WA Poets Inc Creatrix 46 Poetry

Now that I have breathed for 70 years
I have had time to reflect on why you,
my four amazing children came into my life
from within my body, changing my world.
You enlightened my skies with endless stars.

Before you arrived, life was selfishly uncomplicated
with carefree child adventures, puberty vicissitudes,
the freedom to choose whenever my actions,
consequences, roaming and wild escapades.
This is the portrait of the young woman I was.

As you each swelled my belly, I wondered
who you were and imagined our first visual contact,
how we would love and experience each other
and the anticipation of creating life’s jigsaws together.
The answers were beyond my youthful comprehension.

The moment you entered the world through me,
egotism disappeared as dramatically as ice over fire,
wonderment of the universe was suddenly so profound
that I became a being of unlimited genesis.
I became your lifelong intuitive protective lioness.

You demanded all my honesty and authenticity,
you redefined my comfort zone to a place
where loveliness and selflessness hold hands
creating my life’s exquisite and soulful reality.
I will always feel your rhythm within my being.

Kaye Brand

Bag Lady

. She is
a performance unto herself,
and the car bay a theatre
all her own as she parks
her shopping trolley, plucks
at plastic bags, slaps at flies,
turns to eyebrow majestic
indignity at a silent audience
of seagulls, crows.

. Her hair
grey, short, is as androgynous
as her bleached denims,
the curve of her body
as she bends, retrieves some-
thing from a crack in the ground.
The drag on the stub draws
the whole of her, belly
to cheek, into the suck,

. but
the durrie’s dead, so after
careful inspection she flicks
the stub, wanders, circling,
disguising intention yet
each time coming nearer
to the bin, then suddenly
diving in, fossicking,
discarding, coming up empty,
nonchalant, then returning
to Centre Stage.

. Then
she’s done, and the lights
are fading as she exits
Stage Left, disdaining
the applause of car horns,
home-bound crowd,
the wind. The crows
and seagulls, confirming
their reputations as to the arts,
hang about critiquing, laughing,
imitating her weave and bob.

Peter Burges

Bamboo Glade

. Small bamboos,
.   thin, rickety, and .chittering,
.   not in fear exactly,
more a ribbeting,
content here. as of frogs
.   after a round of burping
.   having tasted enough of evening;

content hereand, deeper in,
. big ones clapping each other
. hard, all smooth-skinned
. and ridged as if for
.telescoping down
. into mushy earth
. where worms, if sliced,
. wriggle off in all directions.

.   But it’s the leaves
.   I’m here for: some mouthy
. tongues; some slap-n-tickle
. caresses; some cowled
.   prayers; all with a green
. so immediate it hurts,
.   like diamond, cutting open

. revealing off-track spaces
. behind old facades
.where life
grabs
. by the balls,
. drags
. celestial thoughts
. into thirsting flesh

Peter Burges

First Love

Your hand quivers, fingers curl, unfurl.
The first hesitant flicker of reach
stutters in mid-air, balances on a heartbeat.
Your brow glistens, tongue moistens dry lips.
Touch me.
See, I am waiting, my breath on hold.
Feel the lines of my body, make my skin burn.
Touch me now!

Geraldine Day

Scream

The wind gnaws the crack
in the window as air plays
with the scent of turpentine
and oil paint.

Smeared on the palette
is today’s choice of hues.
Dark colours with the taste
of bile and lost lovers

messed with crushed rose
slowly hardening.
In his hand, a number 6
sable tipped with crimson.

The last remnant of blood
held to an angry mouth
and everywhere, the clash
of lines, a torment of shape

form unrecognizable
from her face, his face.
Two melded, lost.
The faraway look as clouds

billow and a sea curls angry.
And on the rocks, the splayed
form of a gull, white on black
outstretched to some thing, unseen.

The beak an imperfect V
holding the scream
that holds beyond
decay.

Gary Colombo De Piazzi

Survivor

Moves to comprehend music
that puzzles us with night juice
salesmen running forwards to
confine us, souls death pale.

A beat and rhythm that survives
deeper than the fabric of streets,
crawls between the cracks and
flaws of a city.

A survivor beyond the clash of cars
and the screech of traffic lights,
caught in the hiccup of silence
between inhalation/exhalation.

