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George Krokos Dec 2010
Aborigines and kangaroos
boomerangs and didjeridoos.
Leafy gum tree branch and koala bear
black stump in the middle of nowhere.
Jolly swagman camped by a billabong
in 'Waltzing Matilda' a favourite song.
The wild brumbies roaming free in the outback
a scruffy hobo living alone in a country shack.
Aboriginal myths called their dreamtime
the native Australians regard as sublime.
Ring-tailed possum and wombat
aussie bloke wearing akubra hat.
Alice Springs and Ayers Rock
outback stations and livestock.
Ned Kelly bushranger and his law brushes
the Eureka stockade during the gold rushes.
Laughing kookaburra and old man emu
platypus swimming in underwater view.
Banjo Patterson’s poem ‘The Man from Snowy River’
who went riding down mountain side without a quiver.
Surfers paradise and the Great Barrier reef
sixties rock ‘n roll legend: Johnny O’Keefe.
Anzac marches and the land of the Southern cross
old Cobb & Co. stagecoach used to travel across.
Glorious summer sunshine and winter rains
severe country drought and the desert plains.
Eucalyptus scent and Tea-tree oil
good health remedies from the soil.
Fresh water yabbies and the witchety grub
all make good tucker in the bush or scrub.
Crocodiles in the Kakadu national park
Burrumundi and the great white shark.
Sydney harbour bridge and the Opera House
Daintree rain forest and the kangaroo mouse.
Sheep wool farming and old shearing sheds
Melbourne Cup horse race for thoroughbreds.
Riverboat cruising up and down the Murray
passing border country towns not in a hurry.
Cradle mountain and the Tasmanian Devil
saying ‘fair dinkum’ means it’s on the level.
AFL rules football and big crowds at the MCG
playing one day cricket there is exciting to see.
The Fitzroy Gardens and Captain Cook’s cottage
are there for all to see as symbols of our heritage.
The Twelve Apostles standing along a rugged stretch of coast
a Ninety-Mile beach is something about which we can also boast.
The Glass House mountains are a sight to see and even to climb
by those who consider themselves fit enough and in their prime.
The great Australian Bight and the road on the Nullarbor plain
is a great feat to drive across and be able to come back again.
The local native wild dog known by name as the Dingo
has nothing to do with a game people play called Bingo.
There’s also a game called two-up that some people play
by which they gamble most of their weeks wages away.
Luna Park in St.Kilda and the annual Royal Melbourne Show
are places where you can take the kids to have fun people know.
There’s the local pub where you can go and have a drink with your mates
and is what many do all day long having a few too many in all the States.
This great southern land of Australia has so much to see and to offer
it would be a ****** shame if one didn’t give a **** or was a scoffer.
_________
Private Collection - written in 2002
Maple Mathers May 2016

Dear Mother and Father,*

        I spoke with Ali today. Maybe it was the first time in years. Maybe it was the first time that we’d ever actually spoken at all. Either way. She told me some things that I thought you should know.

Prostitutes, ******, what have you. They’re not born, they’re created.

         Focus on this. Your white picket fence. Your barbecue, your big family dog. Your pristine, rich neighborhood. Your uppity gossip. Your rules, judgements, “charity.”

         Behind your closed doors, however, dwells something else.

         Something like hypocrisy. Something like abuse.

Now focus on this.

         Ali: dark and brooding, even as a small child. Questioning all of your family values, the ones that I had merely accepted.

         My little sister, the ultimate judge, the supreme *****.

         Forbidden black fingernails, black hair; fingernails, which you forced pink, hair that you insisted blond. Friends that you deemed “greasy” and “unsavory”.

         Hateful, teenage Ali. Ditching classes to go off with boys. Returning home with track marks and glossy eyes. Sneaking out with no destination, if only to not be at the one place she couldn’t be herself.

         Home.

Now, this. That awful “it’s not to late to save your soul” camp. A reform jail. Holier than thou epithets. Squeaky clean repentance. A stockade full of higher authority telling her, “you’re wrong,” telling her, “we are going to fix you.”

         Brain washing robots with backhanded facades.

         Sad, scared Ali. It’s no wonder she chose to rebel, for all she knew of authority was hypocrisy.

         Not just you.

         Instead, a withered, sick janitor.

         The old man who brought her the food that they didn’t serve in the dinning quarters. Fresh fruit, chocolate, and cheese. Food to outweigh the everyday gruel.


         This lonely, forlorn man expecting compensation in return. ****** compensation; unimaginable and certainly ungodly acts.

         This Janitor, he would wander into Ali's room in the early hours of the morning. . . And vanish, several hours later.

