Original Poetry

[philia23]

strangers and their kin at least there are trails in the wilderness tramped grasses the yellow of turned sand footprints on the white christ of snow the terror of dreams hold no directions only the sound of footsteps the bakelite beatings of the heart cries from the wet mouths of old lovers travelling this cold room signposts point earthward febrile words of strangers silent echoes reminding of the winter spent holding her dying hand

[philia23]

a seascape a wash of greys the strand of sand empty before the solitary figure reaching for the artist's hand

[philia23]

(another) road story

desert laps shimmering bitumen

viscous on slapping tyres slithering through windshield smears

I’m searching for rainbow’s gold humming some on the road anthem

while the saltbush is crying dry tears

there is a formula for this a statement of conceit a false flag

fluttering over years of paper and principle

a believer who never believed a dancer in an endless zigzag

between words and the kiss of a false disciple

I’m left of right and right of left there’s no white line on the Stuart highway

the roos and the emu have the only freedom

the world ablaze at this time of day

behind the past, Sydney and Sodom

a wedge-tail soars in the burning sky

she’s not lost or pondering her turpitude

never judged, no object of negotiations perpetually stumbling on the buts and the why,

why this road, this direction, this sunset, this life imbued

with the colours of evening and raindrops

the faces that stretch like a guard of dishonour,

failures and half-won truths passing like whistlestops

somewhere ahead the Alice swelters corrugated iron cockatoo fodder

in the vehicle there is just dust and introspection

a carving away of each life lived degree by degree,

the song on the radio, the dying sun

and the eagle taking to her eyrie on a solitary dead tree

[philia23]

plangent music leaks through the window’s sombre cast it speaks of streets and strangers, shadows dreaming of the moon and of stars so far away so far from my grasp

[philia23]

archipelago

my mother promised me thunder

at her breast the days seemed

scented with jasmine and rose

I didn't know that thunder trumpets hell

until the wilting days of loss

sucked the colour from the forest

the perfume from the air

life islands are for leaving

and another strait is crossed

another shoreline breached

the chain of islands

a flower that blooms

in the garden of the dead

[philia23]

Christmas Eve storms are predicted the anger of sulking summer seeking its hardblown revenge listen to the silence this eve of festivity is where truth hides I am alone and will be as turkeys are carved the blessed blessed the forlorn left forlorn as troubles are packed or paraded like medals on ageing generals mine will be neither lost nor found the day will sing its songs shadows will frown the sun with either shine or take refuge and with that wastrel sibling time I will argue the nuance of hope of joy the absence of all that was loved all that was lost memories pinned like decorations to the Yuletide tree

[philia23]

fog a curtain across the city’s fragments the world outside is among itself existential but without form and I wish the lenitive there, hidden behind this grey wall of exclusion my heart the ache of solitude

[philia23]

Listening to Sandy Denny on a crisp, clear morning. Life gives no favours every note a struggle. Yet there are miracles. A Sunday morning forty-three years later a lonely man with tears in his eyes.

[philia23]

rain soft as skin beneath fingertips I am dreaming your pensive face watching me sleep the starless night eternity between us

[philia23]

blah blah blah chants Edinburgh’s streets as the smart-suited crab walk BRICS through the window and California burns and the orange-bellied parrot falls from the sky

[philia23]

through

the window

of small things

winter wind

smell of fresh

baked bread

sunlight through

curtain lace

the songs

of yesterday

[philia23]

Sleep you will be deep tonight. It is time to undo the safety net to fall tumbling to the timeless earth. I will release my grip if you will comfort me.

[philia23]

where are the words that sweep across the page like brush strokes? these thoughts I palpate cry freedom imprisoned as they are escape now the narrowness of skill run like mercury released from the ampoule’s antisepsis give me grit let me paint with the mud on my fingers

[philia23]

Flanders Fields, a flag lies limp powerless, impotent so many dreams squandered on the wrath of men

[philia23]

weather from the west welcoming the end of days, the end of dreaming I have been dreaming of stars, of mysteries unwritten in the weather or in the long lives of ghost gums and there is the breath before a dragonfly’s wingbeat I take this breath it holds in its hand the song of the universe

[philia23]

[philia23]

in darkness I touch each wound in turn pearls of regret the dull pain beneath my fingertips leads to the next then the next how simple to trace a lifetime searching for the light