Nietzscheisms 2

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Australian poet, Formal poetry, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche's criticism of Christianity, poem, poetry, Pontius Pilate, Rhyming couplets, The Antichrist by Nietzsche

Nietzscheisms 2

By syphilis his brain would soon be diced.
With girded loins he wrote “The Antichrist”.

“What think you of us Christians?” they asked Nietzsche.
He said: “One I admired – he was your teacher.”

He said the gospels died upon the cross.
He thought the man who died – the greater loss.

You don’t agree, he thought the clergy crooks?
Then it is clear – you haven’t read his books.

He doubted Paul had had a revelation –
Just that he had a wild imagination.

Now Pilate he admired, he would confess –
To Pilate, what was one Jew more or less?

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Botany Bay 1770

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australia, Australian Aboriginals, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Botany Bay, Captain James Cook, Discovery of Australia, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, The British Empire

Botany Bay 1770

Well it was bound to happen – with your undefended borders.
If it hadn’t been the British, following their monarch’s orders,
Then it would have been the Frenchies or the Dutch or Portuguese,
Or the Maoris, or the maniacal murderous Japanese.
When you haven’t any fences and no army – no defences,
Then it’s clear to any sane man that there will be consequences.
When you’re hunters and you’re gatherers in small nomadic bands,
Standing on the bay’s grey beaches with but spears in your hands,
Don’t expect that stronger peoples with their empires all expanding
Will just say: “Hello”, and sail away without making a landing,
Planting flags, and claiming sovereignty to land on which you’re standing.
It’s the way it was back then, and there’s no sense in you demanding
That we change the past – you lost, but look upon the brighter side man –
Had it been the Asian hordes instead, they would have tanned your hide man.

Holodomor

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Communism, Deaths due to Communism, Holodomor, Joseph Stalin, poem, poetry, Radical socialism, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, The Kulaks, The Ukraine, Totalitarianism, Ukrainian famine, Ukrainian genocide, Ukriane, USSR

Holodomor

In the Ukraine the Kulaks tilled the soil
To grow the grain to make the daily bread.
Was by their enterprise and by their toil,
That all who lived in the Ukraine were fed.
But now their neighbour Russia burned bright red,
And Stalin said: “The Kulaks all must die!
For by their class our enemies are led –
And our collectivism they defy.
Without them there will be no wheat or rye.
The fields where grain once grew will then be bare,
And in their millions will the dead there lie.”
So for the vanished Kulaks say a prayer.
Think for a moment of their pain and fear;
And don’t think it could never happen here.

Holodomor documentary

Lost at Sea – 1971

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Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Drownings at sea, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Prawn trawlers, Scarborough Queensland Trawlers

The sea is still, these cold and starry nights.
No breakers pound upon the jagged reef.
The trawlers scan the sea with searching lights.
No nets – but grappling hooks, they drag beneath.

For somewhere in these depths there lies a boat,
And two men in this watery graveyard sleep;
And hence all day and night – this fleet afloat,
To find, and raise their coffin from the deep.

Two brothers, fishermen, the boys who drowned.
Big happy fellows – we knew them quite well.
The throb of diesels – I still hear that sound,
And too, when it hooked up – the trawler’s bell.

{In memory of “The Kids”}

Frank Slide

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Alberta, Australian poet, Canada, Canadian Rockies, Crowsnest Pass, Formal poetry, Frank Slide, Frank Slide poem, poem, poetry, Spenserian sonnet, Turtle Mountain

Don’t make your camp beneath its towering peaks.
So said the ancient ones – the mountain moans.
Sometimes it moves, sometimes it loudly speaks
Of grinding pain within its brittle bones.
And when it shivers it shakes loose the stones,
And down its furrowed flanks they swiftly roll.
Yet brave men turned a deaf ear to its groans,
And rushed to mine its gleaming seams of coal.
But Nature’s force no mortal men control,
And deep within – the mountain’s rocky heart
It broke, and terrible would be the toll;
For with a roar the east face fell apart.
And many who on that grey morning died,
Still sleep beneath the rubble of Frank Slide.

Frank Slide

Corn

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Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bush Poetry, corn, Dairy farming in Queensland, maize, poem, poetry

Corn was a crop that each spring we would sow,
And in the autumn pick and bag each row.
Hard work it was, but then we didn’t mind;
We’d fill the shed with all that it could hold;
The cobs we’d husk and to a fine meal grind,
To feed the milkers through the winter cold.

