#293 - alighting for Ball's Head

 

12.x.20

293

alighting for Ball’s Head

 

for all over the place

 

I saw an aeroplane today

 

things are constantly being renamed

 

raucous are parrots

hear the train close

the koel’s spring telling  

 

and once in kindy

looking up

I was in trouble for that

though surely it was more than

should have paid attention

 

steps up

the rail white painted, splintery

the high road and the low

 

lap and wash

take the tram gone by

more miracles than flight!

 

I am walking back through a clock

this is my mirror

when we were blessed with time

and took up breezily

 

an elegance of boats in bay blue

which is a close up almost green

world sandstone edged

with block of sea salted

 

putt putt

not much mast or canvas

poor fellow’s harbour then

anyone’s

not so long since the midget subs

 

the picnic and might run off

if untethered

mum said

not bubblers

cause dogs drink too

(who knew such tongues

were antiseptic?

but were dogs then?)

 

it was a mongrel woofery

of all the street along

post twice a day

before joggers

or screens had souls to gaze into

and keep them palm up

 

there were cranks and ratbags

like Percy in the house behind

who’d turn off our water

because he could

I learnt the word ‘cantankerous’

 

an Mr Murphy caught the ferry

but he was just dog

 

once there was a car broke down

and each of us got a coke for pushing

though could not have helped much

 

cast of shadows

sun flashing in the lapping

 

close your eyes tight

see the stars

 

kept coming back for me, that sun

rust here and there

and things were sunk

or half so, floated

bamboo I remember

was lantana yet then?

 

must have I think

too small to remember

 

hydrangea and hibiscus

parks with bandstands

figs still coming to their mass and height

 

a lovely whiff of warmth

 

dogs walked people then as well

smaller and bigger today

 

swish swash

 

tall chimneys for chatter

and tuppence saved here

 

weatherboard hedging

smell paint

nobody spoke spears

or said there’d been a language

 

smallpox was barely known to the blankets

nor had the plague a mention

 

but take a captain cook

here was a drippery of rocks

 

and penny had a kangaroo

but wasn’t worth much now

 

the old were spry at times, not sprightly

as you see today

but cast against the die

 

disreputable fellows

drunks thrown from saloon doors

for almost Hollywood effect

 

here’s wattle and now bottlebrush

there wasn’t the jasmine there is today

 

little glass squares top of the window

coloured the sun inside

 

one day kerb and gutter

44 gallons of leaves slow to smoke

look up into a leafery

 

the bridge was the biggest thing ever

crown jewels in which pylon?

 

it was a stumble into the future

what would you call it now?

 

and this is the harbour whiff of my childhood

fainter and fainter and gone 

                  

#292 - pyjamas in the garden

 

10. x.20

292

pyjamas in the garden

 

hints rather than instructions

 

sing truth to me

for apparition

in a sunstrew

first lit beckon

breathe and stretch

 

let loose

bound

take day up here

 

like leaf mould trembing till with spring

 

be breeze between

come lighten

hear the distances

and bible up some wrath for weeds

 

be deity a moment now

and give the golden beam

 

wild of paws

come laughter

of flowers

stem bud twig

 

all choruses at an idea

and single file

much minded

 

who wings it

so namelessly

thoughtful

of the angle pitch thrust

air for granted

limb to land

 

with pathos in the fallacy

and who’s been sleeping in my bed?

green to soon shoot

 

all readiness and underbrim

waiting on the rain

 

in pyjamas till the garden

where we let the forest back 

#291 - singularity of a hat

 

                                       

10. x.20

291

singularity of a hat

 

to shape the head

or say it maketh

sun all these miles

and moonlit too

still a direct hit

 

shady, in the most personal sense

it is the overhead say sheepfold felt

 

all the great thoughts gather here

and sort out some excuses

 

turn up the volume

lower ears

or cock to wry

trick breezes

 

fingerhole in brim to handle

 

on just a little jaunt

feather for swagger

falls off  

 

I dips me lid

some say crown

or unhorse kingdoms

but call to the old akubra

it comes

 

under this baldness

a shielding

lines are legend each

 

dry dignity was under once

but all that washed

 

it may catch alight with the setting

a certain angle say

 

this one’s to buggery and back

did trenches

slouch Kokoda too

 

and you could keep the pudding there

all sing ‘God Save the King’

 

makes a lovely raft for floodsprite

pegmen say

 

a dance of trousers till

and never knew the wardrobes

or the hatters, bar but once

 

world in that one, all will say

a working hat

sacred to the breeze’s secret

has known the better days

 

the garden of proposals

 

blows off

and blows away

  

#290 jeux d'eau

9.x.20

290

jeux d’eau

a summer presage

 

come kids

over the bindies

shivering in

 

and trick light down

a perfect roundness

lasting towards

just this in the picture

world shone out

 

hours to next

and sometimes salted

a welling at the source

 

let all economies so flow

a tickle down your chill

but dare

go bare

above ground

 

march the circle

run

make whirl

float round

all summer told

 

this under koel

swum

set of sun

 

a spin of stars

all falling

                  

#289 - the unknown artist

8.x.20

289

the unknown artist

 

a float in, unroofed

pauses, brinking at the work

let’s call it

 

trip windows

tell my joy

 

a quiverful

worded in with a statement

life towards the light and this

 

so fraught

not one dry eye

 

swim under

worry my bone

sing so the words may find you  

 

and will it be a go again? 

 

this is Johnny’s one tune

swoon, come with me home

 

here’s a world up over turning

eat me and drink me

serve a war

here are pockets of death

and dig

 

uttermost to heart

finding a way through

call it a page

 

much chat among the discarded

and with the might have beens

 

edge

and mirror making

 

here’s your inner

soaked in which?

 

fill canvases – still sail

 

come inch me home

see all the city stands

invisible hands made here

 

last trumps

 

stumble onto and over we go

 

once more into the breach

and buried

proud of the picture that’s gone

 

the unknown artist

featureless monument past flesh

 

rag ladder

together invent

and lie down with fleas

 

come follow the trail

of sharps and flats

 

a coin fell into the cup once

 

walls of this one

sem titulo

 

of course the art must be unknown

it’s that’s the way we go

 

let the vessel raise steam

 

will you come worship me

strew questions?

we are graveless

 

up and follow me zombies

namelessly go, makers

to the finishing

 

tell the kingdom of come

 

is the sound we make

the vanishing without a trace

though you have found me here

?