Selected poems
Eye rings
The superb lyrebird flaunts its feathers,
bistre plumes, a gossamer fan.
Warbles his vibrato, mimics the magpie,
trills his keynote for a mate.
Observer pursues a quest for scientific knowledge,
longs to trumpet his exhilaration
from the colony to his distant colleagues.
Obsesses about taxonomy, binomial appellation.
Aims; the gunshot rings out, reverberates
across the gorge. The stench of smoke lingers.
Another specimen cut down
in the name of scholarly research.
Generates work for his team at the stuffing table.
Sharpened scalpels, forceps and bone cutters,
gleaming in the hands. Flax and straw
immersed, preserved in camphor and arsenic.
Viscous absorption; the chemical odour, the aftertaste
of gutting and passerine gravy.
Legs are bound together, trussed in surrender.
Painstaking care. Sensitivity with the eye rings,
luminous in the half-light.
Birthday ballot
My eyes grapple with the diffusion of headlights,
oscillation of wipers in the downpour
and I am immersed in the insistent chords
of a guitar laden with the lyrics of Don Walker.
The alchemy of 'Khe Sanh' spirits, commandeers
me back to the early seventies.
I am transported to the sappers.
In a pitch-dark deluge like this,
gun turrets and slush banish daydreams
of beaches and cobalt rockpools.
Recollections of the birthday ballot,
tremble of black and white TV in the corner.
My fingers drag a crested envelope from the letterbox,
the afternoon breeze brings ironic coo
of peaceful doves.
Mist of defoliant invades the recess
of my imagination; a persistent aftertaste
of the jungle, the tang of perspiration.
In my speeding cocoon I mouth a prayer
of thanks for the deferral,
the abolition of national service.
Staring into the dappled darkness
I touch the pain of a generation.
David Atkinson is a Sydney poet. His poems have been published widely in Australia and the USA. Favoured areas for poetic exploration include the human condition, nature and wildlife and also the rural life of the past. David's collection The Ablation of Time is available through Ginninderra Press.