All our fathers and uncles going off to war like going down to the pub. Whirled away like paper dolls painstakingly cut from khaki by little girls, confetti men tumbling into rice paddies, into names like Kokoda and Nui Dat. See them scatter into the twigs into the puddles, the rivers into the villages folding …
And so the year begins (… better late than never)
Hooray, I’ve just written my first poem for the year! (Yes, I know it’s February already – return your gaze to the post title for a moment. See? I realise it may seem as though I create the titles first and then organise my life – or at least my posting schedule – to follow …
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Poem – Trumbull Stickney’s “Mnemosyne”
It’s autumn in the country I remember. How warm a wind blew here about the ways! And shadows on the hillside lay to slumber During the long sun-sweetened summer-days. It’s cold abroad the country I remember. The swallows veering skimmed the golden grain At midday with a wing aslant and limber; And yellow cattle browsed …
Tuesday Poem – ‘To His Bibliophilic Wife’
for Stewart Had we shelf-space enough, and time, This gluttony, lady, were no crime. We would sit down and read away The afternoons of our love’s long day; You, by the fickle muse’s side Through Poetry stroll; I, in the tide Of Comedians’ Biographies drift. We would Build ourselves an ark of Fantasy, and flood The kitchen-cum-dining …
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Poem – Trumbull Stickney “Sir, say no more”
Sir, say no more. Within me ’tis as if The green and climbing eyesight of a cat Crawled near my mind’s poor birds. – Trumbull Stickney (1874 – 1904) I love good metaphor poems. I remember reading this many years ago, and a garbled version of it has stuck in my head ever since …
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A Dark Feathered Art 