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?
Penned friend to sober alliance,
blessed,
blissed,
I write with my crazy artist friends.
Homily to prudence,
still laughing,
statued in brilliance,
stoic
in stanza,
I pen freedom.
Laugh at ludicrous
cacophony
caught in harmony with
unending chaos.
Heart’s resilience captures freedom,
for the found,
lost – for the longing.
Unending utterance
causes
cadence
cascade,
in opulence of light’s brilliance.
Far, far from featureless form,
far from all desire
yet closer to truth’s blessing,
I write for my crazy artist friends.
The space of space
holds in its hand
the heart of life.
Beating in nothingness,
pulsing its beat
unheard in the void.
When dunny cart
of death
pulls up outside
to collect
your lifetime of crap,
it’s stinking load assaulting your olfactory,
will you cry?
‘Not yet,
not ready,
still sitting
on throne
reading Sunday Times.
I’ve seeds to sow,
crops to reap,
a thousand trivial tasks to terminate,
a lifetime’s work awaits.’
But seasoned sitters know,
whether on highway
or
by way
or
doorstep,
the dunny cart always has right of way.
Footnote;
Dunny = Australian slang for toilet.
The dunny cart, if you haven’t guessed, is the night soil cart that used to come to unsewered area of our city, about 50 years ago, in the early hours of the morning.
I wrote this about 6:15am after I heard the garbage truck in the distance and it must have triggered some vague memory.
Hollywood holds no hell
for me,
I see
through all that celluloid.
All that illusion of life
a mask,
a task
to set your mind awry.
Hollywood,- escape- that leads
to prison,
risen
from false hopes,
illusion.
Hollywood, your nightmare
never touches me.
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.
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.
I went to the circus Saturday avo- *
there were clowns,
hundreds of them,
seated in stands with circus animals.
Front row elephants sat on specially reinforced seats.
Behind them sat dancing dogs,
prancing bears,
and slippery seals.
A gallery of galahs took pride of place
(next to the lions) in the curly bells. **
The ring master
who was of course me,
announced:
clowns,
four footed friends,
flippered ones,
canine cousins,
feisty,
flatulating elephants
and
galleries of galahs …
Let the show begin.
How the clowns wept—
at my humorous verses.
How they howled with laughter
at solemn, serious lines.
While elephants trumpeted approval
at each example of
onomatopoeia
as they munched on their peanuts
and farted.
While the gallery of galahs declared
that allowing for
weeping,
laughing,
honking,
trumpeting,
munching and farting,
they could hear nothing!
* Avo: Australians like to shorten words, avo = afternoon.
**Curly bells is an Australian expression for tiered seating.
What moment
this moment
and its relatives.
Guests at a feast of flies.
What moment,
(with) butterfly nexts to
catch
the moment.
Smaller,
smaller,
than an
ant’s breath.
Will you read me when I am gone?
Will you reach inside the monitor
to see what lies behind these words?
Or, will you delete this nothingness?
Time, the dirty dobber will tell.
poetrytownsville 