Snapshots September 7, 2005
This Earthly Cycled Hope
the ugliest of creatures
the eater of dead other creatures
the possum
in the persimmon tree
deadly grey white
slow moving bulk
nose snufflng the earth
for creatures to consume
even that one
returns each spring
past territorial walls and trees
awake in the day
only in the spring
not even fearing its enemy
us
it drops down from a thick limb
heavy beside us
while in my bedroom
the exotic plant I never watered
thought it dead
leafed out fully
after four brown months
in spring
the moment to which
all deaths point
and boy toy the painter
prisonbait
for torching his last job
the house he had come to hate
but he came back to my house
in the spring
his name and likeness
in every squadcar
his fingerprints
not yet recorded
when I drink he said
I do terrible things
but I just want to paint
I want to be a painter
I gave him a set of paints
thick vellum and best wishes
because cars frightened him
from my door
he might have torched my house
with me in it
the possum who eats carrion
the lost soul who burns his job
the souls consumed and consuming
that nevertheless and relentless
come around in the spring
with strange yearnings
named in other names
in codes to hide the news
that souls need tending
at least every spring
Judy Prince
***
HIS POETRY
gradually
his poetry
developed
over the years
from a small
silver spittoon
to a full scale
finely macerated
sewage ocean outfall.
pmcmanus
raynes park london uk
***
Sport (ill-rhymed truncated ballade in rough i.p.)
From round the buzzing world the emails swish,
My inbox fills and refills constantly.
Poets and poet-critics effervesce
With learning, ideas and controversy.
The humourists among them lightly tease
Each other about their self-fashionings.
Those whom the world news depresses
Vent eloquently their frustrations.
Then comes a voice that stirs me to the core:
ŚCan anyone tell me the cricket score?ą
Once I also felt the selfsame pang,
A kiwi expatriate in Britain,
Hearing my team were boldly batting,
I set out through the Leeds traffic certain
My heroes would be worth watching.
As I drove they failed; so many wickets
Fell I saved myself the price of the ticket.
(Who bowled for England in ą64?
Donąt anyone tell me that cricket score.)
I also saw the All Blacks play in Glasgow
The field was frozen, the score I do recall,
(Beside the ice sprayed up from boot and shoulder)
As both teams blocked each other nil-all.
In Melbourne, famous for its cricket ground,
Its ŚMCGą, never will you see me there.
Winter or summer, oval ball or round,
Donąt anyone ask me for the score.
Max Richards
Melbourne
Wednesday 7 September 2005
***
"Intelligent Design" ?
9 / 11 ?
Iraq ?
New Orleans ?
George W. Bush, President ?
Dick Cheney, Vice President ?
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of the Pentagon ?
Michael Chertoff, Director, Homeland Security ?
Michael Brown, Directory Federal Emergency Management Agency ?
?
?
?
?
Stephen Vincent
***
THE STILL POINT
You will reach it
nothing left to lose
this is a logical impossibility
because if you have gone MIA
what isn't there can't lose anything
so no matter
you are detached attachmentless
tell your ahem truth because
no other lie will be believable
because in the back of your putative mind
you will know you are being cruel
but have discovered the loving artifice
of being kind to yourself
because your survival
restoration of the destroyed self
is all that is of value
because life becomes a giant joyous
So There.
Ken Wolman
***
shades sit to table
no motion no yes to loss
less felt than fell full
into fade fault an as if
eyes blank without appetite
Douglas Barbour
Wednesday September 7 2005
***
NOTES TOWARD POEMS THAT SHOULD BE WRITTEN
sneaking out
of your house of cards
into the wind and rain
*
here today
and possibly
tomorrow
*
pianist chomping
chewing the chords /
no fenceline
*
today
whether-or-not
shouts 'Fore!'
*
in my bed she smelt
like rich soil
after rain
when she is with me
life sticks a tongue
in my ear
*
'core us'
the ladies sing
song of the dam wall
*
the gentle bass
whispers a shy
profundo
Andrew Burke
Mt Lawley
8 Sept 2005
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