Selected poems
Vote for me
Cars will be turned into flutes;
sheep graze in public parks.
Trams will be lined with books;
prisons, wisteria-walled.
Politicians will sing in choirs;
accountants taught to tango.
The old will have honour and cake
and a licence for practical jokes.
The middle-aged will lie on grass
and watch the procession of clouds.
The young will be loved and learn
that to live is to be slowly born.
Benedictus
When you are ten
I may not be here
though you will find remembrances
deep-hidden in a drawer
poems (this one for sure)
and my grandfather's watch
meant for a waist-coat pocket
and never used though
sometimes taken out and laid
across my palm
and a lost presence mixing
with the cedared air
to bless your unblemished skin
and wide-opening eyes.
Give us this day our daily water
more to be desired than bread
bright chameleon pulsing
in the ocean's plenitude
delight in its transitions
fog steam ice snow
its power of resurrection
give honour to rain-bellied
clouds soon to give birth
deep soaking of red soil
bless all things aqueous
pearls bouncing off green
bride of new grass
our flesh married to water
Grass
Earth as far as
the blurred mountains
is washed with green,
cattle bent in gratitude
for tufted bounty
and for trillion-fold
seeds underfoot.
Let's not call
these weeds that cover
the wounds of the world
while we sleep.
All flesh is grass the prophet said,
and our spent bodies, merged
with teeming soil, rise
towards light in drifts
of healing blades.
Bill is a Melbourne writer and has published three books of poetry. His last book was Into the World's Light. He is a retired pharmacist with a theology degree.