JUNE 2007: FRESH POEMS
Scroll down to read 15 new works submitted by...
David Barnes
Penelope Allan
Michelle Cahill
Kevin Gillam
Janet Jackson
Frances Macaulay Forde
Flora Smith
Maureen Sexton
Jennifer Langley-Kemp
Jan Napier
Joyce Parkes
PL Jones
--
A dirt road, Alice Springs
Outback, on a sand and stony road
we came across a rolled car
on its side
inside, both parents dead.
I found a young boy
wrapped around a Mulga tree,
scalp sliced exposed
still alive.
Under torchlight, we cleaned
the ants
clinging to his skull.
I held his scalp, pressed
against his head.
A mate drove fifty miles
to Alice Springs.
I stayed with the living
and the dead.
No one remembers.
I do.
A young man only
twenty.
David Barnes
--
Fishing For Feathers
We trawl past land where harsh new roofs
Scramble up the slopes,
Discordant in the landscape where trees have gone.
Upriver, the smoky air distorts the view
Of scrubby banks. Smoke haze veils the horizon.
Layers overlap – blues and mauves and greys.
The narrow band of headlands
Arch in series, and recede like stage sets
And hazy trees on the reedy island emerge as stupas
While distant rows of pelicans stand and watch.
The water is dark – grey green, black patterned,
In constant motion, waves airbrushed to softness.
Then as the sun rises sparkles hit the wavelets
As points of light, sharp and bright.
And something else: the river floats with feathers
Soft white dots on water rise and fall.
Tiny feathers curl and float, spread far and wide
And cluster at the water’s edge.
The dinghy’s laced with cobwebs and is full of leaves.
No fish. We reel in weed.
Penelope Allan
Heatwave – Saturday Evening
A strident sunset blasts the windows
Harsh and dazzling with its glare
While rainbow lorikeets screech past,
Raucous as they wheel and turn.
The air inside is hot and stale
Inside we bake; outside we burn.
Sweat blooms, then trickles down our skin
Salty rivulets cling to hair.
Tempers balance on a word
Petulant irritations flare
And then subside – not worth the fuss.
We doze on sweat-damp sheets,
Give up and find that night has come
Outside at last a breath of air.
A gentle breeze that stirs the leaves
Brings hints of frangipani and of rose,
Bright stars and stitched to the velvet sky,
A rising moon shines through the trees.
With the moon the light is soft,
With the breeze the air caresses,
Indolent and mellow. Now at ease
We stretch and smile at last
While summer songs float down the street.
Half heard, they tease
With memories of summer past.
Penelope Allan
---
Liberty at Box Head
It was high tide and I knew I’d find them,
spines suturing the sea, dolphins duck-diving
then surfing the waves in a parallel formation.
How is it we become so snared in our lives?
Time swallows the insults, the barbs we digest,
retract and scar. Yet the same scarp enters me
with its eroded beauty, its headland fingering
the Pacific, noisy today as a cheerful road.
I cannot match the rapid eye of swallows.
Mannequin finches spy me from their perch
and know my game. I’m brushed by banksias,
their waxy leaves sobering my thoughts.
Down by the rocks, the foam’s calligraphy
sparkles in the sun. Spirited waves grant me
tolerance. I cross the green pools, the cunjevoi
that fishermen waste. I think of those seagulls
in salmon rich waters. One may lose a leg
through sheer play—the price of liberty.
Michelle Cahill
The Fourth Veil
Grey-veiled rain is morning’s machete
stripping me back to the same corporeal
ellipsis: the absent curve of your shoulder.
Outside a cocos palm seems artifactual.
Nothing stirs but currawongs and bandit
mynahs who broadcast the first bulletin:
a high-profile suicide, (static), explosions,
another hostage drama. Who can tell ?
Now sunrise is a rouge powdering the sky,
as though marketing a conspiracy against
all that is finite. Through half-drawn curtains
the sea lends its sympathy, like the aquatints
of Lavender Bay from Whiteley’s studio.
Reminds me how a view renders thought,
granting to perception what is made new:
a skiff’s metronome, the audacious blue.
