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ARTS AND CULTURE

Summertime in drought

  • 07 April 2020
Selected poems Drought

 

It was summer in the midst of drought.

The earth was parched, impenetrably hard,

and all about leaves fell like rain,

clogging gutters and the drains.

Leaves fell in clouds, curled and dry,

and formed a carpet across the street

that crunched beneath pedestrians’ feet

and whenever hot breathed winds eddied by,

blowing veined fragments into the sky,

they blinded eyes like winter sleet.

It was only then, I realised, we were

watching trees trying to survive —

desperately shedding leaves to stay alive.

 

 

The great divide

 

                                    In the eastern, beach-side suburbs,

inner urban culture thrives.

At café tables by the curbs,

latte lovers graze on words.

 

Sipping chai martinis through

soggy cardboard eco-straws

they can be overheard

discussing important first world concerns

 

or comparing the performance

of the cars they drive;

the art house movie’s perceived flaws;

                                    the dearth of public parking spaces or

 

providing a precis of The Feminine.

Sharing make-up preserving 

air kisses — and the same prejudices —

they are happy provided they are seen.

 

While, west of the Great Divide,

where skeletal cattle chew dirt for cud,

farmers shoot breeding herds and studs

and worry how they will survive. 

 

 

My neighbour

 

My neighbour feeds the magpies.

He thinks he is being kind

but, to the result, he is blind.

Warbling to greet the dawn,

the magpies queue from first light

and, rising late, he doesn't see

the birds are a blight — that while

he sleeps, the magpies strut

about on stalk-like legs,

and prey upon, peck and devour,

the rare and pretty blue wrens' eggs. 

 

 

Blowfly

 

                                    A sound of summer in September:

                                    the buzzing of a solitary, early, blow-fly;

                                    stopping over there, starting again but,

now, nearer here, brings back memories

of lazy pre-pubescent Saturday afternoons

in a dusty country town and of nasally sung tunes;

of the drone of continuous racing calls,

drifting on visibly shimmering, heat haze;

of corpse-carrying fly-paper, hanging

in spirals from moulded ceilings —

akin to raison-sized genes stuck on a helix;

of coloured plastic tapes or strung-beads

suspended from lintels to hinder their entry;

of meat-safes that preceded refrigeration;

of hardships that helped create a resilient nation.

Jeremy Gadd has published  four volumes of poetry, two volumes of short stories and had plays professionally performed. His recent novel, The Suicide Season, is available from Stormbird Press (Adelaide). He lives and writes in a Federation era house overlooking Botany Bay.
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