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ARTS AND CULTURE

The treachery of sand

  • 16 March 2020
Selected poems Belief Beach

 

Anchored in the treachery of sand

wearing waves

until the snip of a certain comber

shreds them landward.

They call this weed.

 

There are people here too

busy in their pleasure

they stare further out

across the stolid hungers of tankers queued

to feed national necessity, rapacity.

 

Boardriders have learnt

those arts of waiting.

One child, one gull, the pantomime of chase.

 

What comes next?

No point to paint anxiety

on that small forest of eelgrass.

That’s ours to bear, our curse.

 

A granite breakwater, that construct built on collapse

is the human pretence of permanence

a theology of safety…

that most friable of gods.

 

Below the surface

hardier energies persist.

Though lifeless, sand has its ructions.

Waves bustle in the frenzy above

they too are ignorant of the one before, the one after.

 

Deluded in the shifting breeze

(that is a life in itself)

one placid pensioner

will not go deeper than his knees.

He is content in the fake permanence beneath his feet

that is neither loyal nor solid

as it buries abandons undermines

all that is somehow held to be true.

 

 

Just Saying…

 

Love is the answer.

Try that argument

in the camp on the Turkish border.

 

Beneath American summers

a woman is losing her mind.

Tax policy has made no difference

& healthcare, well you gotta laugh

or rage.

 

Every step I’ve taken

has been on stolen land, guilt builds

like soil formation & blood has always been

the best fertilizer so our crops shimmer, vitamins

sizzle in the sun as an ageing world salivates.

 

We are carp, gasping on the banks

of the river of our own design.

Do I bite, bale

or just flap about uselessly?

 

This weekend, further up in the hills

a 'controlled burn', 'hazard reduction'.

Look down the valley

Perth wears the smoke like some kind of armour.

Like us all, yes it does inhale.

 

When the petitions arrive, I sign.

Some women aspire to emulate male extremity,

not a moment too soon.

Men are puzzled but there’s a kind of way forward.

First People are changing all that needs to

& Bren is just what the component parts feel —

a person, unworried about gender.

 

Another march? Do we buccaneers

turn pamphleteer again? Brochures

are no more readable when soaked in tears.

 

This old carp won’t refuse

any lifejacket offered.

With impotence as the new flag

we compose/decompose at a bright future.

 

 

Off National Park Rd

 

Despite this morning’s poorly named downpour

there is no falling at the waterfall

no pooling at this pool.

 

This day both placid &

adamant alongside unapologetic winter — 25°.

 

I wish I could leave words to other people

me lacking both the succinctness of wandoos

& the promiscuity of the breeze.

 

A 10-year-old is shepherded past —

it’s the worst walk I’ve ever had! But

I
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