Michelle Cahill
--
times two
you peel pith from every ball of
hour
you lasso the moon, scour it for its
other side
you kneel and sip from the cup of
denial
your body bricks then
folds flimsy
you trial sleep inside
blink
you decide your weather is not
yours
you accept the logic of sweat eroding
cotton
you know it’s Tuesday, like
yesterday
your brood is too thick for the
straw
you make a web in angst’s
cornice
you’d call it “swimming through
honey”
you’ve a palaeontologist’s
touch
you are but a thousand chalky
remnants
you turn, say nothing
and everything
Kevin Gillam
--
Echo and ache secret
Let me tell you in
A flat minor
that my feet are a snare and a tomtom Skin:
a splash cymbal Heart:
a hihat
a ching ching ching ching ching ching ching ching Gutcoil:
bass guitar and kickdrum Inter
locking Inter
woven In
So let my hair be slow electric,
my eyes be rests and cries,
the line of my lips be the echo and ache secret,
full of every
thing [un]
mappable
and kissing the mike with words without warning
Janet Jackson
--
The Proposition
Before
owners hunted roo and bungarra,
as outback trackers burned for their captain
through dry landscapes and rocky gully
in blistering heat, murdering on cue.
But since
croc, witchety grub, kanga and emu
have appeared in West Perth restaurants,
will we eat them out of house and home
and must we become obese Americans too?
Frances Macaulay Forde
---
When he returned to the island
it was the walls that spoke to him,
glowing at sunset, (a catch in his throat)
honeycomb houses spread on the hills.
Imagine, he told me, no graffiti,
no tattered rags of last year's notices,
not even posters for the Opera House.
Yes, great to be back. Again and again
they filled his cup with sharp red wine
and he drank in each village courtyard.
Departure time, his mother's tears
heavy as a suitcase. Walls
watching as the ferry left the docks.
Came the punch of memory;
he'd known the walls could suffocate.
It was why I left, he said, why I left.
Flora Smith
---
Days Of Trees, Cheetahs And Mountains
In my maiden days
I laugh, sing
dance, play
dream my dreams
live my fantasies
climb trees
scale mountains
run like a cheetah.
In my mother days
I ache with pregnancy
scream in childbirth
feed with love
laugh, cry
plant trees
gaze longingly at mountains
fear cheetahs.
In my crone days
I tell stories
pass on wisdom
laugh, cry
love, live
marvel at cheetahs
hug trees
think like a mountain.
Maureen Sexton
---
From A Window
This morning a baby
honeyeater caught
by mirage is a bundle of feathers
on the patio table.
The mother bird pushes, cajoles
flies into the lemon tree.
From the kitchen window I hold my breath
wait for the little one to lift and follow
Remember an owl blinded by light smashing into glass
joining the birthday barbeque
until recovery drew
him back to night and safety.
I want to stop the morning
turn back time
but there are no clocks
only the patient bird
the limp bundle stiffening
and in the tree nubs of fruit bitter as marmalade.
Jennifer Langley-Kemp
---
Friday Night
The drummer, black clad Canute
strikes and strikes,
beats back the tide of
predator and frauds.
As with axes and sticks,
the besieged raise
rhinestone barricades.
And down there in the dark,
the crowd, vampiric,
keeps wanting more.
Jan Napier
Hand Made
My mother chooses the fabric.
“It is good quality,” she says,
“and will last.”
I think its silver grey sheen dull,
but I am wrong and glad of it.
For she weaves a kind of magic
my mother,
with her ugly hands.
Every stab and tug of her
quick-moving needle,
through the slip and slide
of the material, is a triumph
of mettle over bone.
And from copper bangles,
vinegar midnights and belief,
she crafts a dream.
Her dress is starlight and mist,
and the river of it flows from me.
I float soft as swansdown
on a young girl’s fantasy
of the moon, and a boy
who will kiss my lips
and moan his want,
while the dress enfolds us both
in its spell of silk and coolness.
“It fits,” she says.
And cradles her hands, one within the other.
Jan Napier
---
March in Perth, Australia
Once an orphan, now an Australian,
has her write that this autumn too,
the climate claimed respite from
yet another solid summer, when
eventually, rain graced the roof of
her house, in still warmish weather,
three weeks after our calendar-
autumn began – where the nous
of fine friends brought drops of
content to a parched west coast city.
Joyce Parkes
Wonderings and Warnings
(With thanks to A. F.)
The privileged as well
as the poor are warned
not to sleep in the open
or at railway stations –
not to loiter, or steal
a carton of milk, not to
wonder if democracy
includes timber and
timbre – or dispute
devolving dialectics.
Joyce Parkes
---
from my window
from my window
a woman sings
childishly
like a string-of-lights
she sings in Spanish
I dare not move
the silence afterwards
is unbearable
PL Jones
