.

Common Era

2010-12-26T18:53:00.012+11:00

I know him not

three times St Peter said

of the arrested one.

New calendars take Peter's part

warming cold hands

by fire of our denial.

With BCE we mark a birth

but hide the one who honoured

Mary's womb, who owns the day.

By year, by date, betrayed,

we know him not.

To Have and To Hold

2010-11-14T05:50:00.008+11:00

People have partners now

because marriage means

the same as it always did

can even be a negative

actually, some say

which doesn't tell why

gay couples are so

keen to own it

bag the vows

same way they

waylaid the word

not so many decades ago

when people were just

happy to be gay

no intimate bits attached.

Treasure in a Field

2010-10-04T08:03:00.004+11:00

A first attempt at a sermon in verse, delivered in Hobart 3 October 2010

_________________________________________________________________

"The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field.

Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant looking for fine pearls. When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it. Matthew 17:44-46

And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden. Genesis 2:9

He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life. Genesis 3:24

When the world was new the field was a lush garden

before the precedent setting wretchedness

when the soul of man unravelled

and the garden became a field

full with furrow, sweat and plough

Before the guardian with flaming sword

the field was a garden set wide with

Fruit laden trees tended by the Giver of Life Himself

who walked there in the cool of the day.

And at the centre,

splendid of position

roots hung deep in Eden loam

The treasure itself spread vast and

branching skyward with exuberant joy

leafy in unmatched abundance,

heavy with the fruit of fellowship

tasting of God himself.

The Tree of Life

Life without end

Key to the Kingdom

17 years ago in the dark of a still night

reluctant Marion and I

walked 2 hours in

along the Ida Bay railway line past the overgrown settlement

where only the grave stones stand

and buried an 18kt gold Tasmanian tiger

with garnets and black star sapphire

wrapped in hand painted silk and seated

at the centre of three nesting pots

each with a wax seal.

We dug deep measuring with care and compass

2 meters west of a monument

to George the III a wretched ship wreck

where shackled convicts drowned thrashing in their chains

simple stones piled facing the bay and

the lighthouse tip of Bruny Island

At one meter deep my shoulder thrust deep in the hole

to scoop the last of the soil, we sank our gold tiger casket

backfilled the sand, smoothed the surface like thuggies

and tossed the spade over the cliff

to conceal the evidence just as first light

undid the dark in the sky over the sea.

In succeeding years readers combed our book for location clues

And a fat pile of their enquires is bundled still

in a shipping container propped behind the house.

There are two that I remember well.

Do these two notes tell us more

treasure hunter truth than

our book ever told our readers?

Treasure hunter one:

Your Tasmanian Tiger book is about the number 16

examples:

road sign for Derby 16 kilometers

the villan's shoe points to the 16

on page 16

a checkered skirt shows 16 squares up

and 16 squares down

and Tasmanian Tigers have 16 stripes

Dear treasure hunter

… remarkable, utterly intriguing.

You're right ... 16's do emerge from page to page

… coincidental maybe

we did not plant them there

… irrelevant without doubt

they will not lead to treasure.

Treasure hunter two:

I love your riddles, stories and pictures

they make treasure of my experience

Your riddles are koans

evoking flash of insight.

Obviously no real gold waits in a dark hole,

only spiritual gold inside of me

Thanks for the journey

Dear treasure hunter,

The gold is real and buried in a field.

The word became flesh and dwelt among us

Here the field, Christ the treasure

Treasure hunter One reads the Word

by rules of his own

by a different paradigm

And why not?

Don't all paths lead to the same destination

Don't all Ways turn up gold?

Apparently not.

Doesn't in the end

everything equal everything else?

Not in my life

Not by the remarkable book.

Not by God's clues.

Isn't that unfair to all the other seekers?

the readers of other treasure books?

No indeed. The choice cries out

unique to all the world.

The prize beckons to us all

by a narrow path

and hidden in a field

And What of treasure hunter 2?

Is some newer truth concealed.

Is the Garden merely legend?

Is God none other than myself?

What gross poverty would make

a treasurer hunter

settle for this?

When resurrection surety is as real as

our gold tiger in a pot of clay?

When one stepped from the grave fully alive

for us to touch, to hold, to be speechless with relief?

If one can so misread our book...

God's kingdom begs a second look.

Four years after the treasure disappeared

into the ground a reader got it right

and rang one night to say

"I know where your treasure is."

and indeed he did.

And we retraced our journey of that night so long before

and filmed his glee to dig the casket from the sand

and wash it in the sea

A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in settings of silver. Proverbs 25:11

The Word fitly spoken.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

The Word who spoke the world to life.

The Word who first spun stars from dust

Who pilots exuberant galaxies round the rim of the universe.
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:14

Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. Revelation 22:2

So here the garden come again

He the treasure birthed in toil and poverty

unlikely in a small Galilean town

now beams such quality of light that

the garden city of our destination needs

no other illumination.

What cost then the field

to likes of us?

Everything. The lot.

All that you have.

All that you are.

Handed over to God

A man sold all that he had and bought the field.

And the treasure?

What then is in the box?

The embrace of God

the city of light

displaced is the wide dusty field

by a a river

the Garden of God full circle

shimmers, lush and wide

banked by fruit bearing trees.

Life without end.

Treasure unspeakable.

Is there another way to look at the treasure and the pearl in there parables? Is it possible that God himself is the finder of treasure in a field? ... or the pearl merchant and we are the treasure or the pearl of great price? Broken bread and the wine of communion reminds so poignantly that we are indeed treasured by God, so loved as his lost sheep ( another parable) that he divested himself (undressing all the way) as George Herbert has it, to come among us. And at great cost, the cost of his own blood and suffering he bought us, retrieved us, redeemed us, the treasure lost in the field of the world. He considered us sinners of such great value that he gave his life for us “while we were still sinners” the book says, lost and indifferent to Him. So great his love.

In Shapes of Numbers

2010-08-13T18:15:00.018+10:00

2, 4, 6, 8, 10

Even's a

....................Swan Lake ballerina

who acquired a

....................matron's chest

but recalls

....................long floating hair,

her

.............. fair figure

and being a

.............. couple

the day she wed.

1, 3, 5, 7, 9

Odd's a

....................lean youth

who found the

....................balls

for bold deeds, a

....................Fifties flattop

and

.............square shoulders

but now

.............sleeps

in a chair.

Breakfast After the Procedure

2009-12-17T13:11:00.001+11:00

“... take action on climate change … in the interests of our children and their children ...” Julia Gillard, Deputy Prime Minister of Australia

Eva could be damned about
climate consequences. She already
terminated one future to avoid
the heartache and expense.

So, she concludes over eggs benedict
and artful coffee, why pay
a high carbon penalty
for other unborn futures?

Image Loss

2009-11-27T10:06:00.000+11:00

When we walk Gershon Agron
toward the Old City
I take a quick shot of the consulate from
across the two way traffic
thinking how compromised the American pledge
the lack of intestine to make real
their repeated Jerusalem embassy promise when
quick as a shutter
security says show me the picture
then delete it he says and
I snap where's the freedom and
have to click twice, fumbling
prevaricating as he watches.
Later I wonder how close our
precious images horde came to complete confiscation
or worse what my flash anger assertions
may have provoked. They have to be
careful my gentle one ventures and
I guess, so do we.

