Riddle of the Faiths

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Australian traditional poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, faith, poem, poetry, riddle, two giants

Two giants, in thunderous voice proclaim
That in their faiths no doubts remain.
The true faith surely is but one,
Or of these two, it may be none.

For if one of these faiths be true,
The other’s not – there can’t be two.
So is one of these giants right
Or are both wrong in heaven’s sight?

To selfsame God they each do pray
Yet each claims theirs the one true way.
As each, the other faith excludes,
At least one giant, himself deludes.

Drone

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Australian traditional poetry, Dennis N. O'Brien, Drone, hellfire missile, poem, poetry, predator drone

The shrouded travelers cross the desert sand
As other eyes watch from a distant land.
She knows among these tribesmen walk the foe,
But which are they? And can the watcher know?
As one they raise their eyes towards the sky;
A speck of dust, it drones far off and high,
Just like a bird but somehow not the same,
Then from it comes a flash, a spurt of flame.
The predator has marked its target well
And from its maw it spits the fires of hell.
The guilty and the innocent alike
Have but an instant left before the strike.

And at her console continents away
She rises from her task at end of day
And to her home along the highway drives:
The soldier who from safety takes men’s lives.
She runs a bath and there reclines to soak;
Tries to forget the carnage and the smoke.
The action carried out with good intent,
But doubts of what’s been done will not relent.
The button pressed, the missile gone – too late!
Once it is launched it can’t discriminate.

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

Waterfall Creek

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Australian traditional poetry, Barramundi, bush poet, daly river, Dennis N. O'Brien, Formal poetry, Northern Territory, poem, poetry, waterfall creek

Clear creek water meets the muddy Daly River – Northern Territory,

Tropical far northern Australia has only two seasons – “the Wet” and “the Dry”.

 

The grass on the withered and burning hot plains,
It sighs with the wind from the storms,
And dances and bows to the warm driving rains;
Drinks deep – as the Monsoon it forms.

And great spreading waters they cover the plains;
The cycle of life quickly turns.
Come vast flocks of pelicans, geese, ducks and cranes;
The season of plenty returns.

The creek has been sleeping, its lifeblood ebbs low,
But now the creek’s heart skips and leaps,
As here at its source, from the plains waters flow;
From deluge a harvest it reaps.

There at its beginning a pool clear and deep,
Etched out from the plain over time,
And into this pool little waterfalls leap,
With sparkling beauty sublime.

So foaming and burbling the waters they flow,
As small fish that go with the tide
Are taken by giant barramundi below;
They close by the waterfalls glide.

Go rolling the waters with shimmering light,
Caressing the banks of the creek.
A fish chasing prey turns – its side flashes bright.
The river these waters now seek.

First rushing so madly then slowing at last,
The great muddy river they reach,
With rolling brown waters all churning and vast;
Its borders the clear waters breach.

So water once clean and bright muddies to dark,
And lost is its beauty so soon,
The creek to the river a contrast so stark,
One pure, and one debris bestrewn.

The river a chaos of eddy and foam,
And floating thereon logs and boughs.
All furrowed and flowing like watery loam
Where fins break the surface like ploughs.

And so to the sea will the waters be drawn
And thence to the clouds by the Sun.
As rain to the land as the rolling clouds spawn,
As all through The Wet, rivers run.

And so for a time will the creek pay its dues
To its master the river below,
And late in The Dry will its sustenance lose,
Then wait for Monsoon winds to blow.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2012

Image by Fitzy

Free Speech

Tags

Australian traditional poetry, Australian traditional verse, Dennis N. O'Brien, Free Speech, poem, poetry

How sensitive now people are,
‘Tis easy to offend;
Free speech has gone a mite too far,
Those on the left contend.
They say no longer speak your mind,
(‘Less it agrees with theirs)
Make papers only print what’s kind,
Stop anyone who dares
To put contentious points of view
That question what’s accepted;
These sacred cows one can’t review,
All such critiques rejected.
The aim I think is crystal clear
As these fanatics preach,
Their goal a State that all should fear:
A State that bans free speech.

Copyright © Dennis N. O’Brien, 2012

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

Tags

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

Tags

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