Saturday, 22 November 2025

the New Flying Islands books!

 


NEW FLYING ISLANDS BOOKS OF POETRY!
A Flying Islands subscription makes the ideal Christmas gift!
TEN books for $100!
Unrivalled value! We'll never be undersold on quality poetry!

#2155 - under the spell

 


2155

6.326

23.xi.25

under the spell

 

king emperor

president parasite prophet

perpetrator priest

dictator

 

thuggish matey dinosaur tyrant

lover of contact sports

 

CEO

beadle deacon

boddhisatva saint messiah

 

saint god goddess

holy smokes

 

did you get the one you were wanting?

 

bunny for easter

Santa Claus Christmas

 

fetishes all

 

what are they good for?

 

shutters down!

take you up and bring you low

 

subtly different, some may say

the door may be behind you

the lights on the floor lead away

 

one after another, a conga line

and wheel not got off

 

take nothing with you to the sea

 

they keep you in your place

 

and here come the credulous

 

a clutch at the hem for holy

 

fools will all admire 







Friday, 21 November 2025

#2154 - breeze in the underbrush

 



2154

6.325

22.xi.25

breeze in the underbrush

at Sea Acres, Port Macquarie

 

a chatter up

 

a frond drop

 

tangle till

 

dark of shade traipse

 

comes laughter from behind

some human else

 

the strangling fig

straw treefern

 

and a cat impression

 

eyes up

 

here there shafting of some bright

 

Bangalow!

there’s nothing and no one so straight, so tall

 

eye along, watch where you go

whipbird then for punctuation

 

here ribbon fern

here vine lost in pursuit

and of whom?

 

it’s any old tree will chase you along

with a hurry up

you’ve no permission to stop

 

so find onself

as ant across the page of day

 

so we all grow together

wilt a little droughtwise too

 

watch one tree swallow another

cloud and cloud obscured

a lean and falling slowly, slowly

in the underbrush shallows

 

vine as Tarzan too

all this becalming sea caught

 

the stillness of a tune

will take most of your time

 

sour cherry –

things named for their elsewhere, for otherwise

to have them Latin on a ladder

 

soft gloss and fleshy fruit

 

the black apple

the bolly gum

yellow tulip

python tree

 

one wingfall

and another

 

red ash

 

ribbon rise

and half way up – this residence

a tiny nest

 

the eye’s a thread through mazing

where the head’s not been before

 

needless to say this all frames me

 

I’d put out

if half the leaf you are

 

I love the very thick of it

breath belonging to us all

 

I hear the wave roar

 

you can’t see through from this to there

 

you know that there’s an ocean though

 

along the way and gone   

 

who’ll bite if I stand still?










Thursday, 20 November 2025

#2151 - Ishta

 


2151

6.323

20.xi.25

Ishta

vale

 

she

the wild weed

much reality affronted

here to make everyone think again

 

a handscratch on paper

piano, too, off on a frolic

oyster worlding

full of fun

at variance with all the odds

out dancing for the rain

 

I see her with the moon

making the effort to make no effort

doing the oyster grit thing again

 

sensuous – with a beach

with a tree to mulch

naked with

 

one remembers the saga of the lost keys

the broken car

she, of that fossick

as biblical now

 

attuned to rumour, superstition

well oiled, so scented

with world embrace credulity

 

impish and where you won’t expect

names herself goddess

why not?

vengeful as

 

community of one sometimes

one woman garden

tangent to the tribe

 

protesting great wrongs as one ought

 

taking for granted odd truths

preposterously pagan `

now and then hitting the nail on the head

 

you have to imagine her up in the clouds

there’s not the least evidence for this kind of thing

still it can’t be helped

if she was everywhere, not quite at once

 

most ends are bitter

now we’re beyond

 

it’s hard to believe all she was

it’s hard to believe things she did 




Wednesday, 19 November 2025

#2150 - your tree

 



2150

6.322

19.xi.25

your tree       

for Johanna, at Port

 

what a tree!

and morning to catch light

 

every way branches

hollow and frond

 

breezes made

while you wait

 

rely on them

 

all so arranged

 

I think it’s a welcoming

when nights have dreamt

 

who wouldn’t live in it?

 

here you are

leaf green as wide

as if a sky

 

and night’s another mystery

human as the rest

 

so much and still unknown, your tree

not just one, but a forest

 

when you wake to it each day

must know that you belong

 

it’s a kind of unworld, escape

and yet a universe expanding

 

voices for a beckon

brief as creature up and gone

 

I watch a moth weave through this air

I hear the several songs

 

absent myself from thought a while

from words

and everything to do

 

it’s been a bit of a climb down

but isn’t this where we’re from? 




















Tuesday, 18 November 2025

#2150 - greetings all (poem for followers)

 


2150

6.322

19.xi.25

greetings all

poem for followers

 

according to facebook, I have 4,200 followers

 

it’s hardly for me to know you all personally

I, myself, may be bot

still one must admit that the mere thought of your multitude

does furnish a messianic urge to command

 

I appreciate your commitment, your admiration, devotion  

gratitude and

this is just a note to let you what have we have in store –

 

fasting, self-denial, self-deprecation, heroic labours

rites of passage, large donations… letting of blood

 

I plan to lead you through the desert of flaming sands

over the mountains of ineffable whatsit

down the gurgle hole of ocean

and wallow there awhile in suds

a merry hell or several

where

I, recumbent

peel me a grape and so on  

 

strive to please, read my whim

it’s never enough

 

gird up the loins and go on

through the snake pit

on a rickety rope bridge

over Crocodile Gulch, named not for nothing

 

without the shadow of a valley twaddle

and camel’s eye thread blood upon

brimstone here there too

 

look sharp

and get a move on

wilt when I whistle, bright as per demand

repeat after me some senseless dogma

 

full tilt apocalyptics, dragon do

high dudgeon, odd smirk

galumph as must, keep up

 

though not quite in my shoes

but polish if you will

 

of course the tsunami’s coming after you

earth opens up to swallow

months now since the last manna fell

nor anything at all to drink

but, having faith, you’ll be fine

believe!

on me!

who else?

 

follow me!

to the nth degree

on and beyond

out among the stars, say bravely

though you may never touch my garment

neither keep the old bones later

a distant glimpse – epiphany!

 

suffer the little and least

nor care but re-commit

wear this show

and no responsibility

a godslap fend for

all at own risk

sign this

a caveat waiver kachink

non-disclosure

 

and, comforted by hard travail

arrived in an awkward and uncomfortable space

for which your gratitude can never suffice

you will see my pictures, or at least a selection

perhaps not the very best (you would be overdazzled by such)

of course adore them, whatever stable sweepings deign permit

sit in silent admiration thereof

in awe I should say

and stood to attention

perhaps just on one leg

and holding a chair above your head

hear the words I read

receive the spirit so

commit to memory

and mumble later

that others might follow too

 

lay offerings of beautiful drugs yet to discover

 

yes, a religious experience

for all involved

 

they’re getting up a kind of cult now

tax deductible too

what’s not to like?

 

can pay by all major cards

by bank transfer

cash, most currencies

regular payments

give me the PIN

 

complaints are queued so they say but not really

you’ll not be spoken with

 

of course it’s all in the book

I’m coming up with apocrypha right now

 

miracles are hard to prove

 

they’ll say you just had to be there