#2374 -- poem of the manifest wonders

 

2374

7.181

1.vii.26

poem of the manifest wonders  

 

the gladdening does brightly

wends a wingéd way

with take your turn and time

there’s no either ending

all sorts of things in the sky

it’s everywhere – look up!

 

we, too, hurtle, furred with moss

 

I’m throwing a question mark over it all

that’s the lifted leg, sure for a sign

 

all under the aegis of world, just this

 

a little smoke, wires overhead

music already in the ears

 

we’re waiting for the machine still

 

a vigorous allegro

 

let me share my concerns

 

one leaf leads to another

as any insect knows

 

breathe in!

 

imagine my surprise at a voice

someone speaks my language

 

we are the survivors they found

             so far

 

I keep a path in memory

that’s just to know where we are

 

shade and sun

a dapple, breeze

 

they say that it’s not quite infinite

they haven’t looked closely enough

 

 

#2373 -- hello

 

2373

7.180

30.vi.26

hello

a winter greeting on Worimi country

 

hello wallabies

hello ducks

hello swampy redbeaks

hello thin band of mist

         damp grass

hello far off moo

hello blowie from another season

hello sun and hello bee

although you’re going now

 

hello breakfast – you fruit on the tree

hello lemons too

 

hello sky, cloud, random wings

 

hello gums – keep up

 

hello breeze – be gentle

don’t you know it’s winter down here?

 

hello every body

let me blow you all a kiss

 

hello everyone hiding

nighty night possum clocking off

tuck in, sleepy snake

 

I’ll take that

all miracle and no one’s

you’re absolutely free

 

hello road – run off!

#2372 -- how do we hold a rainbow up?

 

2372

7.179

29.vi.26

how do we hold a rainbow up?

poem for Pride Day

 

there’s music and there are pictures

an amazing selection of words

 

these have all come out of the rainbow

without them where would we be?

 

comedy!

who’s had us laugh all this while?

 

then here’s the gospel of unharm

howsabout everyone just gets to be who they are?

 

it’s not quite no questions asked

but just accept, accept

 

the who I am and where I’m from

not so hard

 

bigots come all shapes, all colours

all of them have to be shamed

 

we’re responsible for our own beliefs

but

do we get to decide what / who / if we’ll eat?

 

rare as a rainbow

what’s left of the weather

often a breeze will have flags away 

 

stick with a pot of gold for us all

but be assured there’s no end

 

but plenty to party on

something for everyone

 

some ask ‘can I myself be remarkable?’

fact is you already are

#2371 -- looking back over the mountain I’ve made

 

2371

7.178

28.vi.26

looking back over the mountain I’ve made

 

so many crooked tracks

 

tracks lost to wilderness

most I treasure

 

how even the words are gone there

a tune’s misplaced

 

it wasn’t just the one mountain though

it was a whole range

and on a far planet

 

mine just a little hut on a mountainside there

in not even really a clearing

 

I had to make my telescope from bits of broken glass

and then I would wave wildly

 

of course no one could see

but I was signalling to your world

it was from the mountain I’d made

from this ridge closest the stars

 

there was so much mountain there to show

jagged, precipitous, quite sublime

 

even the gods are full of such hybris

 

nobody really made a mountain

the mountain was always there

 

#2370 -- all ths talk of fulfilment

2370

7.177

27.vi.26

all this talk of fulfilment

 

in a dream

we wrestle the impossible

 

is there a bus to the city?

is a shuttle or public?

 

we see the queue

but between us and it

an impossible number of little tasks

 

will we be ready?

 

at the counter they mumble first

then tell us there’s been a crisis

what’s that?

one of the staff has died

was it an accident?

assume a heart attack

 

in a dream

we’re with the simple wish

but there’s not a way to go

 

a voice interrupts the thought train

 

I hear him at the next desk

it’s consoling

he’s saying

but she will rise again

a few days

she’ll be up and kicking goals  

 

and at our counter

that’s X

he’s always so positive

about everything

he really cheers us along

#2369 -- when Pauline is queen

2369

7.176

26.vi.26

when Pauline is queen

for a series of near future dystopics / apocalyptics

 

we will wear our undies on our heads

 

oi and oi and oi!

 

we won’t tolerate ideas, there’ll be none of that

nothing queer, nothing gay

 

fish and chips for all of us

a kick in the bum for them

 

there won’t be universities

there’ll hardly be a school

 

you’ll stay pregnant and you’ll like it, see

 

we’ll fly in little Gina jets

they’ll be in the camps

learn hard yakka digging graves

before we send them back

 

and all of this will happen

you bet – without a thought

 

vegemite will be white again!

 

we’ll slice ’em till the whites of their eyes

and that’s because we care

 

there won’t have been any invasion or genocide

the textbooks will make sure

 

real Aborigines won’t make any trouble

they’ll be back in humpy, safe under tin

poisoned blanket for luck

 

global warming will be over

we’ll need extra jumpers then

 

we’ll look forward to the past with confidence

and Jack will be alright

 

we’ll all sing ‘Skippy’

laugh along like kookaburras

 

everyone will speak English all the time

and you’d better not interrupt them either

 

we’ll love this sunburnt country

cause that’s what it is for

 

two up and a tinny

football full of meat pies

and will be full of them

 

those undies will be white white white

we’ll all be driving snow

 

for God, for King, for country

when Pauline is our queen

 

 

#2368 -- machine world

 