Choosing Colours

2009-08-28T13:40:00.013+10:00

All my paints laid out
like religions in a row
and I slow to learn that
not every one is able
to lead me to truth

of human flesh
or that real prize
the human spirit
begging breath from my canvas

burnt sienna, raw umber, naples yellow
and the blood of alizarin crimson,
life bestowing blood.

I never met my father's brother that I can remember

2009-08-28T13:28:00.002+10:00

Uncle Tim left home forever one night
by way of the kitchen window sill
stealthy foot treads across the storm cellar door
“Poor dear boy,” my father would say in fond recollection.
Years later out west somewhere he stayed with us
mum said he made a move on her once when dad was away
said he'd taken up with Mormons for their women
had a couple of kids with successive wives
who I never knew either but I called him from Chicago on a hunch
one time when I was a grown man with a small son of my own
His wife said he was dying
they cut him open for his heart ... sewed him up again
when they saw all the cancer
Days later out in California I drove back and forth
in front of a shabby strip mall, the number on a piece of paper
finally found an alley between two stores
and back behind was a small apartment
all blank and empty beyond the screen door, his wife gone too
I never heard where.

Lost of the Moment

2009-05-24T06:53:00.002+10:00

Past and future couple like ravenous lovers
rapt in the moment
the very now of the impulse seamlessly
absorbed in rapidly ripening recollection.

Best loved are the fat fish
caught in the document net:
infidelities, betrayals, coercions
smelling sweet as melons wrapped in the news of the day.

Choicest Fruit

2009-02-25T19:42:00.000+11:00

I went down to the nut orchard

to look atthe blossoms of the valley,
to see whether the vines had budded,

whether the pomegranates were in bloom.

Before I was aware, my desire set me

among the chariots of my kinsman, a prince.

Let my beloved come to his garden and eat its choicest fruits.

Song of Solomon

He lingers in her vineyard suite

to taste her pomegranate cheeks.

refresh him, refresh him with apples

She gives her cherry to the king;

The feast day of their passion sings.

sustain her, sustain her with raisins

Be gone the desert dust, the lust

the tethered apes, the gold, the musk

the elephants by slow parade

the gilded queens in masquerade.

By none of these the king is stayed.

refresh them, refresh them with apples

Her freshly budded fruit of womb

her someday seed shall scorn his tomb.

sustain him, sustain him with raisins

By parables the God who sings

the fabled fig tree bounty brings.

refresh them, refresh them with apples

Line of Site

2009-01-01T15:02:00.001+11:00

Our foresighted builder dropped the window
line level to the bench top.
Helps when dishes are stacked there
to get some perspective on daily chores
cups and bowls beside the filtered sun, old trees
the declining hills
and soft lines of reflection,
my love’s form in the glass.

Love your Neighbour as you Love your Elves

2008-12-22T21:38:00.006+11:00

Chocolate boys pick Ivory Coast

plantations clean of red ripe pod those

skinny Christmas elves reach over reach

each a talent scout pick that Mr Miacca delivers

buggers and shuns, fresh recruits

taken for finger and thumb

far from their home sweet Santa circle.

Roused numb from his fever dream

mercy sleep where he hugs his mama’s

porridge bowl spoon that scrapes over scrapes

empty and in the sweaty equatorial waking

would fill his belly with those bitter beans.

Beans for the chocolatier

who presses sweet molded Christmas elves

neatly foiled in red net Santa stockings

each handed free at the local hardware

with every customer’s purchase.

Run run run as fast as you can

You can’t blame me

I’m the chocolatier, man!

Saturday House

2008-10-07T06:09:00.007+11:00

Huldah Isham, wife of Joshua, Bolton Connecticut, 1803

Late in the May of eighteen three

by furrowed field and budding tree

the family rafters fill with flame...

while Huldah heedless under the hill

rinses the clothes at the spring until

back toward home the load on her hip

out of her hand abruptly slips...

a smouldering slump is all she sees

ash in a field of budding trees…

but neighbours turn out in a neighbourly way…

and build her another by Saturday.

Four Saints called Ives meet the New Immigrant

2008-08-26T08:32:00.030+10:00

i

Ia of Cornwall (c. 500AD)

St Ives holding dry her skirts
floats on a leaf light boat
across the Irish Sea
to tell Cornwall of her dear Christ
and cruelly martyred be.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
Seven wives with seven sacks.
Fourteen hooded eyes look back.

ii

Ivo of Huntingdonshire (pre 1000AD)

St Ives by the Silk Road comes
travel stained from far Persia.
Leaves the lux of court and king
and under monk stone chants and sings.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
Each wife had seven cats.
Each cat had seven kits
All pedigreed, fair price to fetch.

iii

Ivo of Chartres (c. 1040-1115)

King Philip locks his wife away
“Too fat.” sighs he.
Now he can bed the fair Bertrade.
St Ives rebukes the lawless king
so to the dungeon now they bring
poor Ives but there he stoutly rants
against the other lord’s penchants
for simony and further
favors in finance.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives
and seven scimitars besides
each for a general who rides
to take this edict everyplace:
prostrate, the sacred city face.

iv

Ivo of Kermartin (1253-1303)

St Ives has hand upon a book
to show he’s patron of the men
who advocate the law.
But see his purse in other hand
extended to the street strewn boys
and girls who’ve lost their
mums and dads.

As I was going to St Ives
I met a man with seven wives.
The seventh wife was rather small
and in her hand she holds a doll.

Tableau

2008-08-12T06:38:00.000+10:00

Small black birds
by some faint sign flit from high wires
quick sweep the sun and oh
for less than the flick of an eye
feather-filter light on rampant wings.

Four and twenty black birds
by lines of light suspended:
long photon chorus lines dancing
back and back to first unfiltered moments
luminous with expectation.

Pain

2008-06-17T21:48:00.005+10:00

I’ve not experienced pain.
Not Victor Frankl’s Auschwitz.
Not teeth chiselled to the gum
like candidate John McCain.
Not repetitious electrode interrogation.
Not even, like my Marion with our first born
laboured into sight one thundery Thursday.

Gall stones grabbed my attention once
but they were soon handed to me
in a zip-lock bag.
Some people qualify to speak pain,
to understand why Lance Armstrong
wouldn’t have wanted to miss his cancer.

Does pain innocence make free
from yin-yang vortex destiny?
Can I savour the sweet verb of existence
without the counterpoint? Could I
like dancing Christ choose pain by love
to outpace the dark relentless trudge?

Always Sometimes Once Never

2008-05-20T21:11:00.001+10:00

Always is read
in the eyes
in plate and mug
of the heart.

Sometimes waits
coin on the counter
says he paid already
prayed already
sometimes shifts in his seat
red in the eye.

Once takes breath
holds breath hopeful
once rolls a large stone.

