Kenneth Slessor Poems

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 Time that is moved by little fidget wheels 
Is not my time, the flood that does not flow. 
Between the double and the single bell 
Of a ship's hour, between a round of bells 
From the dark warship riding there below, 
I have lived many lives, and this one life 
Of Joe, long dead, who lives between five bells....Read more of this...

 These black bush-waters, heavy with crusted boughs 
Like plumes above dead captains, wake the mind.... 
Uncounted kissing, unremembered vows, 
Nights long forgotten, moons too dark to find, 
Or stars too cold...all quick things that have fled 
Whilst these old bubbles uprise in older stone, 
Return like pale dead faces of children dead, 
Staring unfelt through doors for ever unknown....Read more of this...

 North Country, filled with gesturing wood, 
With trees that fence, like archers' volleys, 
The flanks of hidden valleys 
Where nothing's left to hide 

But verticals and perpendiculars, 
Like rain gone wooden, fixed in falling, 
Or fingers blindly feeling 
For what nobody cares; 

Or trunks of pewter, bangled by greedy death, 
Stuck with black staghorns, quietly sucking, 
And trees whose...Read more of this...

 After the whey-faced anonymity 
Of river-gums and scribbly-gums and bush, 
After the rubbing and the hit of brush, 
You come to the South Country 
As if the argument of trees were done, 
The doubts and quarrelling, the plots and pains, 
All ended by these clear and gliding planes 
Like an abrupt solution. 

And over the flat earth of empty...Read more of this...

 Thief of the moon, thou robber of old delight, 
Thy charms have stolen the star-gold, quenched the moon- 
Cold, cold are the birds that, bubbling out of night, 
Cried once to my ears their unremembered tune- 
Dark are those orchards, their leaves no longer shine, 
No orange's gold is globed like moonrise there- 
O thief of the earth's old...Read more of this...

 The red globe of light, the liquor green, 
the pulsing arrows and the running fire 
spilt on the stones, go deeper than a stream; 
You find this ugly, I find it lovely 

Ghosts' trousers, like the dangle of hung men, 
in pawn-shop windows, bumping knee by knee, 
but none inside to suffer or condemn; 
You find this ugly, I...Read more of this...