But on reflection now I shake my head;
My father, bless his soul, is now long dead.
By sixty he was bent, his body worn,
From all that grinding toil and sweat and pain.
Now he is gone and so too is the corn,
And houses stand where once were fields of grain.

Texas, Queensland

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Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, poem, poetry, Texas Queensland

On western plains it’s wont to hide,
Beyond the weathered great divide.
Around the town the cattle graze,
As on the benches old men laze.
A river wanders through the land,
But it’s no mighty Rio Grande.
Yes Texas is a little town
Of no importance or renown.
It’s small; to greatness makes no claim,
But had its brief moment of fame.

{“The origin of the town’s name is generally regarded as a reference to a territorial dispute. The land in the area was first settled by the McDougall brothers, who found squatters there on returning from the goldfields. Once their legal right to the land was recognized, they named their property in honour of a rather more famous dispute between the United States and Mexico over territory in Texas, USA” – from Wikipedia}

Bougainville

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Arawa, Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, Bougainville Copper Limited, Bougainville Island, Bougainville War, Panguna, poem, poetry

So quick to strike are the seeds of war
And the harvest reaped is bitter.
An emerald jewel with a fatal flaw,
For a speck of hatred lay at its core
For the progress made and the rule of law
When the treasure had lost its glitter.

How many of you in your graves lie dead?
How many lives were shattered?
The coral sands now stained with red,
And the villages flaming as you fled
From the smothering smoke as your country bled –
To the four winds you were scattered.

The mine in the mountains gone to waste
And the towns where we lived all burned.
Repent at leisure for deeds in haste
For rebellion’s cup is with poison laced
As men go mad as your blood they taste
And too late is the lesson learned.

Where are you John, and Ambrose too?
Did you survive this madness?
And Bilou and Tioni, are they with you?
Tell me, who are left of our old crew?
Though I have asked, none said, none knew;
Seems all that’s left is sadness.

And what of the island I first saw
With the Crown Prince Range enshrouded
With cloud that turned to the smoke of war
As the future burned and the bullets tore –
Can it be plucked from the devil’s maw?
Is its fate forever clouded?

Hector

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Achilles, Anger of Achilles, Aphrodite, Apollo, Cypris, Death of Hector, Greek Mythology, Hector, Hector's body, Homer, Ilion, poem, poetry, Priam, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, The Iliad, Trojan War, Troy

Achilles’ anger was unquenched, and so,
Three times each day he dragged him through the dirt.
Yet he remained untarnished head to toe –
No bloodied flesh, no broken bones, no hurt
Showed on unblemished skin. Still and inert,
As if asleep, and no decay was seen.
It seemed by unseen armour he was girt,
For Cypris and Apollo kept him clean.
His wounds they’d closed, since, bloody and obscene,
His body had been taken from the field.
He’d fallen to the bronze so bright and keen,
Yet now the cuts that killed him were all healed.
Achilles longed to tear him limb from limb,
Whilst grieving Priam dreamed of burning him.

{Pic – The Triumph of Achilles by Franz von Matsch. {from Wikipedia}}

Vespasian

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Augustus, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Caligula, Claudius, Galba, Nero, Otho, poem, poetry, Roman emperors, Tiberius, Vespasian, Vitellius

Augustus Caesar made the Empire great;
His rule was firm but not imperious.
For his successor Rome would have to wait,
But when he died, his stepson, old Tiberius,

Stepped up and for a while was somewhat fair –
Until Sejanus got the Emperor’s ear.
Soon he was smothered by his awful heir –
Caligula – a man all Rome would fear.

But when with stab-wounds he was duly riddled,
Poor Claudius tried hard to put things right.
As Rome was burning Emperor Nero fiddled;
The legions now were spoiling for a fight.

So Galba’s rise, it put an end to Nero,
As Nero with some help fell on his sword.
Then Galba fell to Otho – Rome’s new hero,
And Otho for a short time Rome adored;

Until Vitellius was crowned as Caesar;
Vitellius turned out to be bad news.
Next to be crowned was the Judea seizer;
Rose to the throne the conqueror of the Jews.

The Empire had endured the worst of men –
Vespasian would make Rome great again.