        His pockets, empty. His heart, full.

         In this sick and twisted world, the janitor believed that love could exist anywhere. He believed that romantic relationships should not be constricted by something as trivial as age.

         And Ali, she had alternative motives, and compensated her innocence to reach them.

         This was, perhaps, the beginning of Ali's stark career.

         The *compensation of her soul.


         Or, perhaps, it was the man that picked her up next, as a desperate hitchhiker.

         Ali, who finagled the nun’s keys and escaped that ungodly place forever.

         Ali, who climbed into a sinister car with a pretentious man who warped her in more ways than one would even imagine.

         Penniless, solitary, and willing.

         But, think. What would you do with yourself if you had absolutely nothing and no one to lose?

         **Prostitutes, ******, what have you. They’re not born, they’re created.
(All poems original Copyright of Eva Denali Will © 2015, 2016)


.
(from a song)

Perhaps I was born kneeling,
born coughing on the long winter,
born expecting the kiss of mercy,
born with a passion for quickness
and yet, as things progressed,
I learned early about the stockade
or taken out, the fume of the enema.
By two or three I learned not to kneel,
not to expect, to plant my fires underground
where none but the dolls, perfect and awful,
could be whispered to or laid down to die.

Now that I have written many words,
and let out so many loves, for so many,
and been altogether what I always was?
a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,
I find the effort useless.
Do I not look in the mirror,
these days,
and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?
Do I not feel the hunger so acutely
that I would rather die than look
into its face?
I kneel once more,
in case mercy should come
in the nick of time.
Maple Mathers Feb 2016
Just a Game. . .

In the comfortable stockade of my mind
Hide and seek cannot be won
Tip­toe away and find a hollow,
The solitary spot
Slipping between turmoil
Festering in alcoves
Always waiting; back tensed,
Adrenalin sheathing the silence
If I remain undetected
Perhaps the seeker will ease off,
Forget the ollie ollie in comfree
Leave me stowed away.
Much later, I could creep into safety
Call a truce, change spots...
Yet unmarred, the same old rules;
Vicious whispers that ask of unknown.
Meaningful glances and gritted teeth,
The shock of lush green eyes chasing down memory lane.
Wake up, Maple. Wake up.
But I wouldn’t, and it didn’t matter.
Because the stabbing whispers would continue inside;
Dueling emotions I long ago left at bay.
Reside there, waiting.
Counting.
Watching.

*Ready or not,
Here
We
Come.
(All poems original Copyright of Eva Denali Will © 2015, 2016.)
If I were to die tonight

or tomorrow

or in the next 3 seconds…







I would want you by my side,

because there’s so much I would want to say

and so many ways to guide

about the world

and love

and about dreams that you should unfurl

wisdom, to dare to do things you never have

strength, so through everything, you remember to laugh,

hope, as the unfolding map

and love, to guide your every path

its a neverending list

a stockade

a wish,

of things I hope you know

of ways you can always grow

but if I had to choose

with my final breathe I’d say:

live your life

you’ve got everything to lose

everything to gain

and everything to choose.

So don’t waste your time

and make sure to let loose

and most important of all

sometimes I don’t wash my hands after pooping
Jeff Stier May 2017
The right eye
is the window of hope
the left eye
the window of despair

And this proposition
is proven in my photograph
a portrait of a grizzled guy
taken just before
he stepped in front of a speeding car
while gesticulating wildly

Who knows what happened there?

Yet I will live!
gather fallen timbers
to form a stockade
against time

Because finally
I have discovered
that time is not my friend

It's a simple game she plays
time girl
trickster girl
but my ancient beams
will prevail

I swear it
by a handful of ash
and mark the moment
with a rune that exists
outside of time
and says simply

Be this.
You were forever thus.

It's a difficult rune to read
and a harder path
to follow.
Melissa Eleanore Jun 2014
The door throbs with sweat
In the morning-tide
"Whom can come at this time?"
A friend, I bet.

I stalk the sound until I reach the ****.
I open it to see the face of a cop.
Some questions spewed out of the mans mouth,
about if I have seen this other man printed on some page.
Then showed me of this woman,
which coincidentally is the one I've been raised.

They stepped in with no approbation
Suddenly, the atmosphere grew with scads of tension.
They access themselves into my home.
And snooped about the room, with noses to the ceiling.
I got this panicky feeling.

Again with the interrogation.
The only thing that fled through my mind was irritation.
Words came at me and caused an explosion.
Never have I felt more broken...

I constructed this stockade
to stable myself from memory lane.
And to have it easily be destroyed,
made me realize of all that I've been trying to avoid.

