Trace

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, death, Formal poetry, Ghosts, poem, poetry, Shades

The creaking of his empty chair.
In dead of night, a muffled moan.
A faint footfall upon the stair.

And though I know he’s cold as stone,
And too, I know there’s no one there,
These sounds I hear when we’re alone.

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Hiding in the Herd

Tags

Australian traditional poetry, Cowardice, False assumptions, Formal poetry, Group think, Herd mentality, limerick, Limerick poem, Limerick poetry, Pluralistic Ignorance, poem, poetry

My opinions most people eschew.
Of my musings, supporters are few.
So such thoughts I will hide
And pronounce with false pride
What I think is the popular view.

Head Shot

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, Head-shot, poem, poetry, shot in the head, War, war movies

There is no pause when one is dead.
When well-aimed bullets pierce one’s head
One doesn’t for a moment stand
With startled look or gesture grand.
Unlike the actors at the flicks,
One plummets like a ton of bricks.

{First appeared in TRINACRIA issue #13, 2015}

Corn

Tags

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.

Bang!

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Big Bang Theory, Creation of the Universe, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, Singularity, sonnet, Universe

It starts – the birth of matter, time and space,
As silently, expanding gases roar.
Towards a far infinity they race.
From just a speck, a tiny point, they pour
White hot – the cosmic building blocks, the raw
Materials that swirl and then condense
To blazing suns and planets. And from core
To crust, each body, tiny or immense,
Each boiling ball of rock or gas so dense –
All came, each one, from just a single place;
From there they came, or nowhere, in a sense;
Yet now these wonders would the Heavens grace.
The Universe was made in such a way,
And too, its laws – and these it must obey.

The Slaves

Tags

Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Beyond Good and Evil, Communism, Envy, Friedrich Nietzsche, Master Slave Morality, poem, poetry, Radical socialism, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet, Will to Power

A wise man wrote that men are mostly slaves
Who envy all who have, while they have not.
Until the ones who have, rest in their graves,
The uber-slaves within the herds will plot.
The slaves don’t wish to rise – it is their lot
To be ignoble, but they must bring low
The master, and his works – his honour blot.
They’d strike this stronger man a mortal blow;
A thrust to pierce his body from below.
The higher man on their bowed heads would bleed,
And so his wealth unto the slaves would flow;
For what he calls his wealth, the slaves call greed.
Afflicted by their slave morality,
They seek no pathway to nobility.

Hill 1054

Tags

2/25th Battalion AIF, Australian 7th Division AIF, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Mazraat Ech Chouf, poem, poetry, Syrian Campaign ww2

“Who? V.C. Williams? – Yes, I knew the bloke.”
The old man lit his pipe – savoured the smoke.
He paused a moment, seemed quite deep in thought,
And then he spoke: “It was the French we fought –
The Vichy French – in Syria, a land
Much like our own, out west – dust, rock, and sand.
So V.C. Williams used to say, you know.
He’d say: “This bloody country wouldn’t grow
Much more than saltbush.” – like from where he came.
Yes, V.C. Williams thought it much the same.
In ’41 it was – eighth of July.
It seems like yesterday – how the years fly.
He was beside me in that final fight.
We charged with bayonets fixed and took the height.
He’d joined, he said, to get a taste of war.
We buried him on hill ten fifty four.”

{In memory of Pte. V.C. Williams, C Company 2/25th Battalion 7th Division A.I.F. – Killed in Action, Hill 1054 Syria 8th July 1941 and of Pte. A. N. O’Brien of the same company, Wounded in Action the same day, and in memory of the 26 other members of the unit killed or wounded during the taking of Hill 1054. This was the last action against the Vichy French in Syria – they surrendered 3 days later. The Australians had suffered 1,500 killed and wounded, the French over 6,000}

Stanley River

Tags

Australian bush poetry, Australian traditional poetry, bush poet, Bush Poetry, poem, poetry, Stanley River Queensland

The water rippling o’er the bars whispers these words to me:
“You came and swam in my cool depths when you were young and free.

Then all your worries were so small and how the world was wide;
But now the world has wearied you, come here, a while abide.

For I have waited patiently while you were far away,
And deep within my heart I knew that you’d return one day.

Your step is slower than before, for many years have passed,
And you have aged, as too have I, but I still flow as fast.

Come rest your body and your soul here by my crystal pools,
Where long ago, my glistening rocks, to you were precious jewels.”

Bougainville

Tags

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?

This Day

Tags

ANZAC Day, Australian bush poetry, Australian poet, Australian traditional poetry, Formal poetry, poem, poetry, sonnet, Spenserian sonnet

The soldiers, those who’ve died, moulder away
Beneath their gravestones – flesh and bones don’t last.
Their souls perhaps look down upon this day
And see the flags that flutter at half-mast;
The thinning ranks so proudly marching past –
With many from the rear, now at the fore.
The souls of all the soldiers who have passed
Away – just yesterday, and all before:
The dead who died at home, and those at war.
Perhaps they all gaze on – each mother’s son,
Remembering the smoke, the cannon’s roar,
The corpses in the trenches overrun.
They won our freedom, and they bore the cost;
And none know better – how it can be lost.