Drowning (1)

If sand could be swallowed
would that empty place within
find itself curving back into a solid
and home, that recedes in the light of day,
be finally re-found?

If the night, that hollow we step within
and try to hide all the damage
we have done, could be devoured and made  
to turn again
into light would we feel the sun run
free in the tired rivers of our veins?

And if my hand could hold the right pen,
if the ink ran into all the proper places
and the lines between remained balanced and sober,
would I finally find all the images and sounds
might fall still       
the way a leaf tumbles down to the floor
and creates a sea of silence for the many lives
of the creatures that burrow and scurry beneath
the ocean of tree?

Might I, finally finding my inside had been turned    
Out and drowning then in the sight
of what should be hidden, be set free?

It might as well be

The question is incorrectly posed as should we
Instead of why don’t we

Send our airplanes, empty, not loaded,
Ready to lift and rescue
Not drop and rend?

On a smaller scale
Why don’t we change so that the bee
And the flower can continue to brighten each day?

Who decided
A person’s worth depended upon
The god they believe or do not believe
In?

Why don’t we applaud all choices
Instead of only those we agree with?

And if he wishes to hold a man’s hand and place a ring upon it,
Or she chooses to hold a woman’s instead,
Why don’t we smile at the gestures instead
Of forcing the round pegs
Into our square holes?

Why don’t we
Save the coal by leaving it alone
So that future generations might
Do the same?

Why don’t we accept
That someone must make good choices
And it might as well
Be us?

Battered Orange

 

Holding the orange, peeled and whole,

out towards her nose, close but not touching,

his eyes peeled also, dead like the rind,

his lips round with hate, with spite, with contempt.

The juice runs between his fingers,

the pulp oozes, the sound below the capability of ears

but present nevertheless like death

residing in the first thumps of being.

He wipes his hands on her clothes,

her face and in her hair, ruining the look

she had sought that morning and he turns,

leaving without closing the door.

There is no blood, just juice,

the ruin of an orange on the floor,

the rind curling like the discarded skin

of grown snake around her bare feet.

He will return

and she will let him

the way the orange has no choice

but hangs from the branch

lost in a deception

innocence and fear have no account for.

In words we trust

Steel never worked

except for the collectors of blood

providing carcasses

over which wealthy hounds gathered

to howl,

their front feet resting on skulls

while worms burrow into the guts of everything.

Hiding never helped;

someone always found them

or the steel did

or the hounds and worms

or blackest coal lit the way

exposing them

and fear

finds everything, has a nose

large as an ocean,

ears and wide as the sky.

Pleading only makes dust

of the future,

makes forests fall and leaves

into graves for what may have been

if time was shared equally

between failure and hope

and we know that is never the case;

misery is the best poker player there is.

But words

written on paper, on walls,

spoken into the ears, into the streets -

words defeat steel because words

unlike the flesh

cannot be pierced, cannot be blooded

cannot be stopped by force.

Words have no heart

and so carry the hearts of us all.

so this is what a poet does

what does a painter do

when not weeping a palette of oils

down whiskered chin

and that man in the cart, broken in

by circumstance,

with the white brush

painting lines all day and into the loud night

so  women in bright floral 

are able to turn their vehicle

left

or right or drive straight

on into the café and serve latté coffees

with cake and a swish of décor

designed in a room with a large glass window overlooking a bluestone laneway

where suited and scarved people stumble as they hustle

just like words

and rhythm and

where to break from happenstance, where to leave one’s hat when dancing

and when to stop and watch feet

boarding trains to anywhere;

figures receding into memories and possibilities such as

when I put the pen down once but now I stop

touching the keys and hope the mind and heart

fall at ease.

Fishing with my son:

My son and I dived for that slippery witch changed into a fish

To escape the meanderings we shared as we sat on the bank

Of the moving river and tried to connect — but our words

Are not framed in each other’s history and the silvery witch,

Bloated as she is with misunderstandings, did not wish

To let us understand each other. She fled the scene of that fallen idyll

When we stopped by the river’s bank, cast words with fishing lines

And found the snags and tangles too much: The fish did not bite

So we two took up the chase instead for that shimmer of salmon gold,

Went after the tail, fin and the legend that a salmon caught would

Make the two of us wise enough be back again at that moment when

My son’s eyes looked up at me and I smiled, his smell still bright

As sunshine and my hand had its first chance to caress him and I had

Not stumbled nor had we shared the least moment of generational difficulty.

The Accumulation of me

The accumulation of me

Hanging from life's scaffold, drifting back…

To the tree and then from tree to seed. The seed

Takes me to the warm, wet earth; to ferns

Chomped by the powerful jaws of giant reptiles

And eventually to the mother, the sea...

When they cut me down they wanted me to believe

The blue fairy had saved me. I stood firm -

Felt my feet in the earth of a million years ago,

The remains of the sea in the tears that welled -

I am not a product of the waved magical wand

But of the complex artistry of the double helix.

Life did not come cheaply, not for the seed

Nor the tree, not for the plankton

Nor the first pulse of the original single cell.

All steps on the evolutionary journey

To the point where I am able to maintain the place I am

By standing proud on my own two feet.