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Immolation

I saw you drift into my world and take me by the hand

And lead me through the darkling night you seemed to understand.

Your voice so sweet, your tender touch like foam upon the sea

Wafted my heart to heights divine and sealed my doom for me.

I watch the sun float through your mind and touch your streaming hair

The heat is on but soon I find the sun's not really there

I see the moon upon your brow and realise with pain

That though the lovelight's burning now, the moon is on the wane.

I watch the stars rise in your eyes, but they're not what they seem

Their gentle light-glow fades and dies, the stars are just a dream

I see the soul-fire in your breast flare high and bright and bold

But when I out it to the test I find the flame is cold.

I watch the quiet, ethereal clouds that gather 'round your headAnd autumn leaves that brown and fall, still pretty though they're dead

I see a sparkling rainbow grown, a bridge 'twixt you and me

But things of beauty never last and you long to be free

Sun, moon and stars, rainbow and fire and clouds, they none are real;

My love swoops down from misty heights and now I cannot feel.

Newcastle, 1976

Leigh Blackmore

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August 1983

In August 1983 I was fourteen,

I was free.

The sun energised, stimulated,

awakened the joy inside of me.

The lack of school helped too.

Long summer days spent lazing,

the Radio One Roadshow

broadcasting Bits and Pieces

from St Ives, Llandudno,

Weston-Super-Mare.

Carried on most gentle air

was the symphony of birds and bees,

the perfume of cut grass, roses

on a pleasant soporific breezedusting half-read books, discarded shoes.

These days were made of magic,

made for holidays,

for youths fleeting innocence,

time for free, to waste away,

when nobody had a care,

before being trapped by purpose

responsibilitywork.

A daydream left meandering

a place of solace and retreat

when reality catches up

and mugs me on a Monday morning.

George Fripley

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Naqsh-e Rustam

Silence sits comfortably here;

the lizards bask in baking sun

shading visions of past glories

resistant to the thought of death

caressed by the desert's hot breath.

Long since gone the steady chip

of hammers, careful footsteps,

scraping trowels, the swish

of sand through sieves;

the scaffolds that spoiled the view.

Ghosts of kings now left in peace

gaze east through dusty haze,

dream of days when gleaming

Parse stood proud, stood talland bowed to none,

their epitaphs etched hard in stone,

still whispers echo gently in the air

cross crumbled bones in tombs

long since laid bare.

George Fripley

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Guerdon

Were I to forge a model of your soul,

Id forge it not in gold, but metals rare,

Wrought better far your memory to preserve

A stalwart constitution for a fair

Clear purpose, since no less do you deserve.For I and others of your ken have sought

The proper guerdon, that by right we ought

At your feet lay, to ring a just account

Of character and deeds which we had sought.

No higher, nobler purpose we believe

Ere were compelled our fleeting Earth to leave.

New York and Wollongong, March 2012

Fred Phillips & Leigh Blackmore

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March

For Kathleen Lumley College

Red painted

wooden windows

open, catching

the evening air

like sails on yachts

and the indecipherable

whispers of trees

in the paved

courtyard below.

Claire Roberts

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Heaven Itself

A Cry in the Night

At the beginning of

Existence itself; A

Hungry jackal on the

Prowl the bane ofLife being the Thud

Thud of the tractor

That digs up the soil

Building castles

In the sky in the stead

Of the rainbow skies

Overlooking the

Green pastures

In the vale

Of Heaven

ItselfMalobi Sinha

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Rain

The bell, it was

Tolling loudly as

Though possessed of

Ghosts of its

Own; Toll it didLoud and strong

Pure and True

Until I woke from

Slumber to realise

That it was

Wind chimes from

The Outside coming

Through the window;

The wind pulling it

To and fro

And a storm WasArising as it

Must as it had

Needed to all those

Days that the Hot

Sun beat down

On the Ground

Accursed at its own

Existence. Would

It rain

Malobi Sinha

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City Limits

Your gears were stripped

along the main street

from too heavy loads

flawed design;

you could not speed away.The grinding stop was a surprise.

Calloused hands removed the load.

You left the wreck - took to the road

in search of another job.

The mechanic had seen it all before

that final loss of wheels.

He said that breaking down dispensed

a pass to urban visions.

Traffic wardens found their way

to wear their uniforms and badgesand took weekly salaries

for judgements, sometimes answers.

The meter maid smiled and pointed

like she always did when asked.

it helped her feel better

about not knowing the direction.

The guide was more experienced.

He knew of wrecks and exits.

He alway gave the same advice

and very few returned.

Signs amoung the neon waves

tout where drinks are served

to anyone who breasts the bar

for sanity and corrosion;

Veronica behind the wall

holds tissues for the face

soothes the travellers pain

with love but not affection

while medicine men patrol

sell cures to passers by;

teaching toil and tabletstogether equal living.

The butchers shop is in the lane.

He offers choicest cuts.

With shaved and fastest prices

his bench is groaning full.

Buses with signs for city outskirts

are almost full of people

with eyes that look the same as yours

through the dirty windows.

You ride with hope, anticipate

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while numbers in seats dwindle

until you reach an empty end

with you, the only rider.

Paying the fares has left you poor.

You have to take some work

that helps your fellow travellersfind food for their survival.

Workmates are a mixture

of dedicated and life-skilled

and a twisted product of the streets

who likes to watch the pain.

You are bruised from the citys blows

abused by its people

take the citys coin

survive on its kindness.

Yet the guru on the roadsideis pointing at your path.

All life is pain and grief he says

you are almost there.

In vacant lots that nature claims

where locals will not tarry

you are instructed by the breeze

your spirit undoes tangles

until those glimpses of city boundaries

come through the grimy windows

while the bus speeds on to somewhere else

never long but the sightings linger.

Images of clear blue skies

show more often, soothe

but ever the soft fields elude

as the city bleeds to doom.

You have struggled onward since the wreck.

Your body is wirey and thin.

Your hands grow soft; your mind has gone

to a poet and a pilgrim. Paul Williamson

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The Man who Would Be

Fresh faced, in late prime

with dark hair and unlined features

handsome as a toothpaste ad

on a ride of crowd support;

holding a bag of tricks to massageand mislead you and me;

inside his head is vigorous and strong;

he is the giant to rule every man

as the fatal vote falls towards the throne.

Besieged by opponents, the press

and fellow travellers; he is hunted through years

like an animal to be tagged for a trophy.

As a messiah he carries his cross

towards the knowledge he is not a god

but a created thing an orange;the latest to be squeezed for flavour.

Paul Williamson

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