The soft easing movement
tied to the moon and stars,
always present, rarely heard,
as a twinkle tugs at the movement

of ideas, slips a brake on words
with the mouth caught slightly open.
A shiver growing from the base
of the spine. A tsunami greater

than the tremble it represents.
And all the while, hawkers
spill their urgent cravings
slash the silence with the clash

of views shouted on each crossroad
and the walk sign blinks
“Don’t Walk”

Gary Colombo de Piazzi

Aren’t We Kind

Back in Hansie’s day, we were paid to lose,
now, generously, it is pro bono.
Back then we were able to pick and choose,
in the era when we were paid to lose.
Sometimes we would falter, others just cruise:
Hansie just had to pick up the phono.
Back then it was far less painful to lose-
now it feels just like a broken bono!

Derek Fenton

Dark Place

He calls out to us and we turn
to find this old man reduced,
more frail than a few weeks ago
at the funeral.

He is close to tears

unable to express what he feels –
but we don’t need words
to understand his grief.
It is written in his
demeanour, although he wears
his lines with dignity through his

bewilderment and loss.

Her absence
is tangible, shrinking his being,

leaving him in a dark place.

We suggest coffee together
when he is ready.
His response grounds us:

‘I just want peace’.

We hold his hands before he walks
away
. on his search for solace.

Margaret Ferrell

The Dam Builders

In praise of the men who built Harvey Dam completed 2002

They built a dam in the hills :
Thirty years they mulled over the idea drew plans, surveyed, calculated,
argued it with each change of government.
Decision. Work started –
Men appeared from all nations to shatter the silence with
crack of explosives, roar of graders, trucks, dozers.

With brawn and brain, in heat, cold and rain, the dam was built.

From a swing bridge weir to a wall of granite stones quarried from the hillside
the dam took shape.
A concrete spillway, a water tower,
a road across the dam, an amphitheatre in gardens.
posts for instruments to detect earth murmurs in the wall.
Last a pine forest that lipped the water’s edge.

The lake behind the wall expanded with each rain,
Its silvery skin rippled under a light breeze like the skein on warm milk.

And the glorious water flowed,
It flowed down pipes, into irrigation channels
to paddocks where Friesans, fat cattle grazed
into orange groves that blossomed, sweet swelling fruit.
Country people rejoiced as farm tanks overflowed
while townsfolk simply used the water piped to city homes.

They built a dam in the hills to claim their place in history.

Sally Gaunt

True North

My Dad is at Chinaman’s Beach
teaching Navigation to an enthusiastic class
notepads ready, pencils sharpened.
He takes his beloved sextant from its brown box,
unrolls charts, displays a steering compass in a brass binnacle.
“A compass determines the direction of True North,” he says.
At ten I am barely listening, paddling in the shallows.
“It must be corrected by magnetic declination
and allowance made for any nearby magnetic fields.”
“For example, nearby mountains and iron ore deposits.”
I am just so bored! When will my mother come?
I want to go home and make toffee.
“Magnetic compass corrections is part of the
curriculum for the Shipmaster’s Certificate of Competency”.
“Adjustment is by calibration.” Non – magnetic methods of taking bearings
include astronometrical observations and radio navigation”.
Years have passed. Waving my iron ore stone bracelet over my
pocket magnet the needle spins erratically-
I have lost True North.

Sally Gaunt

clean and happy

if I lived at number 27 I’d
be happy because number 27
has a front porch, a crow’s nest of
sorts, and I grew up with cubby houses
and lookouts and number 27 faces
west so sitting on the porch allows time
to lap and dissolve behind – remember
the sprawling thoughts of Einstein as he sat

backwards on trains? – and number 27
has a front door aligned with back so I
could hear my thoughts before they arrived and
27 was my room number at the clinic
and room rhymes with broom rhymes with
orange to sweep and hue me clean and happy

Kevin Gillam

Raffles Hotel On Song

‘The Highway to Hell’
it was called, from the ‘60s to
‘70s, that crazy stretch of
Highway from Bon Scott’s house
in North Fremantle – bodies
packed tightly as beer bottles

in EH & FJ Holdens and
Panel Vans, drinks passed
as a magic potion from
hand to hand with radio blaring,
to Sleat Road Applecross
they’d put their foot down

as the road dips in harmony
into a steep decline
to the Raffles crossroad
where cars loaded with
teenage voices would race
through to end their song.

A ‘Rock’n Roll drinking hole’
with brawls starting on the
Dance Floor then thrown out
to the carpark where police paddy
wagons and truncheons out in force
steered the end of night crowd.

