"yarding" poems
It's gone.
I've checked.
I know.
But then,
it never was
much.
Made mostly of scraps;
A rough frame of old bush lumber;
Walls of flattened fuel cans
and lime coated hessian;
A roof of corrugated iron,
battered and rusting.
Scorched by searing summer heat;
Blasted by dust storms;
Chilled by winter frost.
Insubstantial
against the vastness of desert
that stretched in every direction
from the tiny bush town.
But it was home.
Within its walls
were love and care.
At its table
were sustenance and conversation.
For three years
we lived there
when I was a boy.
I'd rise early
and sit on the edge
of the gibber plain
with our dog
watching the sunrise.
One morning
I heard
the jangling of hobbled camels
returning to town
from a night
in the desert.
On another,
there were herds of cattle,
walked in from
an outlying station
for drafting and yarding,
then transport southward
in a train
hauled by a small steam engine.
At the stock-yard
we'd pretend to be cowboys,
prodding the cattle in the loading race
with sticks,
revelling in the dust and noise,
caring little for their terror
or their destination.
One day we hiked
out past the stock cemetery,
of carcasses leering sightless,
scavenged by crows.
We trudged
to the red sand hills,
then back to the rail-line
for a ride home
with the fettlers.
We went barefoot often -
foot-soles like leather
from the searing sand.
In the heat of the day
we'd pause in the scant shadow of a bush,
to choose the next meagre patch of shade,
then run like the wind
to roll on our backs,
waving scorched feet
in the air.
It's still all there in my memory.
Every few years
I take the old track north,
just to check,
to experience again,
to remember.
Other than the vastness of the desert,
it all seems smaller now -
one tiny settlement
within the compass
of an unbroken horizon.
The old house
is just a memory.
It's gone.
I've checked.
I know.
But then,
it never was
much.
Sep 13, 2018
Sep 13, 2018 at 11:03 PM UTC
Roaming
In the dark continent
Where the sun shone brightly
And the grass withers too
Even on the ground so dark and loamy
I met her dressed
Clad in fur with a spice of myrrh
She stood a feet of four, or more
With an enticing smile that beckons to all
And eyes that gazed effects past Medusa
Her seductive touch
Seemed to stretch across all town and rank
Leaving a scar on all that touched
And yet the taste of her lips
Stood the desires of all men alike
She is the good and the bad
Pushing you to the tidings of religiosity
Budding your hands with a tedious tidy
Or lest, a dubious mind
This black land stands a stretch of Medusa's lair
Her fangs dripped bleed, profusely
Of the bloods of the hungry and skinny
But she seemed to have bitten deeper
To the marrows of cognition and behaviour too
Yarding each dream and act to her myopic skirt
A loud soliloquy sang her heart
These lads have been faithful in our relationship
Romantically caressing me to such blossom
With their burning desire to ditch me
Quenched by a wait upon a Messiah
For to love another over me,
They have to quit in their heads and hearts alike
Day after day, precept upon precept
Bask under the sun, fruitfully, not tirelessly
And keep her close for I am never too far
As I, Poverty,
Is enticingly sweet
And what is sweet, can be Eden's apple
So I stand behind the door
Till the day you shall want another bite of me
For I am not just your fall, but your burial too
Written by : Royal Ethiopia
NII Mants3
The Esteemed Vatican
Apr 16, 2018
Apr 16, 2018 at 9:46 PM UTC