riverwalks:

 

 

the shadows weave in and out of light

steal twigs and leaves

have ripples as echoes of fish thoughts

the footprints of insects

given over to mundane contemplation of food

and shelter

 

understands the best way to avoid the rain

is to be water

accept each drop as a gift, swell

with pride, roar with stories

and carry the load

to all aspects of life

 

banks for security

contain their own ripples

stay still, move occasionally

paint offerings

glimpses into light

and movement

 

heard in the sad lament

rocks stuck within make

as water washes away dreams

takes all edges

and curbs them into a sameness

of direction.

mother had kelp for hair

that flowed behind

in ringlets of finger-points

directing eyes to this stairwell

that corner even beneath the bed

in the ark

where the ocean waited

as patiently as winter sap

 

mother floated into my dreams

wearing hessian denials

toenails scrapping the heart’s walls

drawing a chorus of could-be’s

to paint the floor

footprints glowing into the gaps

between her eyelids

 

she is still alive

living somewhere out beyond the atolls

salt-crusted

eyes searching horizons

for mushrooms and lightning strikes

 

in my boat of suits and shirts

I search for her

untangling ties that strangle

and a briefcase with teeth

as sharp as a river’s edge

Screamlines:

 

 

 

There is no dreaming

only a turning around

ahead awaits the white wall of shock

where truth and facts

hang corded beliefs out to dry –

 

Oh it all comes back

this way, time is not a linear progression

but a spiral up and down;

 

in ancient caves people sat

spoke in whispers about cities so large

the world was devoured, placed their hands

in coloured earth made wet with spit and piss

marked the walls

a warning to all who follow

all who precede

beware the clocks of civilisation

they can never be sated but must

as all monsters know

grow and grow and grow

until all explodes into a desert

or flood.

 

Doves drop brittle twigs

hoping to build a forest

to hide the world from view.

 

 

he believed he was a rabbit:

 

Sat in the middle of the playground
on haunches
his sandals full of marbles
lifted from games while thumbs and eyes
focused on the twirls of colour
in spherical glass stories

teachers told him
to stand as other children did
empty his pockets of food
he harboured – nibbled carrots
and celery reminded him of the dentures
singing in a watered glass
beside his grandfather’s bed.

He remembers the sound of the old man’s chest
an ocean that lifted and plunged
into words he barely understood
before it fell still, left behind a storm
that never broke and a smell
he was not able to wash away.

Sadness grew around him
in tufts of sweet grass ready for him to chew
while others played football or chasey
he hunched low, nibbled his bottom lip
with his two front teeth
rubbed imaginary twin ears
with hands clubbed
to resemble paws

waited
for his mother’s voice to call him
into boyhood again.

Every day at three thirty
he raced to her car
the sound of children’s voices filling him – tears
falling with an absence of sound
into the whirlpool of tomorrows.

the art of rolling stones:

The stones inside were small,

jagged

cut discord into words,

gestures and the lust that followed;

a shadow, a wolf, a breeze

sickly sweet, a touch too warm

for sleep.

 

The stones inside grew

smoothed

sought peace in words

art and an acceptance

that found laps, rested, purred, a breeze

tangy; scent of lemon myrtle

for dreams.

 

The stones rest upon eyelids,

draw the curtains

place the feet on a stool,

words a drool; the fool

now understands life’s a breeze

that whispers truth

behind loud footsteps.

we are Thomas

The thing that is needed

is for everyone

to roll up their proverbial sleeves

(hemp not cotton, please)

hold our eyes to the wound –

none of this looking down or to the side –

and push, push hard

into the gaping lesion,

listening all the time

to the whispers of the earth.

 

Place your hand into that polluted fissure

feel the pain

feel the lament of extinction

feel the grasses replaced by weeds

the trees replaced with wheat

the soil replaced with sludge

the wetlands now dry

the forests now roads

the rivers now sewers

the ocean now a collector of plastic…

 

And believe, you doubters, believe!

 

It appears it is only when our fingers

encounter the relentless damage

that our kind can cast aside

The cloak of doubt and believe.

 

We did this.

We strung this sacred planet up.

We sought Calvary not restoration,

greed not mutual benefit.

 

Can we lay down our doubt, then

and believe that the earth is dying

and will be reborn

but  that we…we will not be so lucky.

The Memory tree - a children's story...I think....

The Memory Tree:

 

He was an unusual…boy?

She was not sure… girl?

Just as likely…

 

What made her or him different though

was the manner of remembering.