We knew this as the old way
and yet, even last year,
another punch-up
on the Dance Floor
left a young guy unconscious
fighting another round.

Mike Greenacre

Water Polo Boy

Casual physique
the men came with bags
to Beatty Park Aquatic Centre,
their fingers clenched
like fists of war.

Towels flung over shoulders
as a last minute swill,
tracksuit brands
shaping the parade with
mateship cries and
clinging girlfriends.

At first I was flyweight
but could wriggle like a tadpole
through bodies and arms
and out-smart the
dirty play of old men.

Training twice a week, playing
Grade games on Thursday nights
and Under-Age on Saturdays,
squeezing in schoolwork
as an out-grown friend.

This was my first escape,
a mental net from
nine to seventeen –
I never missed a game.

Mike Greenacre

Don’t forget

Jots on paper…
Reminders.
A thought bubbles
but gone.
Oh what was it?
Banging the forehead
trying to shake it back to life
before it joins the others;
in storage, on file, waiting for download.
Not refuge,
but rich organic experiences,
knowledge
a wise word.
A library,
without a librarian
not accessible
more fear
and so it goes…
another jot on paper
don’t forget.

Ann Harrison NSC

Naming Socks

Today I named my father’s socks,
a white laundry marker ditching between the ribs of the black fabric
brought to mind fawn school socks, my mother’s perfect stitches
had held embroidered nametags tight on countless pairs for years.

I recalled the glint of needle’s point between fawn ribs
once the task was entrusted to my hasty jabbing.
Such handiwork was abandoned for my daughter’s uniforms,
instead used iron on labels, not long lasting, but easily replaced.

Laundry markers are recommended for naming garments subjected
to harsh washing in aged care homes –
decreases the risk of loss and muddle when ready to be returned.
There is comfort knowing the indelible letters of his name,
black on light cloth, white on dark, mean he will be attired
in his own outer trappings, remnant splendour of a big, bold life.

Jenifer Hetherington

The Fable of the Tortoise and the Butterfly

When a soul has far to go decisions must be made
danaus chrysippus petilia
(the Lesser Wanderer)
a prescient choice.

The lovely butterfly
for reasons of post-pupescent evanescence
has to learn protection.

Warned about lepidopterists
collectors
cruel pins
chloroform
and of course – sharp beaks –
shells are suggested.

Hear the evolutionary mind at work.
Proposal: shard born beetle – not a common delicacy –
but what of beauty?
Consider the lady bird –
safe in flight, and so pretty
but who would want such frantic whirring?
Better still, the tortoise – but what of speed?

Subtle butterfly
chose faux tortoiseshell on gossamer wings,
no bird would chase a flying tortoise
risk battering beak on shell.

Now away
fast flitter
fast flutter
quick and on and up
tiny dazzle point against the blue
of ever sky.

Jenifer Hetherington

A Huge Ball of Words

.   … and this word
. will be followed by that one
.   and then the next after it will be
.   the one that’s meant to follow it
. in some sort of agreement to keep sense
.   and not muck up the meaning of what the words
. together are supposed to be saying so long as they’re
.in an order that is familiar but of course it doesn’t matter too
.   much since poetry can break the rules of grammar and even
. syntax in order to create a sense of a feeling or the flight of the
.   air through the winding paths of the forest or over the jumping
. waves of the sea or maybe around the flittering tails of a herd
. of wild horses galloping across the steppe which stretches all
. the way from the coldness of the Arctic shore to the warm
. lapping edge of the great Caspian Sea where lived the
. ancestors of people who someday would travel to that
. sunny sanctuary lying in the vast southern ocean
. which somehow balances the continental
. land masses sitting on the top of the world
. instead of being spread more evenly
.   across the hemispheres…

Ruari Jack Hughes

Immigrant

The boat rides on, over the harbour,
Pushing beyond the headland,
Soon it will sail over the horizon;
Soon it will lie beyond memory.

I came here on that vagrant boat,
Though I would as gladly come
On the back of a great bird in the sky,
Or carried in a chariot of the gods.

On this voyage there was no fantasy,
Only a mundane and miserable passage,
Dragged across wilful currents and tides;
I should not have hoped for more.

Yet I dreamt of a different journey,
And for a time the dream was real,
Fragments remain, vaguely calling me;
I still hope, long for them to be true.