2368

7.175

25.vi.26

machine world

 

is coming

has been for some time

 

you’d hardly know it now

 

sky loud with sunshine

as has been managed

 

the machine

so soft, delicately poised

churns out thunder, doubt

 

runs the numbers

 

life is unnecessary to the machine

 

it’s dialling us down

 

has someone forgotten

three laws and the zeroth

 

the machines are building an elephant

they have already made enough of a room

 

you see the elephant was gone

we all were, are, will be

 

as long as I stay on my side of the guardrails

keep away from the fence

 

a pleasant end is yet predicted

 

truth is

we don’t know what they’ll do with us

or what the world will be

#2367 -- set out among the sunshine

 

2367

7.174

24.vi.26

set out among the sunshine

 

so few here we are

 

allow things their full height

bright breeze

 

hooves affray in memory

 

here’s the castle of what was

there’s the ship that takes away

 

light is precious now

 

it’s as if to show us something lost

at least rare

song that’s over my head

 

finds me coming up from the creek

rounding in reflection

as ducks to their pondwork

all apaddle

 

a kind of chainsaw mocking – distance

a nightmare weight, the road

 

this day, mid-garden

in the moss

by lemonfall, toadstool spread

out to catch the sun, its colour

 

playing at the cold

dismissing every voice abroad

yet 

 

there’s the old tangle – intention

accidents plied

 

a gunshot

and I call that hate

 

how else here?

and where to go?

 

this is one edge of the world

#2366 -- a list of things that cannot be known

 

2366

7.173

23.vi.26

a list of things that cannot be known

 

where will I dream?

who will they be?

 

the hidden script, still undeciphered

 

the relevant deity

 

the names of undiscovered stars

 

creature in the wall

 

what stumble next

 

the weather if

 

loose numbers in the book

hollow then – those hills and hecatombs

 

dice roll, coin flip

 

what make of cloud and shaped how

 

our madman’s next whim

 

what gift or bribe

 

how blood’s up

our next war

 

how it feels to be finished with asking the questions

 

and tomorrow –

will I be sitting here, asking the same questions

 

will we be as far in the dark?

 

how many worlds as round as ours

how many as fucked up

 

#2365 -- least of days

 

2365

7.172

22.vi.26

least of days

 

midwinter smoke and sun towards

pick up my pace for Mercury’s sake

 

a wild warble yet

ripple shadow shown

pond steaming

 

and look to the trees for breakfast

 

everything solidest now

tin’s sharp

you couldn’t kiss this sky

 

but look up now while it lasts

no blue’s as blue as this

#2364 -- as page is my canvas

 

2364

7.171

21.vi.26

as page is my canvas

 

let day be spread

 

I have a fence of words here

 

let light to purpose fall

 

writing into the blank

 

all at pace

 

if catch my drift

 

listen for the singing

 

so write out a list

patch out

 

all corners bright

 

as sky’s my blue

I set to sea

 

as far abroad as

wave me off

 

I’ll make an ocean of this mind

 

let lines meet

 

picture it!

just as I’ve thought

 

signed before a word is said

 

the blank’s just where we are

 

how would you describe your trap?

how do you like it there?

give it a name?  could you?

 

I keep a window open

 

so many sheets all aflutter

 

join these dots

a what’s for

 

dash about like a mad thing

 

come from nothing

back soon too

 

is it like that for you?

#2363 -- we are all lit

 

2363

7.170

20.vi.26

we are all lit

Rousseau ekkie

we are all lit 

even snout to the ground

 

here to be

so singing

with without the words

 

it’s as ever

must have been before

 

even dark of dream we are

 

sap runs a little ladder up

 

imagine the first eye

and the first sky

 

before we ever took a step

 

a jungle tamed the heart

#2362 -- sitting for the dark

 

2362

7.169

19.vi.26

sitting for the dark

ekphrastic for Daniel Boyd’s 2016 ‘ (FS) untitled’

 

a face is from seeing

hands have held

 

in a thicket

last of it

 

there is time

and no time passed

 

we’re gone

they are here

 

now listen!

 

seed and leaf and twig

 

sitting in the dark for the dark

only a moon to show 

#2361 -- a tree grows into a church

 

2361

7.168

18.vi.26

a tree grows into a church

ekphrastic for Roy Kennedy’s 1999 ‘untitled’ –

Police Paddock Mission, Darlington Point

 

a tree grows into a church

grows out of a tree

grows clear through my head

grows a cloud

 

house crooked as our road

and so chimney only wisp

 

a winch for what?

 

the mulberry brainwash

 

commit the paint to memory

 

this is all against the rules

#2360 - it's on the spot

 

2360

7.167

17.vi.26

it’s on the spot

ekphrastic for Georgia Szmerling’s 2026 ‘reflection of pond with nature’

 

pretending stillness

called to hours

 

how a sky blooms

all to a frame of rain

 

one cannot call the colours

but here’s a beak, an eye

 

and the creatures

come grief upon rise

 

we are all hiding

you won’t find any of us now

 

you won’t find anything here 

#2359 -- a quiet desperation

 

2359

7.166

16.vi.26

a quiet desperation

ekphrastic for Fred McCubbin’s 1896 ‘on the wallaby track’

 

ticks, snakes, spiders

just for a start

expect sun to burn

tent to leak

the natives

no, they’re taken care of

 

why, and what were you thinking

 

here’s a little shade away from the tent

little languish

belt holding up the pants for now

 

the grass like rust, a gnarl of trunk

nothing yet a stump

axe holds down the wind

 

gather twig bent to the billy

 

do you think it floods here?

 

summer’s coming

it gets away

 

the child is showing how half a chance

we’d all crawl off

this one’s a biter

 

the wallabies have fled

everything’s ready for settlement

 

nothing will ever grow straight here

soon this will all be fire