Never twists knobs, watches
toys with himself
plays with the moment
never looks away.

Semicolon

2008-05-16T08:07:00.002+10:00

He slows;
she passes.
He grins;
she blushes.
Wink
wink.

Door

2008-05-05T13:01:00.015+10:00

Vestal virgin I the door
stand among others
in the home improvement store.
I'm to have an angel’s role
with spread of wing to block intrusive wind
the uninvited eyes of men.

I witness careless words, conspiracies, the petty peeves
relieved at length by wink, by laughter, palms of peace.

I blush to see the wild and wet of passion’s tangled limbs
approach of little feet, the passion dimmed.

My dismay at brooding hunch
the huddled hands that pen a parting note.

At times I’ve only stillness days on end
when floating motes assemble on my edge.

I’ve seen a mum give voice to her exhausted joy
there glowing moist a little girl ... and boy.

Yet I’m no midwife, chamber maid or priest.
Unhinge me now and trestle spread a feast.

riddle poem 1

2008-04-04T21:08:00.003+11:00

As ideas flow
the shorter I grow:
What I put
is what you know.

One day, I fear
I’ll disappear
a tiny stump
a carbon lump.

I’m rescued when I finally see
these words you write are always me
transformed into another shape
I am the lines your mind can make.

answer: a pencil

Easter Morning Alignment

2008-03-25T17:19:00.003+11:00

Low ahead a beacon round
moon above the road
and dangled counterpoint behind
a bright planet keystones a pale arch,
trundles arriving light.
Centre piece above, the fading star-point
Southern Cross flanks two pointers
which bright-note the risen Christ.

I step back toward house and steaming mug
and my heart already plots
unworthy schemes of self interest.
So rich a fool.
A kookaburra scatters
sudden laughter from a near limb.

Terminal Pharmacy

2008-03-13T09:03:00.001+11:00

‘The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations.’ Revelation 22:2

When we lived at the end of the bus line,
the ‘Terminal Pharmacy’ sign
was visible just over the road
among other shabby little shops,
where one window I recall
had forlorn piles of stiff black shoes.
Foot wear for undertakers.

On a departing bus
I opened the book that begins
“In the beginning...”
and then, week by week, to the
“Surely I am coming soon.” last page,
the story’s terminus
where a bright pharmacy
shines welcome day and night
and my hand closes on a little chit
written in physician’s script
for glad embrace
when the bus pulls in at last.

Autumn Appetite

2008-02-15T20:41:00.001+11:00

So many blackberries
so few breakfasts
so soon the cold.

Samson's Riddle

2008-02-14T07:19:00.002+11:00

The English lion’s tawny sandstone carcass
has high vaulted ribs to arch a large space:
Tonight I’ll enter the cathedral
and ensconce I suppose on a long oak pew.

I’ll sample a few pearls of the honey
I’ve heard drip from a new comb.
‘Out of the eater something to eat.’
From the cavern, something sweet?

Ron Walks My a.m. Circuit

2008-01-16T09:51:00.002+11:00

Ron is in Michigan mending
they've taken out all the tubes
so this morning I carried him out the gate
and on to the gravel past the paddock
with the eohippus-small ponies
grazing and steep dog leg bend at the dead trees.

Today I smile to discover a short cut
on the too trodden path
down to the dry creek where dark pools stop
between the wide grey stone ribs,
cut another corner among the blackberry straggle
and stop to pee just out of sight of the road
the creek lovelier here beneath the cool dark trees.

We climb the steepest stretch
bitumin smooth between well tended acres
where two bluey dogs grey in the muzzle
bark dutifully at the fence, my breath heaviest
when the road at last levels a little
at the cul-de-sac and still further we scramble
up the public right-of-way zigzag bush track cross-stitched
by tree roots and knobs of dolerite
one hundred metres steep to the wide meadow
expansive kite-site sunny breast of earth.

We're halflings here in a broad space
descending gently to a tall stand of old growth eucalyptus
the path winding through like an old tale
to where path and road re-meet, the Volk's stone house
still unfinished, and decades in the making.

On the verge a wallaby newly dead on Thursday
is now reduced to vertebrae, empty fur coat and a grimace
stretched back from small teeth skewed and ivory clean.

Look Ron, how bright the distant bay
above this high road as we turn for home.

New Year

2008-01-01T14:38:00.000+11:00

The last day’s swelter of an exhausted year
is party-draped with dead animal odour in the still air
where the green copper cock marks reproach by faintest drift
calls west by northwest and I perplexed scrabble for the source…
perhaps it arrived with the wheels in the drive
across the calendar and coincides with December’s
competitive Strait sailing and up the tangle tree gravel drive
where oak, gleefully collected as acorn
by pairs of quick small hands
is now chewed to a struggle of stubble
limbs tortured to painful skew breaks
by demon possums in the night.
Two brothers make guarded rapprochement
at November’s wedding, the young wives
as yet not met after the hurt
returning at year’s end in uncrossing turns
to the clay and timber of births and beginnings
where I awake in this new year’s birth bed
sense these yet unsullied days, the Christmas book
under my hand where the heart angles for prospects
and there faint in the early light I sniff
the scent of its binding, pages blank and new.

Standing in the Secret & the Secret of Standing

2007-12-09T22:34:00.000+11:00

The white paper kangaroo,
atop the grey stone is
ballast for Alice dressed in blue
and weight against perilous
Leviathan on leather wings
who slow flaps low the dark sky.
And all the stars sing softly
signing, sighing their dismay
as wayward dark
undoes the bright of day.
Long and slender the thread
deep dyed a blood red hue
that may by might of humble things
enigma’s night undo.

The painting is unfinished ... still finding its way. I will post it again when finished. It may become part of a series orbiting around enigmas and riddles.

The white paper kangaroo

atop the grey stone is

ballast for Alice dressed in blue

and weight against perilous

Leviathan on leather wings

who slow flaps low the dark sky.

And all the stars sing softly

signing, sighing their dismay

as wayward dark

undoes the bright of day.

Long and slender the thread

deep dyed a blood red hue

that may by might of humble things

enigma’s night undo.

Christ Lite

2007-10-28T01:17:00.001+11:00

The long parade of our betrayal
would likely make a Judas pale.
Good Christ you're vulnerable to this
and we persist, the destination closed.
You're little missed.
Centuries of selling cheap the cross
we scarcely recognize our loss
the fault we proudly find
is not our own.
Blind our unmade eyes
despise the bleeding weakness
that inverts our fondest pose of power
that readies the world for rescue.

Imago Dei

2007-10-14T11:38:00.001+11:00

(Response to Totally Optional Prompts)

In a dreamer's tale is a sack of coins unearthed from his own hearth.
This very hearth reveals surpassing treasure,
coin that breaths at the pine table on kitchen chairs circled close
brewed in a silver teapot tarnished by season's neglect, by pain
burnished anew in transactions of soul sipped
from chipped cups, elixir that lingers long on memory's tongue.

Today again his gaze glances the soft gleam patina-ed by years of your
heart's tread across this threshold your reflection misted in steam
your word enfleshed fragrant as tea a wetness at the eye's edge.