The boat rides on, over the harbour,
Pushing beyond the headland,
Soon it will sail over the horizon;
But I have come to stay.

Ruari Jack Hughes

Next door to a North Perth rental

an unholy hot day slackening
in a suburb sparkly with sprinklers
our eyes tied to those swoops
willy wagtails stitching
before our verandah stage

one moment, the charm
of birds streaming
through spray in humid air
the next, a domesticnext door

javelins of bedroom vitriol
roaring across the fence line
angry orange at the edges
of our lateral vision

neighbours outside avian
flight paths, too possessed
by animus, to be calmed
by the balm of nature

something acrid they’ve left behind

Ross Jackson

Outside the tents

each evening
riderless camels
come for moon grapes

soft rattle of stones
broken bunches
circulating jaws

our pale faces chilled
withered petals
of the desert rose

Ross Jackson

I look for resin

no resin yet, just that odd green of gumtrees in leaf
trunks bigger than those of Moreton Bay Figs
full of hollows, the rough bark comes away
in my hand, surprises me by crumbling to dust
a possum box, its builder died young, a writer, tragically
purple and pink, close to the ground, and quite unsuspected,
graze small delicate flowers,
each one of these contracted to the others
me, a Druid, or a water-sprite, wanting to belong

Pat Johnson

the Witwerd

From a long night
of short acquaint,
twining and thrusting,
the re-birth of taint.
Such thing this suckling,
unchancely it has come.

Upon chariots of falsayers,
Moloch, Baal and Beezelbub,
their breath ignited,
their lips dripped of mire,
of bane and blight to come,
the Werd made flesh
to corrupt again.

2.
Gude knicht of steadfast hute,
blud-rute run right in his race.
His full-swelt mind intent,
evil to have spent,
to front and fight,
wrout’d and o’welm the Beast
or dy’d escheate.
Gude knicht and his ludeman,
risen from folkenholm, the Witwerd,
front the on-fast frae
to thwart the maneful foe.
Yet though we withsaw’d the battery, ahold,
witherward, our battlements, wasted, fold.

Upon time, the gruwl’d suckling
turned us to this gulded, winter’d age.
Our suchkins and gude burgesses,
[now blede with their hollow’d blud,]
will swear many a brust Werd
before their days are done.

Now the ludeman he lodder,
a son of morning, and though a douth slayer,
day’d bruke now would betake his heart,
a mainstay lode burdening,
as ledden of men.

Withsaw’d eyres bruw ill-wind.
This dry-dearth is all that has come
of the Witwerd, drast, d’ye ken?
Wherein now dark-hood lurks the gird,
too late the churl, now the bode of rune.

Peter Knight

Zen River

Oh spirited nobody
Put your hand into the open fire
Oh spirited nobody
How long might you let it go?

Oh spirited nobody
Cut your hole and enter
Oh spirited nobody
Swim below the ice

Oh spirited nobody
See light and dark and reflect
Oh spirited nobody
Feel the drag take you in

Oh spirited nobody
Give up your breathy form
Oh spirited nobody
Flow deep within the now

Oh spirited nobody
Forget and live anew
Oh spirited nobody
Transcend and swim and fly

Oh spirited nobody
Know no up or down
Oh spirited nobody
Melt water into sky

Dean Meredith

Dove of Shalott

( a spoof )

Homed under neither eave nor roof
but niched from frost and from rain proof,
dove looks down upon bloom and pool
all quiet in the early cool
yet this no passive she embowered
in her green and leafy tower,
eyes of obsidian and jet
gaze brightly at the world direct
watch where river folk come and go
tides that daily ebb and flow
along the path ‘neath milk blue summer,
lords and ladies, strolling mummer.
Her twiggy weaving finished, done,
she warms her breast dreams future sons
or daughters to follow her course,
uncursed stares outwards towards source
and arrow swift her lover true
smoothing plumage, settles, coos,
each quill crisp so softly grey
reminds her of the break of day,
but ne’er seen these birds at dawn
by reveller or woodland fawn.
All unbeknown the stealthy boy
stolen slingshot not a toy
has long since espied her nest
settles unknightly upon quest,
takes his stance, his moment chooses
draws back pouched stone, swiftly looses,
a single shriek, she redly falls
while from the bough he calls and calls,
now what is this, the culprit cries
to see his quarry moveless lie
and vainly regretting slaughter
flings her far out on the water?
Drifting silent she floats down
unnoticed by the bustled town
till snagged in sedges lastly stills
as ducks and fish with silver gills
bump and nudge the drowned face
musing over such draggled grace,
while in a tongue foreign to all
but those who fall to barb or ball,
he mourning sings to evening’s star
of how all love is fled too far.

