"cockatoos" poems
You said you needed an extra pair of hands
so I took mine off and
gave them to you.
The sun set in my glass, darling-
can't you hear that?
coo-ee, coo-ee
oh the cockatoos
are jabbering philosophy again.
Sweet-talker,
I want to push my fingers into your mouth,
swirl it in all the honey in there.
My hands on the clock
pointing at quarter past five,
birds swing up into the air like
the half-beat of a pendulum
lungs filling up with water-
we're all romantic fools here.
Sometimes I think of time as fluid
tick tock tick tock
my glass dripping into
yours.
We're all running dry,
quickly, before the night ends-
ask me to dive off
the edge of the world
with you.
Jan 31, 2019
Jan 31, 2019 at 2:48 AM UTC
My sister dreams of flying tortoises,
cockatoos and parrots flapping in a
perfect randomness. She watches
from the porch of her cabin on the lake,
strangely grown into a manor, and recalls
the promise of someone soon returning from
a time on the water. The tortoises make her think
of portobello mushroom caps, frayed and black
against the stainless blue. She wonders what this means,
this tumbling opulence, this message in the night that my sister dreams.
Jul 31, 2012
Jul 31, 2012 at 2:16 PM UTC
I want to tell you that all's OK.
Oh yes, I must confess, things could be better,
but look. There's a whole cacophony of kookaburras
on my patio who couldn't care less
so long as I keep up my largesse.
And my flash friends, the rainbow lorikeets,
those lurid little lunatics, still keep on lobbing in
to lick up all the honey.
Not to mention the crazy cockatoos who want to
chew my bamboo chairs when I’m too slow with food.
So things aren't all that bad, really.
And I could genuflect,
even get down on both knees, to appease
that great spirit who breathes the symphony of trees,
and the murmuring of all those bees and breezes,
the tympani and tyranny of storms,
the heavy, heady scent of jasmine, heaven-sent.
Not to mention the awesome majesty of galaxies and stars.
And I applaud, each morning,
that old crimson king, my Majesty the sun,
who says “Right, we've had enough of darkness,
we'll have no more of that today”,
and then he has a knuckle with the night.
Of course, the darkness flees in fright again
when it sees that blood-red blaze of light.
It's magic when he brightens up the gloom like that.
He shows me every single day is sparkling, dancing, new.
So there's no good feeling blue.
And remember,
love is just around the corner, too.
Nov 1, 2012
Nov 1, 2012 at 3:41 PM UTC
I miss
your beautiful smile
it's been gone for quite a while
I miss
the special look
you have just for me
wither we're hanging with friends
or picnicking under the old oak tree
I miss
your loving touch
your loving touch
I crave so much
I miss
our long talks in bed
now I wonder
what goes on in your head
I miss
our family walks in the hills
Spotting
kangaroos
wild flowers and
red tailed cockatoos
I miss
watching you play
with the band
up on stage
To me you looked
OOH so grand
I miss
you playing your guitar
Sometimes I'd sit
and watch you from a far
I really wish
I could turn back time
and have the old Todd back
who was once mine
May 12, 2017
May 12, 2017 at 9:49 AM UTC
By Arcassin Burnham
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
In the eyes of the most high, there is peace in the air,
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
there are things we could not explain , do to love and despair,
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day..
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day..
Left from home, in sour moods,
Trees they grow , in windy swoons,
Time has past, we're on the move,
Theres really nothing to do,
On the coast , see more roadkill,
Than anyone can make a deal,
Running home , father's day,
Have no dad , so what's the deal?
I've had so many issues in my life,
Without you I'll never know how I grew,
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
In the eyes of the most high, there is peace in the air,
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
there are things we could not explain , do to love and despair,
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day..
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day..
Love was lost , the planet moves,
Carry on with jobs and shoes,
Walking into death itself,
Starry eyes , cockatoos,
Pretty girls , beautiful dresses,
Talking funny , nervous session,
Conversations about the world,
Learn a story , a life lesson,
I've had so many issues in my life,
Without you I'll never know how I grew,
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
In the eyes of the most high, there is peace in the air,
Purple lamb , purple lamb,
there are things we could not explain , do to love and despair,
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day..
Hide your heart and your eyes and your brain on this day.
Jun 21, 2017
Jun 21, 2017 at 11:57 AM UTC
inspecting momentarily
the visiting sulphur-crested cockatoos
leave our pine-tree for another, further down the hill
en masse, they fly towards and just above us,
their screeches, loud and unmistakeable
are full of enthusiasm and intent
some, slightly smaller in size, are silent
I wonder if they’re the understudies of the chorus
closely following flight-lines of their elder’s character and bravado
these beautiful creatures, so independently defined
raise a cacophony that exhilarates
every fibre of the soul and fills the heart with laughter
self-less, expanding and enraptured
I briefly lift to the massing of their flight:
a complete and joyful glimpse, of full participation
Aug 8, 2014
Aug 8, 2014 at 8:58 PM UTC
overhead squawk of cockatoos
ominous warning of a flight toward freedom
yellow crests flutter in changeable weather
tableau of leached blacks.
half a white disc dissolved
brings anxious, involuntary spasms
not camouflaging venitians
floating on canals, oblivious to currents.
dreams arrive in a dead night
of wakeful & unordered surprises.
busy memories paint cartoon oils
in monochrome.
at dawn a grey horizon
not the blazing yellow orb
of Sunday awakening when possibilities were served
with fruits at breakfast.
riding tracks of the past
a quiet carriage & a mind cacophony.
in the centre potential for
an accord of calm melody
of simpler notes to play.
conductor announcing upcoming stops
unwanted concerns echo through valleys
Mar 14, 2015
Mar 14, 2015 at 8:35 PM UTC
Rolling breakers
sea of leaden clouds.