Reveries

2007-09-22T17:29:00.001+10:00

morning
On a dusty street, dry sun
aslant a warehouse floor
where crinkle filament
particles hover in a long white shaft
and deep in the dim within
a small boy holds his father's hand.
There round manila barrels
stacked rim to rim with
whiff of spice in the stillness,
cinnamon, cardamom, cloves
dust of paradise.

noon
Soft vinyl tops a tall stool
edged with wide chrome
screw heads a pattern of bumps
under his fingers, legs dangle and
round seat spins at the health food counter.
One final revolution ends at
a large fluted glass of carrot juice
with froth of foam to make an orange mustache.

night
He lies across the back seat
feels the motion, the highway dark sky
gaudy neon constellations
a big dipper lager empties light by light
and instantly refills.
There the long tail comet trucks
rocket past emitting gravitational sound suck
strung along orbits, ribbons arcing
far into the night.

Chief End of Man

2007-09-02T02:20:00.001+10:00

(Response to Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'The End'.)

Back then was occasion
to unravel a tangle of twine.
'First find the end,' she'd suggest
and slowly she'd tease out the rest
knot by knot.

No place now for small ends.
Surround sound destiny
animates the wide wall screen.

Sink Feeling

2007-08-26T19:07:00.000+10:00

(Response to Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'I get that sinking feeling'.)

At sink I reach to turn the tap
my routine stance
with loud harangue by cat.
As frozen meat ball slips the tray,
new sun alights the awakened bay,
in far sheet glistening
bright, bird silence listening,
and I once more the expansive vista drink
from work day posture at the sink.
The microwave be-beeps the unfrozen meat
my carnivore cries out to eat.

Love Finds a Way

2007-08-13T17:52:00.000+10:00

Qur'an readers find
God-come-in-flesh
scandalous.
And it is.
How can God be God
and stoop to that?

Food for the Road

2007-07-29T22:16:00.000+10:00

I have topped my plate with fare
from Savannah to Bel Aire
and there are places that I know
I've yet to taste, but still
I have partaken well.

I have never sampled Rome
savoured frescoes under domes
perhaps one day I will.
But I've already broken bread
on another hill instead
in Jerusalem
ah, Jerusalem.

Past Perfect

2007-07-24T07:22:00.000+10:00

Chapped fingers snag the fabric
as fold upon fold the future frays
imperfection in a watch tick twitch
predicts the stiffened past where a man's collar
maps perfect shoreline spread in
dried pretense, the sweaty stains
gray crust of quick-buck schemes
rosy tinted ass kiss
ground in, the yellow
pique of petty peeves
all perfectly preserved in
the perfectly delicious tabloid past.

Bolt upon bolt unwinds the lighted
sweatshop night dance, the fingers
blur all our loss in the needling whir
of this moment's obsession,
quaint relic Redeemer
assigned his half remembered slur
does not appear, we much prefer
this moistened moment as our own
with all it's juicy past foretold.

Singapore Sing

2007-07-12T07:27:00.000+10:00

A hundred head scarves, maybe more
black among white pulled tight
carpet seated clustered, captivated
alongside Dior and other flashy
fleshy airport ads

they lean attentive

toward a group of youths and girls
who spontaneous, stand by
to sing and mime in language
they're quite drinking in.

Afterwards an animated girl
among the singers says
two dozen words about a God who
shows his love by death
and offers up his work
by life remade.
The head-scarves all attend, then
clap and wave their thanks,
make much of them.
And afterwards I tell the forthright girl
that she's been brave to speak.
"Not so brave as them," she says,
"To Saudi Arabia tonight they fly
to serve as maids."

Australian animal art

2007-07-05T10:17:00.000+10:00

I have been posting poems on Terse Verse for over a year. And I will continue as ideas surface, though probably less often because of energy and time going to a new project experiment.
Later in July my collaborator, Marion and I plan to start posting frequent (probably 5 days a week) original Australian animal art here on a new blog. (Paintings and hand-made prints.) If you would like to receive an email when the first piece goes up, please leave a comment below or send us an email:
steveATbandicootbooksDOTcom

BTW our books are available from Bandicoot Books. :-)

Peacock and Sparrow

2007-06-26T20:11:00.000+10:00

Poetry is a peacock.
Poetry preens gawk-able form,
primps her position, her shape, her figure,
strews

......cascading

..................steps

.......................across

.................................the

.....................................page.
Poetry has designs on painting,
wants to be thick-as-icing wet colour,
3-D cool as marble Venus,
hot metal Moloch with outstretched arms,
the eternal stupefying Sphinx.
Poetry wants to play street side saxophone solo,
fragrant as a girl in heels
as she exits revolving doors.
Wants to be an art house movie with gritty city streets,
with jolts of altered consciousness.
Poetry wants to be the world
sucked from an ice cream stick.

Story, is a sparrow.
Story disappears, flits
to the landscape of another mind
nested forever in the hearer.
Story is a finger, bony and gnarled.
Story points away from herself,
points till the embers die
points till the last dull sheen
fades from the old clawed nail.

Things Not Being What They Seem

2007-06-12T08:09:00.000+10:00

When real kitchen cupboards were carpentered
into place after years of makeshift
the little white fridge swung neatly into
a niche at 90 degrees to the original wall
where the door opens exactly
over the worn cork tiles, patina-ed by years
the sole shuffle that accompanies contemplative
gazing at illuminated left-overs.
And you'd swear by the evidence that the fridge
was first planted exactly where it sits.

The Trouble with 'God is Love'

2007-06-10T11:12:00.000+10:00

"A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and he fell among robbers, who stripped him and beat him and departed, leaving him half dead . . ." Luke 10:30

On roadside rock, invites collision.
On bumper sticker, begs derision.
Across the walls, lost as graffiti.
Spoken plainly, dies of abstraction.
Said repeatedly, blands to blather.
Framed with flowers, suffers triviality.
Celebrated in poem, we fall enamored of the form.
Told as story, maybe then, on occasion, finds a pathway to the heart.

Petition

2007-06-02T17:43:00.000+10:00

(response to Poetry Thursday prompt. 'river')

'Wistful, I gaze at the river's edge and hear the river's song.' Li Shangyin (812-858) from In Late Autumn Wandering Alone by a Bend in the River tr. by Ian Johnston.

Where dark sludge coats rusted carcasses
mucks unaccounted bones of Moloch's children
.......dredge me.

Where surface water rushes, feeble green light
gropes suspended sediment, out-wash of toxic cities
.......filter me.

Where night drops chill and roils the flat river
flecked with starlight and wing beat of warring angels
.......remember me.

Meal

2007-05-26T17:51:00.001+10:00

Response to Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'simple'.

Tart apple sliced moist on the board
roasted oats, almonds in a white bowl
these few flavours old as orchards
sanctified from invisible frenzy within every crumb
carbon molecule's cake dance beneath simplicity's icing.

Masks

2007-05-20T18:12:00.000+10:00

Does my unaffected self
peer from within the mask
I wear to spare the neighbours
my anxiety
or to cheer a child
when I too fear the dark?
And what of other assorted masks
that ease me through the day?
When I let them all drop
is my vision slit squinted still?
Can I tell?