Jan Napier

Shucked Oysters Die

2 am in a rain locked room, I am so lost
in this skin thing, arms pimpling, heart booming
tsunamis, all redness hidden within.
Shivering begins — some engine tripped I didn’t start.
Beyond the second hand’s spasms, numb, a golem,
I go on and on swapping CO₂for oxygen.
Palms pressed flat to glass, staring blue sheen of streets,
wilding eyes blurred as the night’s swim of ink,
earthquakes for knees, I will and will that Jalapeno
boy to quickstep stairs, grin his fictions of ever after,
say OK. Rain smacks panes, champagne unbubbles,
shucked oysters die, the phone keeps on not ringing.

Jan Napier

Line On A Dead Pet

He might be asleep,
curled up like that,
and what is one more
sadness in a world
like this?
Perhaps one tear
to wet the piece of cloth
you will wrap him in,
and shiny pebbles to be
his grave goods,
and a little grass to fade
with him into the earth.

Julian O’Dea

The Answer

I never saw him, the lake smoothly lied,
ask the weeping willows how he died;
stir up the mud, it holds many secrets,
ask the reeds what is in the wind;
how innocently the swans seem to glide
over whatever the waters hide.

Julian O’Dea

Winter Rain

The rain drifts in and around the hills;
on the flatland it finds its way beneath my coat,
at home it pours down over my window sills,
and I’m beginning to think I’ll need a boat!

Heavy black clouds wreath around the valleys
hiding the hill tops, even the city skyline,
don’t venture forth without your brollies;
leave early to get wherever you go on time.

Watch out for flooding, so map your course
to travel wet roads safely as still the rain poured;
careful to stay on road or washed off by force
by water that gouge roads and claims scored.

But me, I revel in the teeming torrents,
enjoying the perfume, watching hidden hills,
rewarded by sudden appearance of forests,
Grey and dull in the torrential spills.

Colleen O’Grady

Crocodiles & Marriage

Bob Katter MP, Federal Member for Kennedy, was asked during a press conference for his view on Australia’s historic vote in favour of marriage equality – and his response took more than one unexpected turn.

‘I mean, y’know, people are entitled to their sexual proclivities. Let there be a thousand blossoms bloom, as far as I’m concerned,’ he said brightly, chuckling as he spoke.

In an instant, Katter’s face changed, his tone suddenly furious.

‘But I AIN’T spendin’ any time on it, because in the mean time, every three months, a person is torn to pieces by a crocodile in North Queensland,’ he spat.

So in pondering the why and wherefore of all of this confected, ejaculated rage,
I pondered quietly, buried in a humming, moody coffee shop, sipping un café blanc:
please mate – how much time does a man need, even a member of Queensland’s Katter’s
Australian Party, to contemplate the deeper meanings of any poor bugger torn to pieces
by a crocodile’s savage otherness, how much deep thinking does it take
between deaths, which would seem to span around 90 days,
is there no time in the grieving to think just a little, for a moment even,
about changing the law to allow anyone to marry anyone, when clearly
you don’t give a hoot about who does what with whom.

He borrows and mangles Mao and from his tortured, twisting, spitting
lips we come to learn: do it with anyone, get married to whomever –
but do not bugger about asking me for a point of view!

After all, I am just a representative of the people, paid a shitload to
represent my Far North Queensland electorate –
which ain’t too queer, I know that for a fact –
so what’s it to me, eh…

Allan Padgett

If I Chewed On a Banana

If I ate a lemon
I could twist my lips
and give you –
a sour and bitter kiss

If I sipped on a hot chocolate
I might then lick along your spine
down low and secret –
and leave you frothing at the tail

If I stopped eating and drinking
a pall would fall upon our conversation
and the long and corrugated road –
would turn to dust

If I sucked upon a straw
planted deep in your soul
I may splutter in fright –
and choke upon the truth
of your well-deep feelings

Allan Padgett

Columbus Avenue Peregrination

floating high above        frenetic New York city life
a pair of falcons pirouette        majestic wings unfurled
caressing, teasing, plucking chiming chords
on thermal strings        in boundless morning skies

below        a woman’s long, loose jacket feathers dance
in Sunday morning’sbriskly swirling breeze
unleashed hair       radiates
wind sculpted halo        hovers
floating free

sweeping past early morning coffee queues
she glides along Columbus Avenue
long, easy, swinging strides
muscles stretching body strong
free-wheeling

holding       forearm as a loving perch
for hooded falcon        leather-vested
tethered legs       bound tight
in servitude        to human gait
indentured

Yvonne G Patterson

My Place

“You don’t belong here”
the doctor said as she cut out
another carcinoma. “You were
born in the wrong place”
So I stay out of the sun, at home,
in my place and contemplate
where I’m meant to be.

