#365 - five poems - the day falls over, the air alive, 365, 100 years of Holst's planets, royal road

 

30.xii.20

365

five poems

 

the day falls over

for Richard Tipping

not a found, but a finding, poem

 

had noticed a little lean early on

must have been too much loaded

 

night had a certain lilt

the ground confirmed

and safely host

a tentacle took hold

 

CARS LINKED TO SHOOTINGS FOUND ALIGHT

morning is bring out your dead

but that was haply somewhere else

 

a rip and we drag under

not even breakfast yet

but day grew in

grew over us

 

antediluvian intentions

just follow that arrow

go straight

 

day was a teetering edge of yr trolley

by tooth by claw

cliffhanger too

 

we chocked it up with games for a bit

they too came to grief

 

there was a landslide

and a record number of cases

better get a test

 

rain predicted everywhere

day wore us

badge of perseverance

 

still, tilt to go again

day might get up

 

there was a sort of setting out

but no

 

and then the day caught fire

by way of excuse

 

cicada static

the sixes and thunder

what the radio says

 

a wicket win

alert for the visited churches

 

a storm where the road ran out

 

sore around the ribs where he fell

it was a quite a swim

the motor was still running

with only a dog on board

 

 

 

 

 

the air alive

 

in summer say

or in some nearby season

alone

 

come again

from memory

 

I know you

all fallen feathers

to show

 

beat by beat

with barely the mark of a question

but curls the air alive

 

and a tree grew from this tune

then later find me

in an underbliss

 

shall we much marvel the heights?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

365

 

I became a counter of days

 

do you know this one?

do you know which what?

 

starts out like the rest

but that’s just to begin

goes along as others

ends

 

and will be always with

we’ll be back in

have had

like every dog

and in the sun

made sometime shade

 

future so bright

a clock works over it

 

kind of a writing comes

to those who count the days

 

and toll for thee

 

notice the hour come round?

so it’s time

 

a top of it to ye!

 

 

 

 

one hundred years of Holst’s planets

 

they’re still up there

in fact many more

and we have been to some

to all of his

not on foot but

 

glorious this empire

of our wanderers

from whom the fictions spring

 

turns out stars spin them at quite a rate

and more than you’d ever count

or all of us together

 

Saturn V up

and take me breathless

as back in the day

leave gravity

 

see stages fall

and off to battle

Mars is the biggest statue of all

but Jupiter is bigger

 

these planets

so many various unknown

and not a breath to breathe

 

each a god or has

and far

and couldn’t give a damn

 

 

 

 

 

 

royal road

 

beauty of the thing

fallen over

grown up through

say for instance tree

and you have the idea

 

track just by foot

where nothing’s there

 

the turn almost taken

by the invisible

and who knows whose (?)

but now the ants consider

 

and we along

 

the moment going

and the moment gone

and we along

with it

days of Christmas (a little reprise from December 2016)

 

from Project 366

363

days of Christmas

 

we rented a little place

between Christmas and New Year

 

tides perfect for wading there

and riding in without a board

 

of course one had to watch out

for  the dumpers, the rips

sand in the pants de rigeur

 

it was still the longest day

all under-hat and breeze beholden

 

a sun might be severe or mild

made silhouettes of branches, birds 

or you could float away

 

some clothing was compulsory

at certain hours and thongs

cause sand was hot

 

when the wind died down

news altogether ceased

no planes fell, they kept on flying

combatants must have thought better of wars

 

the year was already chocka

and further information could not penetrate the skull

 

there was still music for a radio

ethereal immortal

as all who live the longest day

 

my word

the texts that came in then

were only party invitations

 

nor would they ever expire

because tonight is always coming

day goes on all hours

 

I wouldn't call it exactly a shack

the garden made of afternoon

 

my great novel was underway

as brought on by beer

 

we lived in an esky

I tell no lies

 

on leftovers

and all our spoons were the runcible kind

 

yes I was painting a picture too

 

and under the Bong Tree

jigs, gavottes

nameless twirls for feeling

not a piggy-wig to market then

 

quick wickets when play resumes

everything tending to opera

who could tire of totem tennis

or bowls or shuttlecock or quoits?

 

work?!

don't make me laugh

slavery was long abolished!

or maybe in America someone making cars

more fool them

 

we just sunk further in the lawn, the lounge

there was the odd arduous journey

lilo to hammock, that sort of thing

then laughter dissolved into fits

more ice!