The men left, leaving me with bricks to recollect.
It was not a friend, that I have bet...
I apologize if this may seem unfinished, if you have read my first poem, you'd understand my story.

ⒻⓄⓁⓁⓄⓌ➷➷➷
☓IG: Asteriart
PJ Poesy Nov 2015
Syrian pilgrims on boats of hope
Finding no place to land
No one to lend them a hand
No Plymouth Rock to throw rope
How can Republicans cope?

They believe this land is their's
Exclusively, for a Macy's parade
A big balloon with man in stockade
Thanking themselves, saying prayers
Really just showing no one cares

Blaming it on religious beliefs
Though zealots they are themselves
Confusing truer issues as well
Where have gone the Indian chiefs?
To Mexico forced by Trump's police
Hoping for some greater compassion this Thanksgiving.
Joel M Frye Jan 2011
I live now in a small garage
at times still half again too big.
It's not your style, a bit unkempt;
perhaps a bit too much like me.

Clean dishes jumbled by the sink,
not neatly stacked and filed away.
The desk astrewn with books and bills;
clothes all ****-heaped by the bed.

Makes sense, for I'm the one who left
to you the well-maintained facade
of stockade fence and painted trim
which most would call a happy home.

I left you ten thousand things,
careful not to take too much; but
find myself amazed by all
that moved in which I did not pack.

The touch of legs upon my lap
I found while sitting on the couch.
Your smile was wrapped in Sunday's Times
and wedged in with the bowls and cups.

Your hair blows up against my arm
as I drive with the window down,
and hear you sound asleep beside
me as the droning motor runs.

When our paths crossed tonight, we spoke
a moment, went our separate ways.
Walking past the shut-down shops,
I thought of how we fell apart

and everything that came with me
that I took pains not to include
and smiled to myself, wondering
what I had left for you to find.
(c)2000 Joel M Frye
Nigel Morgan  Aug 2015
Mid August
Nigel Morgan Aug 2015
It is the tipping point
the harvest well begun
its end in sight
an early morning
retreated to past
five on the clock

mist lay on
the meadowed fields
observed the pond
held tight to the trees

walking the empty road
camera in hand
to catch the chill earliness
in the far fields then back
through the uncared-for orchard
past the forked-fingered ash
still quite still -
the night air collapsing
as the sun rose

Darjeeling
in the white bone-china cup
a kiss of milk
comforting this delicate tea

and light everywhere
between three windows
our table her gifts
from the shoreline
shadowed hard-edged
whilst the back-lit screen
blinks and waits for words

my story blended from fact
pestled into fiction
itself a background
to a further fiction
from a past in ancient time
where each image described
takes aim at the resonant heart
of every exquisite moment


Eight Sketches in a Notebook

I

into a western sky
the sun finds cloudspace
to enter and set
well above the sea’s horizon
and for a while its rays
glimmer upward onto shards
holding remnants of the day’s
unreflected light


II

not a hut of straw and rushes
on a far mountain fastness
this a walled stockade all but moated
gardened inside its bounds
a miniature railway said to surround
a six-cornered house facing seaward
and towards a lagoon on whose banks
little terns nest from April to June
a mirror of light upon which
the solitary soul might dwell


III

rock guardian
standing
mid-beach

its debris
spilled
to water’s edge

still as still as
no wind or wave
pools dark depths

further out
the sea shimmers
ablaze with reflections


IV

hiding an anxiety of hair
a headscarf blue
and spotted white
reveals an ear
and below a sturdy neck
on round shoulders
her bare arms fall to quiet hands
next to thighs trousered  
knee-length to gentle calves
falling further onto bare feet
stood standing on course sand
at the sea’s murmuring edge


V

here the rock opens
its lips to a kiss of light
but deep inside remains
a dark sheltering secret
blackness impenetrable
wide enough for a storm’s
intrusion of water and wind
but beyond such darkness
possibly nothing
- a closed door
of rock?


VI

from my canvas chair
on the flags outside
the white French doors
this drawing – from where
the garden gate once was
a gap between
the honey-suckled hedge
and the long low cottage
above an ash tree waving
its fingered branches
in the afternoon breeze
fresh over the hill
from the sea’s shore
hardly a mile away


VII

the land points seaward
to an island light
a mile off-shore

on a shingled beach
sliced by the sea’s knife
cattle wandered yesterday

in the mist-driven rain we
sleeked wet as dogs approached
on the headland’s path


VIII

littered the land lies
with interruptions
interventions of the built

past beside present
ends amongst beginnings

complex histories
to delve deeper into
on this northern shore

— The End —