vale burra park trees

stroke the attic of the valley soul
you old wizened things
bitten by many frosts, you
measured the echo of a bat and ball's 'clock'
(that friendly chime)

the old-timers and their dray
flattened the soil at your feet
scraped the hard clay away
raised the three pillared shrine
(and had a good-o time)

your bark like barnacles on a bomber
sunk into the coral bed
the fuselage torn and twisted
by a century's hands and now today
(the waxy smell of fresh sawn pine)

dust blanket reversal pome (c1863)

the rolled warm dogsbody
of a lumpen stranger
lays asleep under the verandah

a bright morning
above a stringybark hut
cockeys tear apart the pink sky

at last stirring
eyes awake and looking then 
bolt upright in one long smooth movement

his hairy ears
broiled with a pinch of mustard
look just like the ridgeline above this place

the soil of sacrifices
has got into every crevice
of these claws now nursing coffee

dew drips from the wattle saplings
poking over on the roof line
onto large stones brought up from the river

a twist of tobacco
into the pipe clay bowl
a smoke noxious and pleasant

drifting off to the tangled trees nearby
and so begins the slow moan
of a new summer day

a new summer day
releases the slow moan
drifting through the tangled trees

a smoke noxious and pleasant
drifts into a small bowl
and magically a twist of tobacco appears

the stones walk back to the river
and a house disassembles
into wattle trees bright with flowers

rising from the soil
people gather into a circle and begin to sing
a journey into eternity

the sun setting slowly
as pterodactyls twist in loose white flocks
tearing apart the sky

fragmen

sometimes ties cost the race
it is not unheard of -
the boat on the harbour
bobbing there on the black moonlit tide
is left to float unguarded
with little warning
and there it is.

lapping the waves
a little light disappearing
back again then lost
and that is your heart out there

in the palm of the ocean
contact is forgotten
and we have to wait

my grandfather
on a corvette in the war
had to destroy everything
my grandmother sent

the torn correspondence
floating in a chain
in the wake of the ship
- just following regulations
the uncaring folly
of duty
 swallows lives whole

pacing the beach
kicking rocks in the sand

waiting for some news
I whistle a nautical tune