poetrytownsville

Poem for Leonard, Written in a Note Book, Melbourne 02/10/2017.

I read you
in Swanston Street
as the trams
tracked by.

I read you
feeling jet lagged,
though I hadn’t flown
except on the
wings of Dharma.

You shared those wings,
never telling in your words.

(Poem continues written in the State Library of Victoria.)

Did you give a
hint in song
or
sign,
that flying
is not just for
birds?

So many listened
so many strained to hear.

Did you whisper:

The Wrights
aren’t
the only ones.

Did I not pause
long enough to hear?

Will you tell it from
the grave?

Tell them,
fly
to freedom
on wings of wisdom.

I am a seeker of words and ways
that wind the cord of life
to capture time.

I am the last lost soul of somethings
that never mattered,
matted in the cord
of life.

Do you hear me,
not singing
nor soulfull
but still. ??

Do you feel my presence on the wind,

winnowed,
wilful
by force of what?

Do you know
what power drives the words
that whip
the poet (to)
paint
the feeling?

Knowing knows,
not knowing show s the way.

Morning

You caught me in a gentle mood,
you caught me in the place
where time stands still.

You found me – whole.

So you hardly had to whisper
and your meaning was crystal.

you said soft as the gentle breeze,

words,

that needed no sound.

In your eyes a rainbow sparkle.

A pathway,

a bridge,

a longing,

was calling, calling, calling.

TO CRY FOR

Today a man walked down the street screaming:
‘The Cold War is over.’
The barber from the combination studio/art gallery
came out to see what all the yelling was about.

It’s OK I told him.
‘The Cold War is over.’
‘Oh.’ he said, ‘Is that all?’
And went back to his split ends.

While the self-appointed
town crier continued down the street
spreading his good/bad news.

Good,
if the Cold War gave way to warm peace.
Bad,
If the Cold War turned tepid/warm/hot.

Trig Tables

Am I invisible,
indivisible except by prime numbers?

Am I saken,
taken to a nowhere land
of medium,
imperceptible,
fully integrated,
some suches?

Am I fractious as a fractional fitting on

a wholly oversized body?

Am I Nowhere Man
suddenly
somewhere?

I am, I am.

She looks for inspiration in the eye of a needle,
barely stopping to glance
but dazzled still by the thinnest of points.

She takes
fuel for thought,
holding heart
and harps-man
as conquest.

The thinnest of points
she knows
holds secrets of universe,

of space,
of being,
becoming.

The thinnest of points
is home.

These days,

I am taken to hiding

in plain sight,

deciphering tomes

of differential calculus.

For balance,

Rumi

comes from the bookshelf,

sagacious.

These days

are sworn to expose the light that darkens.

These days

are a menagerie of tamed tigers

seeking at imagined bars,

like thrill seekers bored

at adrenalin’s rush.

These days are past.

You paid too much,

too much of tears,

too much of years,

too much of you.

You paid too much.

Too much to be free,

too much.

I ask for freedom

from this,

(this what?)

But,

I am

the maker and made.

the freer and freed.

There is nothing

to be freed of,

not even this.

Whose baby?

Rosemary,

baby,

where are you?

Rosemary,

smelling like a brine pit,

Rosemary,

light a lamp,

listen to the flame,

see the sound.

Sight the line remembrance brings.

Eternal light holds fast

fleeting flame.

A skip away,

a shout away.

Manger’s meagre babe,

Rosemary,

was that yours?

Holding new babe born,

with the wise trilogy onlooking,

was that yours?

Or such was life,

was he yours?

Lost in the strife of living.

Wound round cord,

as to stifle.

Rosemary,

babe,

are you still there?