1859
6.32
1.ii.25
far in the forest of was
rain makes
shelter
nor knowing who
when why
piles of
shoes are a holocaust
cannot for
long
to if one
word is all
ear to the
ground
once said
weather
they’re
stinkers whom we shall not name
snarl
taller than
we are
blue in the
north, nose high
light is a
sovereign remedy
all in the
echo after tucked
deep in the
dell of to do
we make so
much of the unknown
it’s as if
we’d all been there
1858
6.31
31.i.25
lost to a dream for words
considering that I’m not here
once when
the sherbert
fountain
teeth
fizzers and
love me or not
cobbers and
snakes
choc
cigarettes
jelly baby
penny’s worth
or nuts for
sixpence
salt I remember
a little
paper cup
under whisker
in a budding
breast up
and once the
key under the stone
sky straight
down
a sun when so
I bright
roll over lay
down and let me let
bottle of
scotch gone too
the effort to
not represent always fails
no heart this
high
but I’m home
1857
6.30
30.i.25
the night ships
ekphrastic for Peter Godwin’s ‘Studio Nocturne
– feeding the birds’
call the
clouds colour
a kind of finery
they make
there could
be a face
or inventing
the creature
a fall of
water, sticker peeled
patches as of
where pressed
hear the
horns of a harbour
not a thing
to see
an accidental
drift of line
often almost
somewhere else
1856
6.29
29.i.25
splash
or
what does an anchor
weigh?
ekphrastic for Peter Godwin’s 1979 ‘Looking
West from Millers Point’
something for blood
and something like soil
bounce of a buoy
cloud’s toll too
there’s no time here to catch or patch
a tree lean edge
motion incised
down underwash
some of these just shadows
I hear the tug’s tall horn
I think it’s another day’s colour
there must have once been fish
we have made too much of the sky
1855
6.28
28.i.25
falling from the
floor
for the dream diary
the ways down are many
sometimes a trickle of stairs
ship’s lost
where find
offing storm
a corner round
tonight the sea is closed to us
a maze of decks and bunks
such was time
a planet rise
and whim of eye
sky too full of holes
a sieve
a swerve
sun’s beam foretold
all upwards of this
the day parts
poach of egg was I
and back where we were not
flash towers take me up
ships of some space within
and on
brought a flower to this too
won’t you?
1854
6.27
27.i.25
to breeze it
on the way
for The Gore Cove Track Series
I like to vanish on the track
absent myself
be gone
pause now
and here and there
leaf through
to harbour thoughts
to hoof along
duck, brush and weave
the foliage through
scrub tussle
get the mangrove whiff
find footing where apt
under low branches
to spread out like the sky
wash in
and all the while
a world runs by
for better and for worse
hum, roar
upstairs, out there
and best ignore it
see tallest tops reflected
trickle of the stream beside
cite frond and cliff
make steep of things
an afternoon of
puddle yet
though days from rain
I like to note a feather fallen
to guess the way where
truth be told
I’d rather be more lost
to grow still like the stone
and then
until the final bright
until the last winged song
absent myself
be gone
and breeze it
vanished to the track
1853
6.26
26.i.25
another poem on
Amnesia Day
or
dwarfish, blind and
ugly
or
a cannibal says grace
at the free church of
poetry
come in for confessional mode
an impersonality test – spontaneous!
we escape the powerful overflow
we fill the silence in your mind
it’s Ponzi
poetry – the get rich quick scheme
karma is all wishful thinking
friends, that’s why we’re here
spread all over the vast fields of promise
dung to the wisest wit
we whittle it down to this
meet, greet, eat and excrete
most of the poets have eaten each other
it’s what Rae Jones said
only then they shuffled politely
and waited till you got off the stage
now
if all the poems that were every thought
were published in a book
there wouldn’t be the readers
if i were a dog
I’d sniff you there
then we’d know what’s what
actually I am
