Above hay-white acres

In the ecstasies of heat
it touches you, blown, blanketing
the heavy hand of summer.
By cement columns
of the German mausoleum
clusters of palm fronds
are creaking, and bowed
with dry weight. And steep
here, the black asphalt slope
where the dead were pushed
up into the hill
as if they might blindly watch
green and hay-white acres
and gnarled fingers of old vines
gripping the ridges.
The doors are locked in respect
and the breeze’s sudden low note
of cool rattles dead eucalypt sticks
rustling our yellow distractions.
Ah, there, a snake!
Into this place it comes
its young black-glint waveform.
Muscle stopped, holds its head up.
We halt our throats and lungs
the moment after all relaxes
a path open
rough with glitter of light
and leaf and rock.
Which way, always, which way.
Black snake declines, retreats.
We accept and climb back down
one way
while all around the hill
arcs the wind, a rising scale
ancient as summers
hissing into souls and valleys.

Seppeltsfield Bridge 2002

.

Night swimming

In the ripple of the Quay’s surfaces, mirrors
of light and frames on images we buy, reading
that way they explain God is a man and his stories
the cigars he smokes, his beer, his bourbon
and his beauties with their long legs
hanging out of cars. And the angels crush
in front of bills listing departures
their heavenly cameras, their long long lenses.
It’s their cold beauty winning the night
the slate, the granite chipped dark, its veins shine.

Do you wish you were homeless here?
Under the blanket of chatter, traffic and salt
blanket of news you hump on your back
those brittle wings.

Will god and his models touch you
with their whiskey, their trusts
and pots of sour-junk fat-free yoghurt?
You never believed that red sports car.
This is swimming you understand.

About the Poet
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