thoughts scatter like marbles
across a cool slate floor
caught in contours
and contusions
picked up and warmed
trailed like lazy hands
from the edge of a boat
the half-wet feel
of touched glass
oiled like eyeballs
what sights
from the eyrie
floating high
surrounded by marbles
and thoughts
scatter-smashed
lost in depths
unleashed, unknown
Photo: Claire Doble
what can I tell you
about
swift-moving morning-mineral water
cold and clean
when the world pauses
insects scream
the trees watch
ancient and serene
above a sandy bottle-green
river bed
so pure
dimpled surface like
a music-box cylinder
our arms the combs
in tune
her hair in curls
at her neck
my feet kick
like a child’s
below
in the depths
so clear it looks near
tearing the blue
of our kids’ licked-lenses
off our eyes
so
the ungoggled
colours slant sepia
in a heartbeat
like blood, like 80s photographs
the tint
of old leaves
oh
how can I explain
the magic of that
scene
Photo by Irene Aguilera Blanco on Unsplash
September, September, September
suddenly everything I read
says September! although it generally means
autumn, northern
not sultry sudden-summer breeze
September! marker, moment of stepping through
the brink, the precipice
of spring, sudden launch in
to a shock-cold waterslide thing
with bushfires ahead
not cozy nights
closing in
with
Halloween pumpkins
a flickering torch in a garden
scent-lit by warm-jasmine
on closer inspection
turns out to be
pixelated, muzzeley
not a real flame
immediately
September!
a start or an end?
put my hand in the still-cool water
realise if my palm is the bay,
the knuckles sandbar, my arm’s the channel out to sea
and me
– I’m out there, not the land
but a floating, liquid being
ocean-whole and once again
I wonder
does it mean
to finish, or begin
September, September, September
a door
a spark
an ember
Photo by Tengyart on Unsplash
you couldn’t invent the tide
or the blood in my eye
imagine creating
a land
where waves
rushed in
once a day
then left
sand
like the bare spot on your chin
I see from one side
and wonder if anyone
else has spied
do you feel that
something
between us,
the sea and the sky?
or are the pebbles in my mind
worn too smooth by
tumbling
endless thoughts
washing nigh
turning over and over and
the way they
swell and subside
not even a hangnail
to catch certainty
just a shallow
goodbye
her first album
I was back from
Switzerland
calling Melbourne
quite often
listening
catching
the train
on up the coast
on Fridays
randomly
I fell
in a moment
unexpected
but so vintage-sweet
my cardigan
under the bed
where
your handcuffs
held my grief
that weekend
(he died)
and now there’s
a new album
it repeats on
and on and on
her voice
a yearning
for another
happening
do I welcome
love now?
summer’s here
again, again, again
Soundcloud recording of this poem: https://on.soundcloud.com/65nRL
Photo: Claire Doble
birdtrack
skythreat
heartcrack
the wave swirls upwards
to greet me
I swear it knows
what i need
wish it would tell me
out loud
waterwords
are hard to read
Photo: Claire Doble
there’s a rush, a wash
and I’m freefalling
can’t hold on to thoughts
not supposed to
what do I grab?
nothing
to do
don’t think this or
don’t think that
too much landing
on my mat
let it go, the next right thing
slipstream
could be lethal
how does it end
let alone begin
Photo: Claire Doble
Stormwater makes gutters exciting
clear and fast and rush, rush, rushing
sticks and leaves and grass and concrete
fresh puddles are new lakes
around a drowned playground
the waves offshore huge and brown
with denuded earth from headlands
floating and crashing
flying to shore
soft and high like Tara Brach’s hair
rain, rain, rain for days makes mirrors
everywhere
then it drains like snow disappears
and you wonder
what happened to all that extra stuff
the world absorbs
enfolding elements, renewed
and we observe only
an iceberg-tip of all
Photo: flooded forest by Claire Doble
Wow, it has been more than a month since I last posted, that is a long time for me. I have felt a bit flat and non-poetic lately I guess. I hope this changes!
bushfire smoke
sits in pits
of lungs flown
far away
the fight
still fluttering
ragged
animal fear
resides
human organs
overlaid
by today’s
hotgreen grass-smell
of primary school T-ball
in Lynden Park
can’t tell sometimes
sweat from tears from dew from bore water from
precious reservoir
can it be spared?
Saved?
Me? I am free
on knees
taller than trees:
to all of thee
Christmas merry x
Photo: Claire Doble
The night air is full of the sea
and it pours, thick
through the kitchen flyscreen
as poignant-melancholy music
rises to meet it like a wave
and I contemplate never drinking again
Watch Greta Thunberg on TV
fist-bump Obama and then
make an impassioned plea
her hair grown to Rapunzel length
that means
it’s been at least a year, please let her win
As the rain falls helpless, heavy here
in parched fields beyond
farmers cry drought-tears
and I see broken, unfixed water pipes
beside the train line I’m overwhelmed
by how little we care
Image: Pacifica Australis #3 – Tiger Nautilus Shell by Christopher Diaz (sculptures at Killalea). Photo: Claire Doble
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