Small translucent oracle
please tell me,
is it time?
Your echo call on blast
of sour night air
brings me hope.
Are your toes
drumming against skirting board,
tinkling against stale bottles,
a code tapped out in your scuttle language
that says, pack your bags?
Are your throaty brays
chk chk chk laughs of disbelief
that I've stayed this long?
Or are they
a warning call:
leave! right! now!
Tell me soon
for my ears are tensed
to your cries and to his keys scratching
stumbling to find the keyhole of the door
Rae White (Queensland)
An independent poetry journal. Watch your step.
2016/04/27
2016/04/21
Ten Pound Alan
Fastest runner in the school — I watched him
ease ahead of me on sports days, his chest
pressed against the finishing tape, first every time.
A good fighter, brilliant at rounders, climbing trees,
he once ate dog biscuits in my back garden,
sitting in a deck chair, Fritz’s paws on his knees.
I wasn’t sure what emigrating meant.
How far was that? I was afraid to ask.
I knew where he was going though.
That country in the corner of the map on the wall,
spread out like orange peel.
Ages and ages on holiday.
We went to his house before they left.
I sat on the floor by the fire pulling threads
from the carpet, a varnished boomerang
above me on the wall. His mother, poised
in front of net curtains, a silhouette inside silver
cigarette smoke, talked about the wages out there.
It was June, we stood in assembly
holding blue hymn books,
too much sun in the hall. The teacher,
her long dress yellow with flowers,
asks us all to wave to Alan. He hands me his book,
runs along the row, down the corridor,
looking back at no one.
Michael Crowley (UK)
From Michael's book First Fleet
ease ahead of me on sports days, his chest
pressed against the finishing tape, first every time.
A good fighter, brilliant at rounders, climbing trees,
he once ate dog biscuits in my back garden,
sitting in a deck chair, Fritz’s paws on his knees.
I wasn’t sure what emigrating meant.
How far was that? I was afraid to ask.
I knew where he was going though.
That country in the corner of the map on the wall,
spread out like orange peel.
Ages and ages on holiday.
We went to his house before they left.
I sat on the floor by the fire pulling threads
from the carpet, a varnished boomerang
above me on the wall. His mother, poised
in front of net curtains, a silhouette inside silver
cigarette smoke, talked about the wages out there.
It was June, we stood in assembly
holding blue hymn books,
too much sun in the hall. The teacher,
her long dress yellow with flowers,
asks us all to wave to Alan. He hands me his book,
runs along the row, down the corridor,
looking back at no one.
Michael Crowley (UK)
From Michael's book First Fleet
Editor's note: Ten-pound Poms
2016/04/14
Alaska
Every day,
memories place your name over morning.
The dust settles on the empty side of the bed.
My chest hollow as a pin-pricked egg.
Leaving is equal parts
laundry and gin, hot water and baking powder.
A car door that is too hot –
thick air on a summers day.
I wander broad-chested into the sky
and on the days that I want to die
I remember
there is sunlight in Alaska.
Kyra Gillespie (Victoria)
memories place your name over morning.
The dust settles on the empty side of the bed.
My chest hollow as a pin-pricked egg.
Leaving is equal parts
laundry and gin, hot water and baking powder.
A car door that is too hot –
thick air on a summers day.
I wander broad-chested into the sky
and on the days that I want to die
I remember
there is sunlight in Alaska.
Kyra Gillespie (Victoria)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)