Second Chance at Second Chance

2007-05-13T18:22:00.000+10:00

Residual grit cast off by distant stars
coalesces to a quantum tome in bio script
with twist and tuck of human code
a second’s chance
in all these endless leagues of light
discrete, our tiny tick of time with
seventy times seven
second chances
time enough
ambitions lust to boast
to gloat be humbled and despair
forgive and be forgiven.

Second Chance

2007-05-12T17:55:00.000+10:00

Oh dear, . . . after posting this, Marion my best critic, says the poem makes no sense. I am going to have another go. I often go back in and tweak poems after first posting them, which is part of the intended use of the blog, but this one needs a major overhaul.

(I need a second chance.) :-)

The billowing stars with beards alight
emit a moment's splurge in flight
to tuck and twist a human code
a second’s chance
in quantum corridors of script
discrete, this tiny tick of time with
seventy times seven
second chances
to forgive and be forgiven.

Hole

2007-05-09T07:46:00.000+10:00

Feet push pogo
stirruped to the blade
I lift a square of spade-sliced
turf, uncover shallow loam
the lighter coloured clay beneath
I start to heap
where it accumulates
accommodates
the rhythm,
lift and turn
accelerates
a stubborn root, I've ragged cut
a rock that interrupts
the crowbar probes, the edge
to widen and to shift
the larger stones
the sides drop showers of dust
a metre down, a little more perhaps
the crowbar rings a sharper note
the rocky bed presents, exposed.

This satisfying empty space
so elemental simple
so soon resolved
in spade-work and in sweat
in crumbled debris cone, in whole.

Road Food

2007-05-07T08:18:00.000+10:00

I have topped my plate with fare
from Savannah to Bel Aire
and there are specialities I know
I've yet to taste, but still,
I have partaken well.

I have never sampled Rome
savoured frescoes under domes
perhaps one day I will.
But I've already broken bread
on another hill instead
in Jerusalem
ah, Jerusalem.

Twice Made Fish

2007-05-05T05:28:00.000+10:00

(Response to Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'Ocean')

God prepared me first to be
inhabitant of stream and sea.
The second time oh glory, see
what shore-side breakfast set me free
to nourish and remind all men
that God took flesh
and tastes with them
the food and drink that men enjoy
in body death does not destroy.

"...he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they still disbelieved for joy and were marveling, he said to them, 'Have you anything here to eat?' They gave him a piece of broiled fish,and he took it and ate before them." Luke 24: 40-42

"When they got out on land, they saw a charcoal fire in place, with fish laid out on it, and bread. Jesus said to them, 'Bring some of the fish that you have just caught.'" John 21:9-10

hot new fantasy

2007-05-04T12:18:00.000+10:00

Quid and Harmony - a page turner. This is a shameless plug for my brother-in-law's first fantasy fiction now at the printers. Read the first few chapters on his website. www.smithysbook.com. Better still he is donating profits to the Fistula Hospital in Ethiopia.

Charity Check

2007-05-02T13:49:00.000+10:00

We have full
circle round us creeds
that urge for selfless deeds
of hoops to jump, appeasement works
to do on earth to show our worth.

But I from birth am full of self
too crippled for the hoops and merit-poor
uncertain of my balance score.

Proud people turn down charity.
But what if in the end
charity is all we have?
...is all there is?
What if available to me is
only bounteous, generous
love-of-God charity? What then?
Will I be taken in?

Among the Ruins

2007-05-01T17:13:00.000+10:00

The crowbar fell across the wide lip bowl.
Something shattered when we got the call,
Clara Gregory has hung herself, poor soul.

A heft of dolorite too large to roll,
is sweated to a place up in the wall.
I dropped the crowbar on our wide lip bowl.

A much anticipated week unfolds:
Seth & Emily fly in to rest away from city sprawl.
Clara Gregory has hung herself, poor soul.

A native hen turns from her haste across the road
alarmed by the chick which flaps and flutters where it falls.
A crowbar fell across the wide lip bowl.

So swift afoot, so rarely road-kill toll.
Emily half turns a stifled cry, appalled.
Clara Gregory has hung herself, poor soul.

A broken wounded world cannot, thank God, forestall
embrace of friend & family though shadowed by the Fall.
A crowbar fell across the wide lip bowl.
Clara Gregory has hung herself, poor soul.

Enroute home

2007-04-27T08:24:00.000+10:00

I type in

Taipei

'Rooted'

2007-04-23T09:14:00.000+10:00

(response to Sunday Scribblings prompt, 'Rooted')

Words get pillaged.
Some get carried off
by Genghis Khan in full drag.
'Gay' went that way.
One day it frolicked at summer picnics
children's parties and merry Christmases.
Next day it was gone
abducted in the night.

I suspect 'rooted'
shifted ground more subtly.
A well-founded worthy word
it shunted noble elements
in deep osmotic transfer.
Building foundation for high
branching futures of all varieties.
But sometime in the decades after
the Americans shafted
their colonial lords,
the Australians, perhaps some
crudely cultivated convict mind,
first leered at penetration by
root of tree in moist forest soil
and found there an
excuse for prurience.
Whatever the source
it is regrettably hard
to say 'rooted' in the Antipodes
while maintaining much hold on dignity.

(Aussie joke: Wombat eats roots & leaves.)

Technological Dissonance

2007-04-19T20:59:00.000+10:00

Long past the use-by-date
NASA's doughty little droid
sent us perfect pictures
from far surface Mars.

Why can't these same
American minds create
a toilet that does not
splash a sitter's bum
or gag at extra paper
strands as grand it
swirls a wide and
water-wasting churn?

Service Road Gems

2007-04-15T08:06:00.000+10:00

My St Louis Super 8 motel
is a beige brick bead
strung among highway 70's
industrial diamonds:
Louie's Auto Sales
Mid America Peterbilt
ABC Billard Tables
Spectrum Glass
Cee Kay Welding Equipment & Gases.

Behind the sliding glass Mrs Patel
smiles up from her pocket size
Bhagavadgita
lends me a laminated city map.
Food? she muses,
'Mexican restaurant half mile.'
She warns of trucks and splashes
from the traffic. I traverse the
sodden median stubble between puddled
customer parking now evening empty
my 'super-lite' umbrella pressed
against my skull.
It's a long half mile and
I eventually give it up -
puddle straddle back to
room 222, a bag of 'trail mix'
and the red wine
leaking among my clothes.

off again

2007-04-10T16:19:00.000+10:00

I'll be working with some kids in schools in the Eastern USA for the next couple of weeks and staying mostly with friends in between times. My opportunites to contemplate poems-in-the-making at a keyboard are not predictable. I'll be blogging when I can.

Not in the News on Easter Sunday

2007-04-07T19:14:00.000+10:00

Response to Sunday Scribblings prompt.

The story's old, the hero looks to lose.
Designer dull and dated on the op shop shelf, this
Good News for Modern Man does not enthuse.
Alive from the dead. How does that sit?
The empty tomb, the witnesses with stubborn clues.
Good God, how we have buried it.

