Poetry

Through the years I have been stirred to compose poetry, which I submit below for your enjoyment.

Thoughts at a harbour

A pelican-flight life,

Assured,

balanced,

Slicing harbour breeze,

Haughty,

Was not for me -

Jostling with crowds of crabs

Sidling in for scraps.

As I dredge the coffee grounds

In the emptied cup,

I prepare to pay

And leave

.But still

A gentle wind

Caresses me.

For my father

Consider the sting of woodsmoke,

The sharpness of autumn air

around a camp fire.

You lie snugwarm, drowsy,

Watching the small flames devour.

A claw traces the sky

Where a meteor dies.

You softly exclaim.

The stars glint, pricked in velvet.

You searched for gold

In the stone ground.

what is grief, if not

The stir of remembered places

And you?

After the Juluka concert

After the concert we

pressed belly to back in a

surge of people

ascending stair.

A stranger's shoulder

leaned hard against mine,

our breath mingled.

Breasts pressed, bodies moved.

We were enclosed in flesh

and there was warmth as we

organically moved on many legs,

swaying up the stairs.

someone hummed the tune,

not knowing the words.

A person knowing the words sang

and we laughed together.

There was the lightness and

excitement of courting days

as we sought to know

each other.

"I don't know the words

but I can hum the tune."

Let us remember

we are together -

a surge of people

ascending stairs.

Aquarius

The moon is high

and half shadowed -

stillness flows -

spirit shapes move

in half sleep.

I lie awake,

sheltered

on the surface

of the world.

But the slow

movements

of huge gods

awakening to tread

the new age,

tremble the earth

and pulse my heart.

Amid the movement

there is a loosening

of structure

and an agony of release.

We would whistle

down the wind

or love's spectre,

curl blind

towards the flame

of want.

But forces wade

implacable,

through our streams,

snapping

the threads we

pitch to each other,

until

whirled away

from stillness,

steeringless,

we must weave

our own cord and

cast with love

before we reach

the ocean roar.

Lost

We are the lost ones

steeped in forgetfulness,

wandering untrodden ways,

crawling on the periphery -

the centre is missing,

and all our memories

only image the emptiness.

There is dust in my heart,

a keen wind in my head,

the future trembles,

tha past has gone.

Would I lay down

my world for the future

in a pair of eyes -

the spirit ache

cannot be borne,

the spirit aches

to be born.

In Crete

There is an old man, grizzled,

waiting at the ringside

where the Bull dancers

whirl and vault over

the snorting deathly bull.

He carries a small black

club to dispatch any young

body sorely gouged.

With love he watches the

lithe bodies leap - their

protector from the slow

gangrenous swell to death.

With mercy he has run to

small, sprawling bodies and

brought down his bluntness

sharply upon their lives.

One girl he watches, intent.

She has carried her grace and

beauty lightly through

years until her life is

become sure in his eyes.

And in his old man's eyes

he sees the transfixing

of a brown strong body

by a white horn thrust.

He kneels beside her

in the sawdust, measures

his temple blow.

And an old man's single

sob, why does it

buffet through the years

to come between

you and I?