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1. Tabula Rasa

Sat, 09 Jul 2022 03:39:32 GMT

Many international visitors came

to the mathematics department on study

leave the secretary told me of one

Who couldn’t start each morning without

a fresh pad and new pencil ever obliging

she recycled his little-used pads and

Pencils to others married to an astronomer

she appreciated the way so many things

from love to the universe arise from nothing

(Cordite)

2. Love locks on the Pond des Arts, Paris, 2014

Fri, 08 Jul 2022 03:39:34 GMT

They are here in hundreds of thousands—

padlocks with names inscribed or printed bold

in light-fast ink. We imagine couples pledging

everlasting love as they click the lovelocks

on the wire fencing of the bridge and throw the keys

into the turbid waters of the Seine.

A notice, vandalised, informs that one in four

French households suffers from domestic violence.

What effrontery to remind that love is fragile, ephemeral,

a mere hair’s breadth away from hate and violence,

in this—well, almost—sacred place.

A winter’s day, light rain, the bridge almost deserted,

we await the love-struck couples who will brave

the most inclement weather to pledge themselves,

without appointment, to eternal love.

Meanwhile the love lock vendors brace themselves

against the wind, like new age priests ready to dispense

the sacraments, give blessings, smile at the ceremonial kiss.

(French Literary Review)

3. Revelation in Troyes

Wed, 06 Jul 2022 03:51:18 GMT

Saying goodbye at the train on his last visit to Brisbane

I remember my father fixing me with steely eyes, as if he were

absorbing all detail, confirming each aspect,

committing my every movement to his memory.

With that stare one reserves for precious objects like parent

or partner briefly seen before for ever being sealed away.

Now at this same age I say goodbye

to French friends I have known for half a lifetime,

seen two generations pass, one colleague dying.

We abandon the gentility of kissing cheeks

and take to hugs, rocking back and forth,

some kisses, too, for it is certain, this is the last time

in this life that we will meet. Travelling alone

across half the world is now for me too much a burden.

And so I stand under an umbrella beside

the covered market, deserted now, while they adjust their GPS,

all wave, the car moves off, and I stand watching

flaming taillights being slowly extinguished by the rain.

Then suddenly, the realization that I wear my father’s steely stare,

and I’m aware I am no longer of the exuberant age

when all seems possible, but now have reached

the age my options fast diminish, and darkness closes in.

(Antipodes)

4. Bonsai

Tue, 05 Jul 2022 01:59:03 GMT

Frequently I pause at a regenerating patch of bushland seeded

with surface soil from a not far distant forest and guess at the identity

of sapling blue gums turpentines stringybarks coachwood

angophoras acacias all less than a metre tall imagining the full grown trees

that I will never see while nearby in his backyard Dave scissors

leaves trains limbs to bonsai replicas of full grown trees imagined

but will never be just as greatness may be thrust on men

by circumstance the bonsai trees have smallness thrust upon them

it’s why they fascinate like dwarfs in royal courts but what disturbs

about the would-be-giant Ficus religiosa rooted in its inch of moss and gravel

and no larger than a weed is had it reached potential

it may have had a Buddha resting in its shade from the shock

of his enlightenment just as remarkable the stunted wind-swept

tortured forms of bonsai pines their ascetic lives spent on the calm

and sunny two square metre garden bench in Dave’s backyard

a creative space so strange I wonder did God feel much the same

creating at his bench all living things but I dare not linger

in this arboreal surgery for fear that bonsai love or madness might invade

my mind so I retreat to the patch of regenerating bush

relax breathe fresh air among the saplings freely stretching to the sun

(Australian Poetry Anthology)

5. Blind Men at the Gym

Sun, 03 Jul 2022 08:35:56 GMT

First I saw the dog then the form of a man threading its way

noiselessly through the close-packed forest of gym machines

I called him mate told him there were only two of us this morning

watched his fingers flutter over the holes of the weight stack

insert a pin before he began to use the DUAL AXIS ROW machine

satisfied that he was independent and gym-trained not to stare

at others I faced the wall to work the ABS CRUNCH then moved

to the HIPS where lying on my side I became concerned my sudden

backward flexing could cause him injury even as he fixed my location

by sound I placed him by the tinkling clink to be on the OBLIQUE

surprising myself there were things I knew without knowing

that I knew now I was tuned to the machines’ unique metallic voices

the clanks and clunks of moving weights the grinding gears the strain

of cables all came to the fore of my consciousness as if we were two

men moving in a dark room with only sounds to place the other

under supervision by the dog a living talisman for our protection

now at rest but instantly alerted by a low-waved hand

signalling a move between machines apparently along

a predetermined path still incomplete as I left the gym freshly aware

of the scuff of shoes on concrete the diverse engine tones of cars

the patter of little feet the dry scratch of a wind-blown leaf on pavement

and from somewhere near the tiny cymbal crash of dropped keys

(Westerly)

6. Skin

Tue, 28 Jun 2022 08:39:12 GMT

The tub in our shared bathroom would have

a waterline rim of grease and flakes of black skin

if he bathed before me.

Too embarrassed to complain of Nigerian habits

I scoured the bath before my daily use.

The small kitchen we students shared,

from time to time was full of gorgeous black girls,

their bubbling laughter fused

with the stink of west African fish-powder stew—

later consumed with much noise

and evident appreciation in his bedroom.

Once, lacking my own, I used the last

of his butter for my meal. In attempting

to apologize next day for my misdemeanour, I found

he would have none of it, beaming with pleasure

at the cue I had given for him to explain

I had discovered the African way,

that he should have—who needs it most.

It was as if he scratched my white skin

and underneath had found it black.

(Transnational Literature)

7. Worm

Mon, 27 Jun 2022 08:50:29 GMT

Enveloped tightly

in food

mingled with indigestible sand.

