Sou’easter

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Three days windy rain.
Three days rainy wind.
Leaf twig stripping.
Wave crest spindrift.
Foam gathers dirty the strand
Battered of wind and rain days.
Crashing sea spray and salt
Thin covers cars and houses.

Rain and wind
Rattling windows
Tin night roof drumming
Dreaming. I am disturbed.
Roused sleep, broken branches,
Troubling dreams.
My child
My ten year old son dead.
On the street. His face bruised,
So much so I can not tell
Him, save by his feet.

It seems. So real.
My heart races.
My gut heaves
I feel ill.
Retching reaching
Stumbling stairs.
I can not sleep.
I listen his
Ten year old
Reassuring rhythmic
Sleep breathing.

Chamomile tea
To sleep settle.
I close my eyes
That image
Again and again.
I see.
Again the image.

A book. Maybe.
Read to nod.
Dozing off. Sleep.
Diverting mind
Void restless
Away false powers.
The dark cloudy night
Howls moonless.
Swaying dancing
Trees lash the roof.
Cracking creaking
Sounds of stress.
Leaves and branches
Scatter the garden.
Gather the garden.

What I Learnt at University

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Picture comes from the Spacebar gallery found on Facebook. It has been blowing a gale here in Tasmania. Any way let us crack on with the post, What I Have Learnt at University...

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Poets and Playwrights

Singers and Speakers

All lie.



Driving, pleasant early morning suburban

Side streets hugging, building a horizon

Old timey sand stone university.

Concrete sculpted captured

Trees blush ebb dry fade from green,

Fall as mud mulch across dozy blades.

Else wasted upon the sun heated

Million year dead dragon bitumen

(On stony ground. When the sun is risen,

It is scorched; having no root it withers.)



Just as blue flame under the pot adds energy

And sets in motion the placid luke water,

Roiling and boiling and tumble rattling

The pot. A disturbing tumult. Even so

Do the thick invisible hot wide exhaust

Dragon half consumed fumes curb

Crawling council bus blow and boil.

A noisy confusion set in motion creaking

Cracking fading leaves. And in the distance

A stately line of cars slow files up

The low rise and turning to my right

The rising waxing sun catches and flashes

Mirrors or back windows.

Alone. Snap. Back now.

The solemn drip

Of cars disappears behind the rise.



And I am left alone.

Invisible silent unknown

Alone.

shadows and sighs

Long streaks of early morning shadows
Fall right to left across the paddocks
And they shrink each time I turn my head
To look out the window, clear and windy.
Overnight the wind howled and groaned.
And I thought, no one happy until death
Can the dead be happy? And then my son
Said, be careful for what you wish for.
What? I was just thinking, well I thought
About spiders and they are creepy
And then I thought about this cartoon
And it is a bit creepy,
And the moral of the cartoon is
Be careful for what you wish for

And I was reading from the Oxford
Illustrated History of Greece
And the Hellenic World.

Child? Why do you cry?
Why is your heart so full of grief?
Speak now! Do not conceal!
These things in fact came from Zeus,
After you prayed.
Arms outstretched.
Palms up supplication.
You prayed all the sons of the Achaeans
To be hard pressed, huddling sterns of ships.
Wanting for you, suffering shamefully.

With deep sighs and groans swift footed Achilleus spoke
O my mother, all these things have been granted of Zeus;
But what pleasure is there now that my love has died?

After The Rain

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After three or four days of on and off rain
I step into the gloomy night to dormouse wise 
Feed my head and take the dog to walk; 
So as to not embarrass his doggy self, 
And damage the carpets, to relieve himself.

Like many small bits of paper, or plastic bags
That are caught up the wind and forced to dance
In wild Matisse lines of random arabesque 
Across the land; like the trees which bend and bow
To the strong winds, or walkers who are bent over
To fight pedestrian the blurting blasting gales. 
So to it seems as if mighty Orion is caught up 
And sent tumbling cartwheeling (caterwauling?) 
By the windy roaring insensate fourties
Across the night, one arm outstretched, 
His hand on the top of hill, pushing off. 

In the morning I organise my young daughter.
Back to school after holidays. I struggle
To wake and get myself into the groove,
Back into the beat after a lazy fortnight.
Make her breakfast, and serve it to her.
And while she chatterboxes away
Anticipating her new day at school,
I listen and make her lunch, spreading peanut 
Butter across the bread. A piece of fruit,
A little tub of yoghurt, home made cookies. 
I wash her face and hands, get her dressed.
As she watches Sesame Street, I dress myself.

And we leave the house, opening the door, 
Flooding the lounge room with the streaming
Sun, the excited, twittering songs of birds.
The rains are over, the water tank is full 
To overflowing, two, three snails crawl
The potted plants the porch. The wind 
Has blown away the wet spongy clouds.
There is and optimism is on the rise.