Tag: contemporary
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Understanding “sweet sorrow”
Ah, love and loss and heart ache. Where would poets be without it! Better now thanks. Twenty year old poem that still works, I think. Feel free to shoot me down in flames if needed. She’s gone Through the aperture A last glimpse Then She’s gone Tears at the airport Happy kind of crying Home…
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springs cumming – november 1983
Living in Melbourne in the early eighties, I became obsessed with the poet e.e. cummings for a while … this is my stumbling attempt at his style. captivated by smiles gestures and rubbings he was funny when it happens along i thought when you least expect it and straightens your back with a spring in…
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Day-Glo Daze
Re-worked this timeless oldie … images and observations from a northbound road trip to join a hippy sports day in a distant valley. I made it up about the hob-nailed thongs! Day-Glo spacy waistcoats white overalls hobnailed thongs modern rural highwaymen armed with stop/go signs bright pink earthmovers make a night-bright sight stunning moonrise on…
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Eastgate
Here’s one for my mates in the old neighbourhood … Bondi Disfunction. Eastgate they call it But that’s just a name Down home and funky Where real folks roam Not like its neighbour Smarty pants Westfield Upmarket and spunky Where names are chains Chrome gloss enticement On levels and floors Flashy visual excitement In half-empty…
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Sad smiling Aphrodite
An attempt at a poem in the referential academic style. You know, like the consumptive poets of previous centuries who seemed to have to make classical allusions in their poems. Taking the piss, really. But it is a kind of love poem. Returning home to no Penelope I’m no Agamemnon Armageddon leaves me for dead…
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Men in Tracksuits
Another one from the vaults, reworked and updated. I have no idea what it means! men in tracksuits tell you lies their shadowy shades reflect your eyes fast talk street merchants with brave moustaches menace mentally into your life immaculate misconceptions werewolves dripping suspicion space invaders with cell-stories mingled whiffs of incarceration theme intruders in…
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La Donna Maria
Until about three years ago I had been living for twenty years in a small beach-side suburb not a million miles away from Bondi Beach. This poem is an attempt to pay recognition to a wonderful woman who has been living there on the beachfront for far longer than me. Everyone is touched by her.…
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Punt Road Bus
This one I started in about 1980 when I was being a down and out unemployed actor in Melbourne. In my early thirties, the usual themes of urban alienation and confusion are apparent! Sitting down the back of the bus Peering through the glaring dust Trying to get to feel and taste What it’s like…
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Once pretty
I’ve been trawling through old notebooks and found some old poems to rework. Here is one I quite like for its observation and simplicity. once pretty her pinched & harrowed ghost still lingers in flashes as she guides the innocent push-chair child through the busy urban footpath
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Blue Dayz
This is one from the vaults. A friend was experiencing a bad case of the blues. I wrote this poem to share with her and others my experience of the black dog’s bite. bull aligns with ox projects are on hold make dreams happen channel abundance survival mode sux black dog prowls snarling nips at…