 

He or she had no memories inside.

 

Instead, the memories

to be recollected

grew amongst the leaves of the most beautiful orange tree.

 

She

or

He

 

would pluck an orange each morning

when the bright yellow sun

was rising in the beautiful blue sky

 

peel away the rind

lick the juices off fingers

with tongue and lips.

 

He

or

She

 

devoured one memory only

every day.

 

Some days the memory

was of a pale green house with smoke

coming out of the chimney.

 

Or a hill

covered in red and blue parrots who squawked

stories at each other

 

Sometimes it was a train ride

in a big sea-green train with wheels that shone

and a funnel for the steam

with tracks that ran

beside the seaside.

The rattling of the wheels on the tracks

matched the water

that rolled out and back.

 

It was like

living a life

afterwards

 

or backwards in time to before

the orange

was an orange

 

before it was a flower, white and smelling as sweet

as morning dew

 

or a bud that unfolded and drew

the bee inside.

 

Back to when

the tree was bare

and the sun was hidden

by clouds.

When rain fell like the words of a song

and her or his life

had just begun.

 

Each evening

as the sun grew heavy and decided to rest

taking off its bright yellow coat

to be replaced with silk pyjamas

of the deepest blue

 

She

or

He

 

would climb into the fork in the middle of the orange tree

nestle in

feel the two boughs of the tree

hug with love

and encourage him

or her

to dream of the memory that waited

to be discovered

in the orange

the very next day.

the end.

autumn holiday

 

My sister and I only,

the youngest in the shadows

too young for company

ahead, the rest have outgrown us.

 

I eat a mandarin, she

had chosen an apple

each of us take a bite

before the upward arc.

 

We have escaped, discovered

evergreen trees that grew flat

on top; these, springy and dense,

we turned into trampolines.

 

We jump and jump

me up and down

her further and further

into a desire to join the others –

 

Once musketeers

who shared the stage together

a space opened and separated us

for some years.

Memories are like oranges…

 

Days litter the tree

ripe and heavy, golden oranges

plucked – at night I see

the little child, knees knocking

like twigs in the wind

it is the distance that surprises,

the ladder needed to reach out

and pluck, hold, bring close to the nose

smell and then the thumbs pushed in

the orange prised apart

juices everywhere, devoured then

until each half is a peel turned inside out

the flesh stuck to teeth, to hands.

 

The mind yearns until one day

the mind is marooned

in that tree, the world far down below

sometimes a fall; mind lands in the present.

 

Mother does that

and then slips away again, up into that tree

surrounded by oranges

leaving children stranded below

craning necks, watching her shrink

into her past and the future without.

idylls of Rosebud

 

Blanket of sand cleaned each night

ready for feet to travel to and from the sea,

the sea shallow, parents’ relief, mothers

relinquish control for a time

to safest of waters, ankles, sometimes knees

but only at a cost of effort,

ideal for young bodies, the older seek

the back beaches for waves and surf boards,

listen to the scream of freedom

in every smashed wave upon forlorn rock;

stranded Odysseus, separated by years,

not wax and rope, from the headland 

community where they once belonged.

 

Flounder flicker in the shallows,

searched by torchlight at night, wood with nails

roped to secure, enough to spear

miniature fish in the minds of children as wild

and ready as shark or orca; plenty of toadies

too, those braggarts of the foreshore

who carry a bloated belief poison will protect,

the pier littered with their flopping dreams

that ebb away leaving behind crusty scales

and eyes that see only what has been left.

Sometimes three or four children pause

before a fresh scene of death, stare down

at the bloated caricature of oceanic freedom.

 

The wind blows the sand for hours and days,

takes fragments, hurls them into eyes and ears;

each morning the beach is the same

and unique every day for every footprint.

 

Sometimes an ant pretends purpose

lost in the boulders it tried to cross

beneath the surface tiny lions wait for the ant

to fall into their dish, wait with an angel’s patience

for the ant to relinquish the fight, settle

at the bottom and wait for the crush.

 

Spade and buckets carry sand and water

for castles and rivers, roads and buried bodies;

a hundred heads rest, stare at feet

below the surface bodies wreak havoc

until sand caves in, the whole thing repeats.

 

For hours I swam in that water, day after blue sky day,

roasted black and tender with salt,

language forgotten, stories imagined, 

crashing one into the other until mother’s voice 

demanded a return to boyhood, standing at the edge 

she holds a towel, smiles, remembers, I suppose, 

her own trips as a child, the games played 

in the same waters of Rosebud.