Welcome to Eureka Street

back to site

ARTS AND CULTURE

Approaching the turnstile

  • 14 January 2019

 

Selected poems

 

Shy birds

saturnine, specious — some of the dusty words shelved, reserved

others, elsewhere in the alphabet — leonine, pellucid

also, seldom called for

a few colours best isolated

lime green kept away from brown

but communion is expected of the living

trees in forests, termites in nests and with birds

always congregation:

at every soak, budgerigars in profusion

swamphen, coot and ibis, thick on every shore

with human kind the same, almost

hysteria to be linked

a few odd bods about, still: non-conforming, exotics

chick less, night parrots of the street

though not excluded by choice, or as yet extinct

 

 

 

Approaching the turnstile

The holder is a valued member of our community. Please extend every courtesy and assistance. — Government of Western Australia Seniors Card

 

this far from the turnstile

even this close, I know less than a handful

that will attend at my passing

yet am I dismayed?

 

nothing attaching to my name

shall be recognised after I'm gone

yet knowing this

am I dismayed?

 

but if, when called upon

at eighty years of age

I cannot prepare a sandwich

make a mess of my words

 

I fear that the thought may occur:

I have my Seniors Card but I have no legacy

and I have no Torah

I have no Bible

and I have no Koran

 

 

 

 

Outside Dunkeld

 

mist floats above grey valley floor

rises around Gariwerd's* pilasters

through this foggy lens of dawn

I try to fix a kangaroo tableau

before it begins to blur

my hands shake as breezes

tease dew dropped grasses

twitching noses read — a human here

 

two different species

haunched at half trigger

a moment of jointed

rumination

my camera still unfocussed

then it all blows away

 

*The local Aboriginal name for the Grampians.

 

 

 

Backyard campaign

sheltering in the gloom of the shed, he witnessed the storm's assault

his treasury of plants ransacked-vegetables devalued, cannas rag dolled

rose petals scattered, bushes bleeding from the guts

herbs planted in an old dog's bowl a week ago, sun supercharged so much

they're now cooked in their shell

 

rot then came to lettuces he'd drowned weekly in Thrive

let go to seed, broadcast by a windy day, now he picks the rogue results

sky clouds over so slowly, a slug's slow progress

he lopes around whatever else he planted months ago

what he has tended like a new born babe, now weedy thistles in tanks

 

little stalk of man-hat, spade, wheelbarrow

remembers frenzied locusts, sees where fire has been

treads in sandy runnels from a prior flood

it's contrary for Nature to be returned to exactly what it was

but a fresh campaign begun to salve this tender spot

 

 

 

Westfield World

if unbusy enough to live a lot

in shopping centres, your time's spent

swimming along arcades

reflections of your angel fish face

staring in at merchandise

behind