Selected poems
Fire pit
When the white we burn
is each & every place ...
A whole lot of above,
a glimpse of before?
Nothing beneath us,
to catch the fall.
We
travel down
where dreams wake up
the middle, our underbelly
an unguarded carriage.
The gotten is smuggled,
visions found
as we iron in the dirt
below the truth
a blaze blackened —
Tracks
of a last
functioning species,
following in the scent
on a rebound
from flesh.
In the wake
of our seated hangover
the view gets smaller
and we, the fade out.
The first man to arrive
diluted with our light
is drawing me on a leaf
or recording the past ...
— Ellen Shelley
A trick of the soil
There are those, who are living,
Aged a few minutes younger than the soil:
There are those who are loving
Aged a few hours younger than the soil:
Those who are lying
Aged a few days younger than the soil:
And those who are laughing
Aged a few months younger than the soil:
Some who are killing, some who are weeping,
Some who are birthing,
Some who are working,
Aged various years younger than the soil:
And the soil is to claim them for eternity,
And they too will be
Older than the living,
Who are filling the seconds with their life story.
— Francis Bede
The turn of a friendly path
There are semblances of him scattered
Around in old photos, postcards
Half finished love letters;
His excursions are of one whose path
Is that of a dirt road
Which ends on the edge of a dried lake;
His family hopes that
He might come back like
The rains in storms,
And fill the lives of those
To whom he matters most,
With his love,
His kinship,
Free from the drugs
The alcohol,
Free to yawn at their hold,
And caress the damage as though the Christ
And bind his soul
To Oblivion, to begin again.
— Francis Bede