Euaggelion is gospel Greek for news that's glad of print.
The word extends a wounded hand, eager for my assent.
A mere micro second we've had breath to be
among the sunsets and seas. The planet’s
small. It’s only what we cannot keep, we have
to lose and by that needle's eye be taken through
the tale that tumbles death and birth. New birth
to shed the pride that outs me in the cold.
Is there a place this Easter hope to hold?

Empty Seats at Easter

2007-04-06T09:10:00.000+10:00

‘If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied.’

Liberal theology Christians
gradually fade like an
old photograph with
no longer any
truth to
tell.

Deepest, Darkest

2007-03-31T17:18:00.000+10:00

'For you are all children of light, children of the day.
We are not of the night or of the darkness.' l Thessalonians 5:5
(response to Sunday Scriblings prompt)

He cradles the dark secret
down long flights of steps
deep to his soul's cellar.
There it matures seeded
in a festy fungal bed.
The visits are frequent.
The pleasures piquant.
.....(Cancer cells reveal seductive
.....colours under the lens.)
The cauterizing sear of Light
would quick be death to these delights.

Asma-tic

2007-03-26T19:02:00.000+10:00

Poet: Asma
Condition: total loss of breath
Behest: 7^th century prophet
Assassin’s absolution: ‘two goats will not butt their heads about her’

Smooth marble Venus
poetry of pleasure
stealer of hearts,
you lost your arms,
souvenirs to advancing hordes.
Wish, oh goddess
for these milder times.
A sharia thief would
only lose her hands.

A Jewish poet fared far worse.
She told the prophet’s tricks in verse:

....There was an old wit named Afak
....who suffered religious attack.
....He irked with his lines
....and might have been fined,
....but instead he was stabbed in the back.

The brave dark ink from off her pen
made red the prophet’s eye.
A man with a knife was promptly dispatched
to offer his curt reply.

Vegetarian Tolerance

2007-03-23T15:56:00.000+11:00

Having no beef
with those that do.

Hole

2007-03-23T07:39:00.000+11:00

Down spade in and up spade out,
tossing all the dirt about.

Down spade in and up spade worm,
among the tangled roots it squirms.

Down spade in and up spade shoe,
mouldy, mangled and unglued.

Down spade in and up spade bone,
one to which the dog was thrown.

Down spade in and up spade sand,
a shifty, squishy strand of land.

Down spade in and up spade clay
deep below the bright blue day.

Down spade in and up spade shock,
my shovel just hit solid rock!

Down spade in and up spade fossil,
imprint of a Rex colossal.

Down spade in and up comes water.
After this its getting hotter.

Down spade in and streaming lava,
for a volcano in Java.

Down spade in, I’m at the centre.
(Not too bad a place for winter.)

Then all the layers come round once more
as I shovel past the core:
.......lava, water, fossil, rock,
.......clay, sand, bone and shoe.
The worms of course are waiting too.

Down spade in and up I come
All grubby in the China sun.

March Morning 43º South

2007-03-22T18:14:00.000+11:00

Mellow stillness
and the slanting sun
and ah, blackberries, blackberries.

Pigeon Hunting

2007-03-19T19:27:00.000+11:00

'...he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove...' Matthew 3:16

Sometimes the dove is lost among the pigeons,
though wingéd hints still glance the hourly grind.
For love of dove I want to ditch 'religion',
and search the pigeon landscape for his signs.
There see a symmetry in bond of friend,
the blessed exchange that's not unlike a dance.
In friendship we observe our destined end,
a parable of our significance
told there to halt the take-for-granted trend.
What better treasure than be friend of God?
If this is worship, teach my heart to bend,
to see his wounded wing and know his love.
When churchy 'worship' somehow Christ would bait,
I'll sing, not to evoke, but celebrate.

(...first go at a sonnet.)

Can't Shake Religion

2007-03-01T12:02:00.000+11:00

Some people fled the church from
the finger-waggers in the pews,
shaking their arbitrary 'thou shalt nots'.
Outside the iron bound doors these
refugees drew a deep breath of free air.
Before they exhaled
that same ubiquitous personality type
moved down the street to
social services, public TV and the university.
The new finger-waggers catechise
from admin cathedrals,
church of the politically correct
shaking their revised list
of wash-your-mouth-out offences.

As years stumble on
the old miscreants whisper
"It ain't in the Book!"
and light finds a chink in the iron.
The new moralists
write their own book.

Poet Tree

2007-02-26T17:59:00.001+11:00

A poet skips the plot.
Not for her the old growth
in a long tale's trunk
where bole thickens month by month
into the novel's knotted gnarl.
She touches tongue
directly to the flesh,
of succulent semantic fruit.
She cracks a shell -
where kernels waft
essential image oil.
Let others scale
the branching storied limbs
to prune their trees
and leaf by leaf make symmetry.

Tip

2007-02-25T06:37:00.000+11:00

Slumped in a moist mound gleams
a large animal's fresh offal.
The bay beyond, bright blue between the trees.
Under my soles, 45 years of disgraced materials
peppered with long life double A's,
a leach of heavy metal spice
among abstractions in brittle foam, once
a flat screen monitor’s chrysalis casing.
Sea birds loud cloud clamorous,
long lone undulating 'aaaark', trailing.
The last of the flies evicted far down the road.

Marion Made

2007-02-17T16:53:00.000+11:00

Crush
infatuation weight
soul freight
in fool's gold
even real gold.

-c-r-u-s-h-
I heft the letters
each by each.
Even the vowel weighs
several ounces.

30 years of my
lady's alchemy
transforming gold
to feathers
light as a lark. Wings
for my skylarking soul.

2007-02-13T06:54:00.000+11:00

LOL ... can't resist linking to my daughter's new cat cartoons.

Piece of Jesus

2007-02-09T19:52:00.000+11:00

Everybody’s Jesus is
liberal
Democrat
Republican
conservative
communist
capitalist
socialist
pacifist
Buddhist
Baha’i
Muslim
Mormon
Hindu
Catholic
Protestant.
Everybody’ll have
a piece of Jesus.
Yum, yum.

Nobody’s Jesus is
obtuse
rule breaker
Jew
convict
lowlife associate
plain spoken
antagonizer
miracle maker
woman respecter
child praiser
exclusivist
flawless
dead raiser
bleeder on a cross
empty tomb man
hard word man
who said
‘Unless you eat my flesh
and drink my blood
you have no part with me. ’
Cannibal man?
Yum, yum.

'Who have you had to say goodbye to?'

2007-02-03T21:59:00.000+11:00

'Sunday Scribblings' topic for 4 February 2007

Synchronicity in the grand plan
has left another note for me.
What did Meg and Laini know
the week my mother's pulse
fluttered to silence in the night?

Other such scribbled notes I've found
still legible though washed ashore,
eternity tweaking
the debris of another week's tides.

