I note the Aussie accent to their quacks, Max....
Doug
On 2012-05-16, at 3:46 AM, Patrick McManus wrote:
> Pukekura -does it?
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
> Behalf Of David Bircumshaw
> Sent: 16 May 2012 06:18
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: snap: ruffey and pukekura
>
> aged very little, I used to call them 'quackers' in the park. I'm very
> impressed that australian ducks have taken to talking about nuclear physics
> - 'quark' - or is it Finnegans Wake they're debating?
>
> On 16 May 2012 01:38, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> Ruffey and Pukekura
>>
>> Quark wark wark wark wark -
>> so speak the lake ducks
>> on my morning walk.
>>
>> Well met! They take
>> me way way back:
>> mother and son walk
>>
>> in that Taranaki park;
>> its swans non-speaking
>> and ducks much-quacking,
>>
>> the first I heard speak
>> and bring me awake
>> to the life aquatic
>>
>> and life on wings:
>> ducks skittered
>> then flew erratic
>>
>> to their farther haven,
>> returning for crumbs
>> scattered by children.
>>
>> Notice the pecking
>> order, the bold
>> and the timid,
>>
>> the webbed feet at work,
>> dipping beaks that take
>> in crumbs as they sink
>>
>> in translucent water.
>> Today's humans
>> are mother and daughter
>>
>> sharing laughter
>> and an old man weighing
>> there then and here after.
>>
>>
>> Max Richards
>>
>
>
>
> --
> David Joseph Bircumshaw
> "We are shallow, mababaw ang kaligayahan."
> -* F. Sionil José*
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>
Douglas Barbour
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The postliterate sensibility is offended by anything that isn’t television, views with suspicion the compound sentence, the subordinate clause, words of more than three syllables. The home and studio audiences become accustomed to hearing voices swept clean of improvised literary devices, downsized into data points, degraded into industrial-waste product.
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