Selected poems
Fellow creatures
with blazes nearby, TV news bars well on fire
we human animals are panicked
feel the shudder of rotors above our roofs
very soon thirsty
helitankers
will thunder down to drink
from our neighbourhood lake
may we remember tomorrow
nothing will be more worried
than pelicans in broken reeds
the night heron in its naked tree
we should pity frogs and dogs
and other animals, not so far away
also trembling in their homes
time for us to pray
from what God has joined together
let nothing separate
Jogging by Herdsman Lake
he jogs on twisting plaster
of limestone path
circling the lake
swooping welcome swallows
splinter shadow and brightness
bisect shoreline trees
surface water suns itself
trickles between islands of rushes
idles towards an unseen drain
there is no race
youngsters are passing
but he's still jogging
however sluggishly
pursued by that future
when curtained off
he will toss in the towel
he runs on, he runs on
more aware of
his breathing now
From Mount Eliza
your gun sight blocked by the haze
across a long range of hills
the city below a lacquerish dream
Perth Water in just enough focus
to see jellies bobbing
a metre from Mounts Bay Road
you scan a littered shoreline
million bricks of an old brewery
you peer into the crow's nest
of a colonial palm tree
wind waggling its elephant ears
lurid as wasp, a cyclist clad
in orange and black
buzzes up Mitchell Freeway
beyond the gleam of the city
lots going on that you won't see
Single bedroom apartment, Churchlands Green
looking down upon the suburbs
her third-floor window view
headlights joust up Pearson Street
a girdle of street lamps to the east
mapping Herdsman's jagged, black sea
beyond Subiaco, a stack
of poker chips above the CBD
crossing the room to stare
through west facing window
at a hump of dark
foreshadowing coastline
Wembley Public Golf Course
crowned with a cloud of light
illuminations from the driving range
where clowns propel white tracer
shadows of old trees spilling down grassed banks
daisy chain cut-outs
which she fancies
as tall, dark men holding hands
going downstairs for a walk through the Estate
houses lit up on all four sides
spying people sharing hives
soft volumes of light in family rooms
filled with warm, warm lives
another thing she's never known
Emissaries
an Academic Taskforce sign
its arrow pointing down
a street in our suburb
where we meet
a happy looking Chinese family
the little girl in yellow padded jacket
is waving, waving at us
Woofy trots six steps forward
wags his curly tail
a tide of smiles, Yangtze wide
in this way and that nods either side
morning greetings, or Ni hao
Ross Jackson lives in Perth. He has had work in many Australian literary journals and some of his poems have appeared in New Zealand, Ireland, England and Canada. He writes about the experience of aloneness in the suburbs,