Eat, the only way to move,

randomly, enticed by a crack here

a succulent morsel there,

infinitely flexible,

deflected by a stone,

a fork, a spade,

menacing vibrations

from some other living thing,

no backbone for a fight

in the black back lanes

of the earth.

No advertising space

no subterranean billboards

no missiles on bitumen

no beauty no ugliness no vision

no ethics, for what do morals mean

for a living thing,

meandering at digestion pace

alone, in the damp darkness,

trailed by

a labyrinth of excrement.

Few pleasures,

the massaging slip of moist clay,

a tasty nematode,

the frisson of meeting by chance

a fellow creature,

a slow glide along the parting

between flesh and bone of a buried thing,

recently deceased

(Quadrant)

8. The Nature of Things

Sun, 26 Jun 2022 08:57:49 GMT

In general, none of the things with a given natural property

can be trained to acquire another. Aristotle Ethics Book 2, Ch. 1

While I’m sitting at the kitchen table, she comes bustling

through the doorway, squawking at my feet.

Pushed her away again. Reluctantly I follow her,

sit down to supervise, while she re-joins him at the bowl.

Like children, the rainbow lorikeets are well behaved—

while watched. Wild, but fearless for they know

I’m under their control, they brush their beaks and breasts

against my hand, plunge heads into the jar in haste to get the grain.

Distracted by a thought, I turn my head. With a shriek

and sideways thrust of claw he pushes her aside.

I take away their bowl. They stand quiet, stretched tall,

their bodies bent like question marks, heads to one side.

The bowl placed back again they eat, to all appearance

amicably—for now. I ask myself, what trickery

led me into this tangled triangle? Fool that I am,

why not admit they’ll never change their nature?

But reason flees when beauty dazzles.

I should have learned from Aristotle when he pointed out

no matter how much trained with countless upward throws,

a stone, true to its nature, always falls when dropped.

(Quadrant)

9. Viral Retreat

Thu, 02 Jun 2022 09:00:01 GMT

The sky is always dark

and heavy as a stone, the streetscape is unlit,

inhabitants, it seems, have no desire

to have it any other way;

they know of danger should they quit

their sanctuary and embark

against all warnings on

a gambol in the world outside. They do emerge

to seek a snack but in their warm retreat

they mainly fidget, shuffle, twitch.

The narrow winding paths converge

to an adobe-walled salon

of rude simplicity.

They follow pheromones to find sequestered space.

Unfazed by their propinquity, a nest of ants,

curled slaters, roaches— squeaky clean—

and hibernating snails embrace

a life of baffling harmony.

No music here except

the soothing sounds of breathing walls, the sensual thrum

of feelers stroking in the dark—perhaps the life

beneath this flattened stone

gives hope that we would not succumb—

if we could be as like adept.

(French Literary Review)

10. Niche

Wed, 01 Jun 2022 09:02:20 GMT

Were I buried unconscious,

face downward, on waking I

would think the sky below me,

for normally people are

buried with respect, face up.

Held firmly in place by an

even pressure of soft loam,

I’d be like a quivering

fly suspended in aspic

in the dark. Not the same for

a bean, planted eye downwards

from where roots emerge to grip

soil, while the stem performs an

astonishing U-turn to-

wards the light and air above.

How geotropically

apt, the way it knows up or

down in total darkness. I,

and the fly, manifestly

inferior to the bean

in its ecological

niche, reverse in status when

a bean is in the mouth where

despite all hidden powers

its resistance is futile.

(Plumwood Mountain)

11. Animal crackers (for Henry, Eliza and Oliver)

Sun, 29 May 2022 09:06:56 GMT

While we supped the soup, my mind was wandering as usual,

only fragments of conversation catching my attention.

I heard her say ‘a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush’ as I

looked through the window to see two honeyeaters in the grevillea.

I was about to remark on the coincidence

when ‘pulled a rabbit out of a hat’ slid into my consciousness

and I saw a bunny pop out of a hole and begin to nibble at the lawn.

I was admiring this pleasant faux pastoral scene when I heard

‘cunning as a fox’ and saw with dismay

a fox slink out of the pines and bound towards the rabbit—

which luckily was just able to fold his ears and slip back into his hole

in time. After my heart stopped thumping, I tried again to focus

on the flow of words, caught ‘elephant in the room’ and smiled to myself,

for there wasn’t room to swing a cat in our dining room.

But then the whole house began to shake. I raced to the front door

and before me was an elephant rubbing his rump

against the entry columns while thumping the door with his trunk.

‘Gracious me’, I said, and ran for the elephant gun, then stopped suddenly,

asking myself, why would anyone need an elephant gun in Sydney?

Just then, the shaking ceased, and I saw

the would-be-intruder bumbling down the track from the house.

‘Let’s stop all this talk about animals’, I cried. ‘It’s driving me crackers’.

‘Ah, the getting of wisdom’, hooted

the stuffed owl on the table as he stared at the mechanical

globe of the world, rotating in slow motion before his wide open eyes.

12. Fly

Sun, 01 May 2022 09:10:40 GMT

Body still, tense, only his

eyes danced with the fly until

it paused. Too fast to follow,

his cupped hand swept like a swift

from the sky and snatched the fly.

A skill perfected in Mao’s

time, when comrades had to trap

a mandatory sum each

day ̶ an audacious public

health measure. Expertise soared.

Flies lessened by the billion,

became precious as jewels. Long

-time aficionado of

Kung-Fu movies I reckon

there must be fly-free precincts

in monasteries now, where

to Shaolin monks, any swift

movement is a potential

threat. Where an arrow aimed at

the chest is cut by the sword

before it finds its mark, flies

in full flight would be sliced like

sashimi by the razor

edges of ritual swords,

I imagine.