Selected poems
the junglefor Dennis Spiro Livitsanis
high school was red brick, old style, pre-prefabwith a panelled assembly hall dignifying the upper floorwhere senior students flirted with private studywhile lounging on tattered leather near the stairwell
one day, no idea why, I walked to the banister and let flyTarzan's throbbing two note animal rallying cryand heard the glorious acoustics of my lofty lairbear it bouncing through the murmurous air
come lunch-break everybody talked of howa stick of chalk shattered in mid wordteachers forgot what they thought they had to sayhow a sudden silence drowned in surging waves of mirth
the headmaster stormed from his study muttering of anarchythe head prefect sitting alongside me disapprovedbut couldn't stop laughing long enough to reprimand meand nobody ratted
my gilded name (below Our University Graduates)is fading on polished panels in that assembly hallnone is likely to remark upon it nor squandera thought on who I am or who I might have been
but if I am to be to be remembered for anything at allI want to be known as a young man(and a much older one) who'd seize every chanceto go swinging through the jungle with Jane
he rangfor Don Ross
a voice made for poetryasking of you post surgeryyour whereabouts in the labyrinth of cures
I spoke of blind turns and errorsof kindness, though mainly your couragehe recalled his one big scare
and declared he'd not want to swapwe talked of our teams' disparate fortuneshis more uplifting than mine
he said he was determined to visitwhen he was over the 'fluand insisted I tell you he loves you
of course I promised I wouldthat's when he said he loves me tooand I hung up for fear I might sob
the ballfor Ross Gillett, fellow member Western Bulldogs FC
We took heart to hearour fierce young onballer,an extractor with quicksilver handsand flying feet,is studyingAmerican literature.You say you'd like to discuss Dickinson.I favour WCW.Sound choices bothif he reads on devices(as the young undoubtedly will)lines squeezedtoothpaste-likedownLH margins,line breaksrhythmmeterrhymeprotectedfromannihilation byautomaticresizing,a bedevilment awaiting Whitman with his long-line neo-biblical iambics,The runaway slave dismembered thus: And gave him a room that entered from my own, and gave him so me coarse clean clothes.And our resolute onballerwill not be bamboozledby Williams' urgingsto Say it, no ideas but in thingsfor in his tradeit's known by allwhat mattersis the ball itself,not the idea of the ball.
B. N. Oakman's poetry has been widely published in Australia and internationally. Recent collections include In Defence of Hawaiian Shirts and Second