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ARTS AND CULTURE

Moonlight conventions

  • 06 September 2016

 

Selected poems

 

Four reflections in plate glass off King Street:

 

with the ease of discreet limousines

touring Japanese bow

to extravagance

black widow spider

conveys coffee in gothic fashion

on hob nailed

boots

 

beautiful animals

from the modelling agency

young, sleek and elegant

big hair like grass trees

carried

on

long stalked

necks

 

then: scraping in the lee of candelabra'd apartments

mr nameless and his bent bayonet

a greatcoat from military disposals

   hung over

a sharpened stick

 

 

Moonlight conventions

 

I put in my journal — a full moon tonight, crisp

and splendidly clear for our walk around the shore

and back to the resort ...

 

What did the Israeli professor remark?

It bodes well on Hoshana Rabbah that

we are casting shadows in moonlight.

 

Though our Chinese friend had little to say

following this evening's lecture, he was right about

the yellow plum at the bottom of the lake.

 

 

 

Easter scene, Wembley

 

Four seconds of world

in early evening streets

of almost winter cold

when lamplights handed

down their glowing cups

to cars streaming by

 

and as I gripped the wheel

I saw a man kneeling

before a whippet, two heads

haloed in doorstep light.

 

It was by footpath signs

for PIZZA and COKE

some grace above or between

kneeling man/ sitting dog

sanctified the moment.

 

 

Aftertaste of sun

 

your eyes wide water-side wanderers

see in each day's walk

 

a blessing of unspoken proverbs

as waterfowl cross the flinty trail

 

you back towards reeds

a wafer of fear along shoreline

 

then panic breaks open the lake

an aquatic explosion

 

derangement of ducks, moorhen, coots

blinds you with feathers of sun

 

Ross Jackson is a retired schoolteacher from Perth. He has had poetry and short stories published locally and interstate.