This very Wednesday
nurse Clare unlocked the room,
put tea in my hand and closed the door.
They'd laid a long rose
across the stillness of her chest
opened the large-print Psalms beside her bed:
'I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.'
A delusional Christ has led her to this fancy?

Or just perhaps...
commensurate in scale
to deepest bafflement at the stuff of being
hangs wild happiness to match her deepest longing.

2007-02-02T07:25:00.000+11:00

Please pardon probable inattention and sparse, if any, entries in the next few weeks. A swell of biz and other mundane & deadlines have swamped my boat a bit ... as well as the death of my elderly mum on Wednesday. (She was looking forward to the embrace of the Christ she loves.)

Sinus Serial

2007-01-27T17:09:00.000+11:00

The pollen fight
a chronic ill.
Her misery writes
a chronicle.

Resonance

2007-01-23T07:17:00.000+11:00

They call the dog black.
A perennial stealth that feeds
at the centre of my love's soul.

The lamb was black too
a spark eyed bounce of spirit that
fed from the joy of her hand.

We found the lamb alive
standing, leg shredded
and throat deeply torn.
The mother was already dead
flesh at centre gnawed and red.

The dog?
We have not learned the colour.

Feast Days

2007-01-22T07:20:00.000+11:00

Collective noun for maggots?
Smother might cover it. Or dance.
A dance of maggots.
The outlier dancers dos-à-dos
scattered about before the smother
comes on the second day.
A seething sea and by the third
the pods of squirm have melded.
The sea, a seethe of maggots.

More mutton than a Greek wedding
in the old sheep after the dogs
had dropped her tangled in the wire fence.
She was swollen whole on Thursday,
all animation
and by Friday evening
remaining guests
revel in deep hollows among the bones
and rags of wool.

Oddly, very little smell
after the second day.
And I wonder too,
where do all the dancers go
when the feast is over?

The Tale

2007-01-20T17:20:00.000+11:00

...when all things are said, there is really only one story...

Three fireside travellers
sit transfixed at

...the birth
...the warrior
...the beauty
...the battle
...the brittle straw of hope
...the rescue
...the reward.

'Fantasy,' says the first. And it is.
'Trap,' says the second. And it is.
"Road home,' says the third. And it is.

Fate of Ships

2007-01-17T21:01:00.000+11:00

Sapphire Princess & SS Orcades

In '58 she was assaulted with blinding torches
stripped and beaten into razor blades
her final wake
a chevron of foam
28 Pacific days long
to the antipodes
where she bestowed the family yearnings
along with crates and baggage
of a thousand other
second chapter dreams.

Mid morning I watch them waddle from the belly
of this present decades' glamor of chandeliers
to be bussed for the two hour tinted glass
mediation of an Australian landscape
and, unfailingly back on board for lunch
to the clamor of the cheese cake buffet.

Their lady will be nudged
from her berth tonight
and stabilizer tethered
to a sea path worn
round a circuit of ports,
and the bars of a cage.

Avoidance

2007-01-11T12:15:00.000+11:00

I must have been only five
when I first felt the urge
to shield mum & dad
so vested in their ideals
from the swearing swaggering kids I knew
from my nightmares, the crated bodies
dismembered, the incinerated infants,
from the world as it is.
Lest in their knowing
I must witness their pain.
Occasionally I still feel the same
toward other Americans.

Brackets

2007-01-07T11:28:00.000+11:00

A little fence
(the path within it)
left the main road
for a minute.

...

2007-01-04T15:24:00.001+11:00

Ellipsis
eclipses
words
it nixes.

Thai Food

2007-01-02T21:41:00.001+11:00

Fried pork with green chilli
'moo pad prik' on the menu.
Delicious.
Look across to
neighbouring restaurant
large sign
'Best Teste Kitchen'.
Genital reminders of
proud culinary tradition.

Lane in the Broad Street

2006-12-29T17:48:00.000+11:00

I lived along the dark water klong
when B-52's dropped their cargo
two small countries to the east,
and I longed for the silky legged girls
whose love songs floated
the fleshy hot night.

Three generations gather
street side on tubular chrome
cracked vinyl seats in
poverty's rec room
walled by the circle's banter,
laughter warm as before
on my evening of arrival
after thirty nine years
and still the game show glow
reflected blue in their faces.

I roomed here once
on the upper floor
dipping my morning bath
from the tall clay jar
shared with the families
beside and below
cool in the recess
behind the patina-ed red brown timber
wide teak eaves nearly touching
across the narrow lane.
Still it stands among others
shouldered aside somewhat
by newer frontage
of taupe coloured concrete
yet catching my wife's intuitive eye.
"Is that the one?"

A boy with a camera
was my neighbour
and still on my wall
his black and white gift
of the wicker hat women
scatter clustered in their
wedge prowed boats
ware laden with
bananas and shallots,
among the lidded kitchen pots,
the soup and curry
commerce of the day.
His name, black ink
proud in the corner.

Today I saw a tiny street stall cross
for sale among the neck chain Buddhas,
the lucky elephants, the long life turtles.
Another talisman against
the misadventures of the hour,
or perhaps the owner before me
paused to contemplate
the man who was dropped behind a stone
in another small country to the west.

Dallas

2006-12-13T09:51:00.000+11:00

They all died
defending the Alamo
where my mother
nearly died too of
worry when I wasn't
very old and wandered off
among the tall plants.
But that wasn't Dallas.

In Dallas JFK died.
Before that
dad hunted a job
mindful of his own long dead dad
who once tried Dallas too
taking a 1920's train back
disappointed to Chicago.
In 1950 dad got passed over by
the big insecticide deal,
tried for a Dallas job, winced
and drove us east to West Virginia.

One rain driven day
the VW bug
I delivered to Dallas
filled with smoke
from a frayed wire
in the multilane rush
of westbound cars.

Today I hear my daughter has
found a 'splendid' man in Dallas.
Is great-grandad's requitement
alive in her excitement?

Transition Ephemera

2006-12-06T14:24:00.000+11:00

In the first years
when the Hmong came
they sold their escape story needle work
black, pink and Mekong River green,
long since replaced on market Saturdays
by cabbage, carrots and coriander.

Yesterday a more recent refugee
a shining face Sudanese
balanced her shopping bundle
with high head finesse
and grace of fluid hip
incongruent on the suburban footpath.

How long now before her teenage daughter
pleads embarrassment at mum’s old world ways?
And this legacy of transition also topples into memory.

Fulfillments

2006-12-04T06:26:00.000+11:00

'...substance of things hoped for...'

Three travellers come
at journeys end
to the house on the hill.
‘Illusion.’ says the first.
And it is.
‘Trap.’ says the second.
And it is.
‘Home.’ says the third.
And it is.

Chinese for Ear

2006-12-03T11:01:00.001+11:00

The word
a squarish rune
with falling stroke
like a drop earring.

The sound
is rather like our own
part of speech
for part of head
by which we hear
remote linguistic past,
an ancient tongue
of common ancestors.
Or a false friend
who by mere coincidence
leads us to unwarranted warmth
of recognition.

Villanelle

2006-11-28T08:53:00.000+11:00

My first attempt at a villanelle . . . prompted by the Islamic assertion that no true prophet would allow himself to be victim of the humiliation of crucifixion.