 

certain howevers were hanging about

(things set adrift come awash)

there was something I got my back into

a minor repair I suppose

result was a fucking Taj Mahal

(cool for the regions requiring shade)

 

a candle lit for somewhere cold

we thought the dark of them

 

a telescope for the brief bright blaze

but mainly a veranda's dreaming

of was-and-will-be

 

now the turkey is a fanciful beast

and lives in the fridge for days

on the hill in there (by the golden plains)

a celebrant of sorts

 

it's all eat me and drink me

guzzle me

and golly whiskers

 

something buzzed in through a hole

things bit

I'll admit

but neither were they greedy either

 

all sorts of things from other years

that's what you get between-times

 

a bird flew through

it was for guitar and piano

 

words wanting surely

found us there

 

they were playing our song

so we joined in

 

it was ping and pong

and we chased a ball

far off in the scrub

tea time when we got back

 

there was a year to come

everyone had a flash new diary

beautifully blank

 

out windows

we caught waves of ether

but they were harmless passing

a kind of cherry liqueur waft still

 

we lost count in days of Christmas

like a birthday after

goes on for as long as distraction lets

(and further than you can count)

 

between 'Medina' and 'Dun Romin'

'Languorous' we named the shack

as if it were something clever Scottish

 

Hobart was too far

for a little boat back then

but how heroic black and white

you had to imagine them bronzed

 

accordion up in the attic

kookaburra sits on the wire

 

Bush Week

you might have called it

and a christening was daily expected

it was sixpence of chips

down at the shops

and there were fizzy drinks too

pink champagne (kids' lemonade)

gum leaves everywhere about

 

and trust me, friends,

we're all still there

if you'll just find the time

 

#364 - I went to see the psychopath

 

29.xii.20

364

I went to see the psychopath

 

he she was burying a bone

no padding

never much danger to the self

hard to get attention though

 

methodical

 

we spoke in a measured both knew way

and mustn’t mention

who was the elephant in the room

actually a list

of ticks and crosses

 

walrus to oyster and so

 

what difference does it if

sense heightened?

 

they left us alone together a bit

it was love at first

house burning down

wracked my tender parts

 

I needed expert treatment

the tongue so tripped

a gnash and rend

 

kind of a mocking doom

had to know

 

I went to see the psychopath

because the psychopath was in charge

pinch of this and a pound of such flesh

 

there was some humming

slammed heads in that door

meticulous to bury

 

a couchy thing

we spoke of childhood, sealing wax

and so on, how to pull off wings

an ubermensch thing you know

one thing led on through the forest

till darker than

 

‘insensitive to sanction’

and ‘treatment worsens’ me

 

joke science!

 

no accounting

simply the best

better than…

 

yo yo

let’s say latest craze

never mention pathology

beat you at all the tests

 

a few doors down

from you know who

megal… mono… ego…

pretending to be pretending

low profile

 

a drawer with odd coloured socks

nails all painted and pointing too

 

was a coiled spring

ready to bite

map to track

by ankle bracelet

 

no nonsense

mixing up the explosives

 

is it a crime to be?

 

gently gently

in this bliss

and join this wire to this

 

step on a rhyme

it will all explode

and not my fault

but mastermind

 

a heart of war

how else evolved

to the eternal struggle?

 

I chased the bugger

round a tree

I let the lazy dog lie

I was the quick brown fox

#363 - two poems - first snake & selfie

 

28.xii.20

363

two poems

 

first snake

(kookaburra’s watch)

 

I met my first snake for the year today

… that was yesterday – 27^th December

I had to check it was …

others had reported this privilege

and much more impressively

this one could have been a shoelace dropped

          worm on steroids, GT stripe

             red on the black

only just showing, as if well worn

(when actually the latest thing)

 

and had I not been wearing glasses

might have stepped on

 

it was

(let me anthropomorphise)

blithe, oblivious

on the way pondward

which it could not see

but why not, just on a whiff?

and on the way

 

no selfie together

and I didn’t have my phone

so, really, this is all I can show you

 

of course I could find file footage

but one slight

might never show

 

could it harm?

this one had no idea of the odds

 

timid and little

hoping a way

still, a bad name for poison

 

and slashing is good

and boots de rigeur

 

in grass so green no camouflage

every perched branch watching

lazy laughter and the laser eye!

 

that little snake was no symbol striving

it was a bad year almost gone

 

ought to get a wriggle on

 

 

 

 

selfie

the giver of alms

 

I was there

in the dustup star once

 

stood in the dock condemned

 

counsel asked

is the murderer

the same boy skipped stones

to show his sister

 

kind moment in the cruel heart

 

I was the tadpole made it

red tooth and claw

 

the one who regendered

made monk or soldier

are these one in the same?

 

none ask of sanctity

 

the person of three gods for instance

a ghost written book

 

as if in the one life

butterfly, beast

 

was Joan d’Arc amoeba once?

of course and wolf and fire

 

often it’s asked of cradling bub

am I my father now

 

will chubby hands catch sovereign?

 

named or not

who this one will be

 

say Christmas

and a favourite tipple

 

in corpse light

all these ages after

 

was I the same as

never ash

 

dust’s poor dogma

 

we are each of them still

they are us

 

Villon’s danglers

 

they are on the nose

with whom

but feel these deaths

 

they’re stone

and the larger stone

say mountain

and larger than that

have a moon

run round

 

all motions of our oneness

 

first the wind

nothing to breathe but time

and no one calls it

but each of us still

 

call beginning

don’t know

 

I am all of them  

you’re all yours

 

the desert here between the rivers

in, yes, was paradise

 

I am not waiting for anyone

I am at the end of the line

 

and now

before the names are lost

 

the unknown every woman man

the nailed up

kicked down

driven

 

hurl a stone for him her

you one eyed cannibal brute

 

it’s someone always saves the day

 

here where the tree lies felled

still ripe among ripe fruit