The Eagles

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Australian traditional poetry, bald eagle, Dennis N. O'Brien, golden eagle, poem, poetry, wedge tailed eagle

Composite Image made from Wikipedia images.
Left to right – Golden Eagle (Northern Hemisphere), Bald Eagle (North America),
Wedge Tailed Eagle (Australia)

A wounded eagle perched on high,
The mighty fallen from the sky.
Beneath the jackals congregate
For they foresee the eagle’s fate.
But jackals are a craven crowd
Whilst eagles are a tribe that’s proud.
While jackals scheme and lie and gloat
They’ll soon be at each other’s throat.
The eagle’s wounds will slowly heal,
His wrath the jackals then will feel
As jackals cower in their bands
And eagles fly from other lands.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2012

Vegetarian Animal Lover

Tags

Animal lover, Australian traditional poetry, meat, poem, poetry, vegetarian

No! I won’t eat meat for I think it is cruel.
I dine all the time just on bean sprouts and gruel.
Well that is a lie for I sometimes eat fish,
And on rare occasions I’ve crabs on my dish,
For it is allowed to eat things from the sea;
I’ve found vegetarians mostly agree.
And ducks are okay for they paddle about.
They’re sort of a web footed feathery trout,
And consuming chickens is perfectly fine;
They’re ducks with sharp noses and nice with white wine.
Which brings me quite neatly to bacon and pork.
I find them quite often on my knife and fork,
For pigs are like chickens to my careful eye;
Just give pigs some wings and I’m sure they could fly.
And cattle and pigs, if you follow my brief,
Are practically cousins, so yes I love beef,
But don’t think that I am a big hypocrite,
If I were served whale – no I wouldn’t eat it
Unless it was garnished with koala sauce
And served with roast platypus as the main course.

Reality

Tags

Australian traditional poetry, choice, poem, poetry, reality

Reality we each create
Within our minds – a conscious will.
It chooses how we judge our fate,
Our minds with peace or turmoil fill.

© D.N. O’Brien, 2012

Funeral

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, funeral, poem, poetry

Though he has left this world today
His memory is with us.
We come from places far away,
We hope he will forgive us.

Has taken this for our return,
He lies in peace before us.
Now his last thoughts we’ll never learn,
Was years ago he saw us.

Those years all lost like vanished mist
With naught to show in passing,
Had aged the cherished cheek we kissed
When youth was everlasting.

The words not said now never will
For he will never hear us,
And now his lips forever still,
But he at last is near us.

The Territory ’76

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, bush poet, Formal poetry, Jabiru, Kakadu, Northern Territory, poem, poetry

The lagoons like jewels in the yellow plain
Where the dry grass waits for the coming rain,
Like a necklace won from a tomb of old
Set with sapphires bright in a chain of gold.

Water buffalo in the herds so vast,
I still see them there in the distant past.
In a pale blue sky wheel the circling hawks
While the jabiru in the reed beds stalks.

And the geese in clouds that block out the sun
So it seems to set like the day is done,
As I sit and dream in a reverie,
How the north was then, in my mind I see.

Jabiru pronounced Jab – a – roo

Poem copyright © Dennis N. O'Brien, 2012

Image © Tourism NT via Wikipedia