The shadow of a tree
highlighted toward horizon,
rustling of beak on fruit.
From far distant the raucous
squeal of cockatoos.
barely a breeze.
Wings beating past in still air.
Then darkness, quietude.
Tiniest shadow
of branches moving.
Frogs guttural croak.
And in nightfall captured
a veil of silence.
Apr 2, 2016
Apr 2, 2016 at 6:51 AM UTC
[i]
No soaring pain could match her, draped across a dying flame.
Like cinder,
she whisper-whistled through lungs thin, teeth sallow,
a promise in song.
“Towera jinner mulbeena,
Poodinyoober mulbeena.”
It was a good promise;
belonged to everyone
and wouldn’t change for Tomorrow’s ranges.
It asked for nothing
but patience and faith.
From where she lay,
the trees, gums, were akimbo.
[ii]
For generations she had walked, through the wettest of wets and driest of dries.
With hope in her ribs and a nature savage and pure.
You could break her, throw her to the cockatoos,
And yet, ***** and punctured,
like driftwood, she would drift back,
Blossoming in your lap again.
[iii]
When the kangaroos have done their dance
in the twilight.
There she'd been.
Supine. Broken open and
lily-white (on the inside).
and we did this.
with our prospecting and land grabbing
we did this,
with our parking lots and Starbucks cup
she was dismembered, priced, "loved," owned.
discarded.
to the meek edge
of an eternal flame ****** to embers.
Feb 14, 2018
Feb 14, 2018 at 3:47 PM UTC
We walked to Sealers Bay, four of us, all women
Bleeding Madonnas on a pilgrimage in the rain, together yet alone
each to her own journey
Moving like the floods of 2011, ready to take out any obstruction
Mud ******* at our feet, rainforest leeches suckling our blood like desperate children
The rhythm of my feet set off a reverie of how I lost my mind just a moment ago.
I found it again, blood pumping in my ears, heart pounding like thunder
The sweat running down my neck made me think of you…wondering where, how, who?
A futile fancy
Still the rainforest clings to me, my feet echoing on the boardwalk,
the sound of running water filled with tannins
emotions of the forest flowing beneath my feet to Sealers Bay
A beach once stained with the blood of whales lies calm and blue, deceptive
A moment of sunshine found me sprawled on the sand, waves of exertion washed over me
The repose was fleeting.
Nature interrupted sending a shower, and a chill up my spine
A journey is rarely one way and retracing my steps is like retracing a lifetime
…would it have been better if?..
Eventually I turn my mind skyward to a flock of black cockatoos screeching like banshees at the women trudging one foot in front of the other in a winter forest
Nineteen kilometres of contemplation can quieten a busy mind, it is the number of surrender and endurance
The feeling of my toenail lifting in my boot is strangely cathartic
like a mistress, how pain focuses thoughts on the detail
I see tiny red Correas, the *** organs of plants, there for the pleasure of others
My buttocks and calves scream as the incline of the hill steepens, spurring me on
pleasure in pain makes you forget yourself, and the forest
there's just breathe and movement and rhythm
Apr 4, 2020
Apr 4, 2020 at 6:39 PM UTC
I
Enough. I am done.
I have no dogs in heaven. Nor one of the Prince’s cockatoos
to leverage favor from. I am the ****** on a cactus.
I have no more
languages to speak truth, but draw blood.
I am a coward,
My tongue not so sharp as a sword.
Remain still. Courage not so stiff as it once was.
II
Everybody inside. On their heels. There is panic
Breaking on the back of soundless numerals. Is it safe
To beg for mercy in the streets?
III
O mercy. The ever-redemptive lack.
And what words at my mercy not co-opted
by avarice, or Sig and his ivy-eyed nephew.
Ah Um.
Too easy to franchise martyrdom these days, minute 2 minute
Things swing as usual ah um
Sssome people get rebellion-medallions; most pawn them
in tomorrow’s liquor stores.
And swing.
O merci, Satyrs of a newly profitable goat-song!
Who can resist them teasing out the milk?
It almost seems fresh, piped thru
loudspeakers in Bentham’s skull
Howling ah, Um, Imagine:
Most deformed Society members . . .
Strapped to their rocketships, mingling w/ stars
in corporate menagerie,
Senators and a gaggle of catamites. . .
On call
Young-things, playthings, old news; money is eternal.
Their’s is a sickness that makes mine worse.
IV
That said. I ain’t got a clue; or a word
to say. Without a code to program the spleen
in my bomb of a heart.
All communication is shrapnel-blasted-out-shrapnel.
Grinning over a screen.
No, Worry, slow down. Spleen, relax.
I’m just a man with a telephone wire
Not the sax-playing Mr. Apollinax
Sure can’t talk politic but ah um I can start a fire.
V
My robe swinging open,
I hang over the balconies of twilight’s regret,
exposed, and unhappy.
I wish nothing more , that the boon of despair
Drop it, an atom bomb and burst the windows. . . .
Everybody inside, solitary: radiated by me.
Maybe we’d all smile at each other
when we finally come out from our houses.
Dec 20, 2021
Dec 20, 2021 at 5:18 PM UTC