Selected poems
In aged care
yes, it does
take time to dispose
of personal history
but sheet by sheet
it may be
stripped away
and taking on the shapeless
texture
and tone
of other compost waste
be used to grow
something digestible
listen to the grizzling
of the unattended
hear pigeons on zincalume
through gauze of bedroom curtains
cars in parking spaces
same slice of sky
food as an activity
activity, an end in itself
but only the eyes
of a certain visitor
will make the last of the
sunset blaze
Recalcitrant paperbark
roosting ibis unknot her leafy brows
unpick her twigs
long shadow off her shoulders
entices mosquitoes into reeds
planted in mud
her one big leg bared
solid stance of a peasant woman
skirts hoicked above the surface
lace petticoats damp
at the hem
like fists at the sky her thickset
limbs defy
any storms that would see
her curly crown
electrified
Hospitals
seagulls wash their feet in pools of water
where wheel chairs and drip tubes stand
outside the cloud shrouded hospital
smokers' spent cartridges spill across
a rubber mat near the automatic doors
when the horizon swallows its daily pill
those seagulls still waiting for their order
of pale worms of chip potatoes to be filled
visitors, made ill just being in the car park
droop by bedsides like wilted flowers
after being together in maternity
a couple take home a bag of clothes
there are steel drawers, there are toe tags
there is rising smoke
if you feel miserable, though quite well
remember hospitals
Strolling for dummies
late afternoon, long awaited first sleeveless
day of the year, shadows still to quench last flares
of burning sun on angled window panes
piano notes and butterflies flying at head height
am I the only stroller out on the roads
where houses fan themselves with
hundred dollar smiles?
as if it owns the penthouse, a laughing cat
rolls and rolls across a driveway
a woman in wet bare feet goes tippy toes
along scorched cement, are those foot
prints a blessing left behind to dry?
I am so pressed by memories
poached in warm air, that I step
a good way around circling
pavement ants and though experts
say nothing positive about the world
despite the encroaching dark
I might just pin badges of purple
hibiscus flowers on anyone to hand
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, about aging, visual art and other topics.