Two of my favourite poems

1. Dr Morrison, Adelaide

 

the branch still trembling

after the bird has flown

the presence of absence.

 

 

2. Phil Hammial: With Mother

 

the swims

always lasted

for an ordinary time.

Excellent & Eternal Australian Poets of the Latter 20th Century

 Professor Emeritus Ross Fitzgerald

John Fitzpatrick

 Bill Fewer

Dr Peter Kocan

Leone Britt

Rae Desmond Jones

Dr Bobbi Sykes

 Phil Hammial

Poem John Fitzpatrick from The Sledgehammer Collective

 

 

 

 

5 Star Dinner With Director Pat Laird in Kings Cross Circa 1973 

The pianist increased the volume and the tremor 
of the finest drops
to counterpoint her rage 
with rain
The waiter moved about like silk
and softly scoffed in pain.

"The better poets in Australia have been knocked off"
she said
"and the all best, we derange".

She would have been more Maoist
and more profane
in every pant
but after all
we were drinking Grange
from a Federal Grant.
_______________________________________________
John Fitzpatrick/ Sledgehammer Poems

Some Poems by the Australian Dr Peter Kocan

Cathedral Service

I’m only here because I wandered in
Not knowing that a service would begin,
And had to slide into the nearest pew,
Pretending it was what I’d meant to do.

The tall candles cast their frail light
Upon the priest, the choir clad in white,
The carved and polished and embroidered scene,
The congregation numbers seventeen.

And awkwardly I follow as I’m led
To kneel or stand or sing or bow my head.
Though these specific rites are strange to me,
I know their larger meaning perfectly—

The heritage of twenty centuries
Is symbolised in rituals like these,
In special modes of beauty and of grace
Enacted in a certain kind of place.

This faith, although I lack it, is my own,
Inherent to the marrow of the bone.
To this even the unbelieving mind
Submits its unbelief to be defined.

Perhaps the meagre congregation shows
How all of that is drawing to a close,
And remnants only come here to entreat
These dying flickers of the obsolete.

Yet when did this religion ever rest
On weight of numbers as the final test?
Its founder said that it was all the same
When two or three were gathered in his name.

© Peter Kocan

The Social Workers

Hyenas will encourage a stampede
To see which ailing zebra falls behind.
They’re nature’s social workers, and inclined
To feel most altruistic when they feed.

© Peter Kocan

Them and Us

And still the elites betray us every day,
Despite the fact that they need hardly bother,
For they’ve discovered many an easy way
Of prompting us to betray each other.

© Peter Kocan

Dylan & Caitlin

The poignant photograph is one
Of them reclining in the sun —
Their intimacy showing through,
Unposed, unglamorous, but true.

Yet with a tension in it all,
As if they had agreed to call
This little truce in passion’s war
Beside the heron-priested shore.

Forever, as the moments pass,
Their shadows rest upon the grass.
These two remain forever caught
In pensive attitudes of thought.

And just before the camera’s blink
She might’ve said, “How strange to think
Our pictured selves will never know
What happens when we rise and go.”

“They’ll seem to know,” he might’ve said,
“For everything that lies ahead
Will cast its retrospective ray
Upon these phantoms of today.”

— Bereft of colour, motion, sound,
Their world is burgeoning around,
The teeming year of Fifty-Three
Whose end he wouldn’t live to see.

            © Peter Kocan

Philosopher's Stone ~ Van Morrison

Someone like you~♥ Van Morrison

Lyrics of When the Deal Goes Down

In the still of the night, in the world's ancient light
Where wisdom grows up in strife
My bewilderin' brain, toils in vain
Through the darkness on the pathways of life
Each invisible prayer is like a cloud in the air
Tomorrow keeps turnin' around
We live and we die, we know not why
But I'll be with you when the deal goes down
We eat and we drink, we feel and we think
Far down the street we stray I laugh and I cry, and I'm haunted by
Things I never meant nor wished to say
The midnight rain follows the train
We all wear the same thorny crown
Soul to soul, our shadows roll
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down
Well, the moon gives light and it shines by night
When I scarcely feel the glow
We learn to live and then we forgive
O'er the road we're bound to go
More frailer than the flowers, these precious hours
That keep us so tightly bound
You come to my eyes like a vision from the skies
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down
Well, I picked up a rose and it poked through my clothes
I followed that winding stream
I heard the deafening noise, I felt transient joys
I know they're not what they seem
In this earthly domain, full of disappointment and pain
You'll never see me frown
I owe my heart to you and that's sayin' it true
And I'll be with you when the deal goes down