My Tasmanian Oak desk
gouged with years of use
bears the scars of previous
owners. I search
for their shadowed stories
any trace or impression
of their words. Scratches,
grooves and the dark stains
from sweaty elbows and hands
prise my imagination open.

Bottoms of drawers made from
Amgoorie tea chests shipped
from India to England and
Australia bear the name of
Scottish brothers D & J
Fowler. The red, green and
black label with the picture
of a lion transports me to
wild Africa and the brass
pulls bring me back to
Australia a century ago.

My music surrounds me
while I write. Chopin
waltzes me around the
Eiffel Tower in the warmth
of Spring amid daffodils
and peonies. Beethoven
woos me with moonlight
over the Rhine. I float on
air with Bach through
the Netherlands and
Dvorak delivers me
to a new world from
America to the moon.

Today, I am at my antique
desk, use my laptop, WiFi
circumnavigate the world
in a place I don’t belong?
My place is everywhere.

Maureen Sexton

Recovery

Each week her scars heal further.

She can see more sky
she tells friends
more play of shadow-shift.

Such things as fallen leaves
draw her attention
the turning of tree colour

the growth of grass
how sand wends its way
through lawns.

She crumbles browning petals
sees that crows swoop
more swiftly in late afternoon.

She loves the dance of air.

Flora Smith

The Carrion Eater

We are heading down the Fitzroy River,
on the map, a name, Lindesunjun Waterhole
conjures the bonus of cool relief.
A wash and swim becomes a priority:
we are overcome with disbelief.

Lying on its side in a few inches of tepid tea- leaf water
a dead steer like a scuttled battleship,
roan skin tent tight on proud bones.

All still, the only movement
from the stern of the vessel
a Perenti* is having his fill of putrid flesh.
Peeved by our intrusion it stares at us
jaws clamped, yet dripping maggots.

And with an indifferent glare
re enters his pelvic cave
to resume his fetid meal.

Laurie Smith

*A Monitor, Varanus giganteus

Gumtree Ad (Seven Things I Need)

I need a naltrexone implant,
an interlude between lethal bouts,
a tin-shed womb for huddling into from the rain.

I need a blast of organic colours, fresh from the bush,
delicious and luxuriant with grevillea and banksia,
to escape the prison of brickwork and steel computation.

I need a soul beside me in bed less interested in sex
than a monk — a lotus eater allured by sleep.

I need a bank balance fit for an emperor, yet hidden
from the covetous eyes of tax collectors.

I need a job without idiots, yet full of people propping up
crippled work-days with their smiles.
Who’s to say I need a car when I have
health and legs with road enough to walk on?
Now there’s a slick enigma to rely on:
the more you have, the more you grind your teeth
or roll around at midnight sweating out your dreams.

I need a carpet whose threads were spun by a conjurer,
to hurtle me beyond the this-and-now mundane
to a more peaceful, less war-mongering world,
in a parallel but recognisable universe,
where citizens still sweat and fart, make love and kiss,
but leave the environment alone and not rip out its heart.

I need a long holiday from reality,
I want to slip into the screen of a film and never return,
because life is just too painful to listen to:
a scratching of fingernail on styrofoam.

Colin Young

Young Pollock

He’s socket-eyed and bruised with self-despair,
embroiled in an acid-rain argument,
was for a nine-month sojourn enwombed,
and now ejected. Onto New York’s mystery
he sprawls, airborne, wingless, to coil
an index finger to his other hand’s fist.
he laps up feathers of doves scuttling
over park benches, squints at morning ravens,
and sucks his anguish down his orphaned brain.
The buildings ogle him with grimy sheen,
angular skeletons of squats implode
to push him off a psychic cliff, as feet
shuffle and scrape into rubble alleyways
while snow partitions winter.

Colin Young

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