How to Kill a Real Prophet
“they slew Him not nor crucified, but it appeared so unto them” Qur’an 4:157

He let himself be taken to be killed.
‘It must have been another man they nailed.’
A real prophet would have exercised his will.

‘Not my will, but yours be done,’ he said.
In the garden where he bowed his head
he let himself be taken to be killed.

What assistance can a victim give?
If he will die, how will his people live?
A real prophet would have exercised his will.

The servant king inaugurates his reign
with healing that accompanies his own pain.
He let himself be taken to be killed.

When betrayers drew a circle tight about,
a king, a leader would have found an out.
A real prophet would have exercised his will.

In a battle forshadowed by a dove,
in a scandal of humility and love,
he let himself be taken to be killed.
A real prophet exercised his will.

Daily Walk

2006-11-26T20:54:00.000+11:00

On our road at dusk I once refrained
from the satisfying snap of a fallen branch underfoot
stepping over it instead, as it slithered away.
Inanimates snaked there too,
like electric leads we no longer uncoil
from the house on the other side
when the shearer comes.
They’ve built more houses further up,
newer ones with solar panels
and earth friendly toilets.
But still not so many cars
as to impede our walks
to restore computer starved circulation,
to the bounce of puzzlements, complaints
and the small joys of our day.
And pangs too. The wallaby we so enjoyed
was, one day, a heap of fallen fur
under inspection by the local crows.
The neighbour’s cow
loud with bovine lament for her calf
lately trucked away to a veal and leather destiny.
And always under the same tree it seems we
exchange a word with old Bill Budd
out with his new pup and the daily unstiffening of knees.

View at the Edge

2006-11-07T06:00:00.000+11:00

At the edge
-----------------the clown's make up
meets
the razor nick skin of the man

Fast food/gas station/motel
cluster
-----------------make up the clone,
American gaudy,
LA to DC.

I, this oasis edge pedestrian,
alien at the terminus tide line of jetsam's
tattered plastic graffiti
most visible in Spring,
gravel chemical aqua with
snow melt salt line,
and beyond, hunched uneasily
the domestic weatherboard evidence
of this intersection ghost
chilled out
by the deep fat KFC heat,
bungalow cheap rent now,
a wrecker's lunch.

Three slumping halloween pumpkins
grin from low porch perch
pastel walls behind
blanched to near invisibility
apart from these infrequent footfalls
at the edge.

Self portrait

2006-11-03T17:52:00.000+11:00

I pushed the oil portrait a bit further. I will probably leave it at this point and work at another image. I have learned a lot with this one. But sick of looking at my own face! :-)

Commandment

2006-10-26T18:13:00.000+11:00

Which of the ten in holy writ
has most ‘small print’?

…Remember the Sabbath day…

Rest, it enjoins, for ox and camel,
goatherd and garment maker.
Each to their ease, basking in shalom.

To break Sabbath
it seems, is to oppress,
to steal hope and health
of a woman in the next tent
who stitches a new shirt for Moses.

Who makes my new shirt?
She seams in China, Honduras, Bangladesh.
Ask me tomorrow if I give her rest.

Further encouragement.

2006-10-25T20:53:00.000+11:00

Just had a response from another local lit journal, "Famous Reporter". They want to put the poem Commandment in the new issue (No.34) They asked that I read it at the launch on December 7th.
It should also appear shortly on their webite:
http://walleahpress.com.au/FR34Isham.html
It seems to be worthwhile to scatter a bit of seed verse about.

Pulling the Rabbit

2006-10-11T07:01:00.000+11:00

Napoleon, old cat
yellow in the tooth
dragged two bunnies
half his size
through the cat door.
Last night he put his latest booty
headless on reserve
in the pantry, presented
neatly on an old cloth sack.
A fastidious cat.
The night before,
dead but intact
upon the kitchen floor,
a first light birthday greeting.
Will he finesse a third?
A hat trick rabbit cat?
Or will we get a bird?

Point of the Hand

2006-10-07T20:15:00.000+11:00

After the heart attack, a man
opens an eye on the a train floor,
sees his own hand, as if never before,
delicate glyph line landscape.

From chicken wire and plastered rags,
my son sculpts a hand
extended toward heaven,
the pedestal a stump.
There it points still,
though by crumple of weathering years
it leans toward a point of its own.

Encouragement

2006-10-02T13:43:00.000+11:00

Got word today that the Canadian Christian poetry site, Utmost, liked Cain's Altar.
http://www.utmostchristianwriters.com/gallery/gallery216.php
They gave me second prize.

For Heaven's Sake

2006-10-02T08:39:00.001+11:00

Two local boys arrested, hide
their faces on page one today.
Purveyors of ecstasy,
they’ve spread their gospel even under bail
and proximity of prison bars
pushing this year’s abbreviated heaven.

Matteo Ricci like other travelling carriers,
ignored threat of Ming dynasty dungeon,
not afraid to extol the ecstasies
of divine fellowship
back when heaven was a larger place.

Swearing

2006-09-27T08:25:00.000+10:00

Long ago we abandoned
the Jewish carpenter.
Strangely he still has power
to lend force to uncertain words
as we strengthen a point
with a slap to his face.
Jesus bloody Christ.

Fleeced

2006-09-25T07:41:00.000+10:00

Mountain separated from bay in field of vision
by a paddock of four sheep, grass fat.
Therapy in tranquil motion
like a tank of fish beyond the windows.

At sound of cellar door
they squall by the fence
demanding indulgence from Marion,
who scatters oats and scraps of bread.

Every year they are led by the rattle of treats
to the man who will take their coats,
fearful, pressed in a small pen
December afternoon heavy with lanolin.

Once a large ewe toppled me
lunging with raised feet.
Bewildered afterwards they bleat
unsettled at shape of shaven mates.

Written just before our 3 ewes gave us 5 lambs. :-)

Servant King

2006-09-25T07:28:00.000+10:00

I posted this earlier without the last 9 lines and new title. Comments that it seemed like part of something larger and not really "about anything" prompted the changes. This may now be a bit more resolved.

Dogged into place while still green
rough sawn and sharp scent heavy
now greyed and smoothed with years of tread
nail heads countersunk but unputtied
proud still where the wardrobe hid them.
Our makeshift tongue-in-groove
from strips of ply inserted in saw cuts
squinting in places with
pinpoints of light from the floor below.
In the mild longitudinal wave of grain
under foot, a hint of surfaces beyond the walls.

‘Young swamp gum dries flatter,’
said the miller, thick armed sawyer
from the road below the house
when he landed long blond boards
from the bed of his wheezing truck.
And they did shrink true,
less rippled than post and beam
of Tasmanian oak,
cell structure caving less
as they slowly hardened
beyond the driving of nails.

In the intervening years I learn
Eucalyptus Regnans
flourishes far from swamps,
scraping ninety metre skies.

Mornings, freshly from my bed
I press Pilates postured head
against the old growth hardwood king.
And on that regal timber spread,
tread the routine of my day.