Pierced R U

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australian poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, pierced, piercing, poem, poetry

We’re good at making holes in things
And fitting them with studs and rings.
Your eyebrows, cheeks and through your ear;
We’ll pierce your nose, let’s make it clear:
We’ll punch your bits so full of holes
You’ll think you’ve been attacked by moles.
Those things that sit upon your chest
With diamond barbells look their best.
A golden ring goes through your nose.
A golden stud through your tongue goes.
Your belly button gets a pin
And lips must wear a golden grin,
So for gold spikes the holes we’ll punch.
(You’ll have some trouble eating lunch)
But we advise to please take care,
Although mistakes are very rare,
That things can get a little weird
(Note: of all charges we were cleared)
When in our wild exuberance
We pierce each bare protuberance.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2012

Sleepers on the Nullarbor (Trans Australian Railway 1917)

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Australian bush poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, poem, poetry, sleepers, Traditional Australian poetry, Trans Australia railway

They have no kin upon this treeless plain,
Yet here now lie the bodies of their dead.
They, in the forests far away were slain;
Now each one sleeps upon its gravel bed.

Half buried, in their ranks they bear the rails,
As east to west the belts of iron tie.
With smoke and steam leviathan prevails,
And in its wake the ways of ages die.

Waves

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australian poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, poem, poetry, waves

Tis Nature’s way for naught to stay forever at a peak,
Ascent will stop when at the top, a trough the curve will seek;
For any plan of son of man or of a mighty nation,
It sure will be, and all will see, in time disintegration.

Profit and Loss

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Australian traditional poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, loss, poem, poetry, profit

Let’s think about what profit is
Before we get into a tizz.
For profit’s now a dirty word
So loss is good? – No, that’s absurd.
A profit is what has been made
When all expenses have been paid.
From ripened harvest that you reap –
The precious grain you get to keep;
The cash that goes into your bank
For that, it’s profit you must thank.
For profit funds our way of life
While hand in hand with loss comes strife.
But when one makes a healthy gain
From critics comes a loud refrain
Of “Profiteers!” and “Rogues!” and “Greed!”
And all the media take heed,
But when the news is of a loss
Then all are quiet – none give a toss.
Yet profits small mean times are bad
While profits large make sane men glad,
For surplus can be put in store
For those lean years when gains are poor.
Remember that the food you eat,
Your clothes, the shoes upon your feet,
Your shelter and the car you drive
And all that’s needed to survive,
From profits made come all these things,
While loss – but misery it brings.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2012

Froth and Bubble

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Adam Lindsay Gordon, Australian bush poets, Australian formalist poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, poem, poetry

I went to a small bush school of only thirty or so children and two teachers. The headmaster was keen on Australian poetry and one of the poems we all had to memorise was The Sick Stock Rider by Adam Lindsay Gordon; I still remember most of the poem today.
In her Christmas message in 1992 Queen Elizabeth the second referred to the year as her “annus horribilis” due to all the tragedies and misfortunes that had beset the Royal Family during that year.
In her speech she quoted from Adam Lindsay Gordon’s poem Ye Weary Wayfarer, when she said: “Kindness in another’s trouble, courage in one’s own”, but unfortunately didn’t acknowledge the author. It’s difficult to believe that the Queen would not know from where this quote came so we must consider it an accidental oversight.
Gordon is arguably Australia’s first poet of note and is the only Australian poet to have a bust of his likeness placed in poet’s corner at Westminster Abbey.
Gordon was an adventurer, a brilliant horseman and a gifted poet, but a poor businessman and in the end in his own eyes a failure.
On the morning of the 24th of June 1870 Gordon, sick, depressed, and burdened with debt that he could not repay, walked into the tea tree scrub near his house and shot himself. He was 36 years old.

“Life is mostly froth and bubble
Two things stand like stone —
Kindness in another’s trouble.
Courage in your own.”

A.L. Gordon – from “Ye Weary Wayfarer”

Gordon

Great horseman, poet, man of dreams,
A tragic waste, or so it seems,
But then most poets could do worse
Than have their Queen quote from their verse.

D. N. O’Brien

Image from Wikipedia