Best Tussocks Poems

Walking in sailor fields amongst the nettles picking blackberries,
the brambles cut deep savage the mind. Yet the bowl to be filled
the jam to be boiled the bread of hope to be flavourful,
the innocence of it all enhanced by the beauty of this place.

an arcing rainbow
blazon...

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“Do you like yabbies?” Barry asked. I replied “Are you sick!
I’d just like to ask you; now is the Pope a Catholic?” …
So we headed off across the ranges, where Barry’s cousin Ray,
had a dam that’s full of them on a property near Yea.

There’s no...

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I was working for Jack Daymond, a farmer,
who farmed livestock, potatoes and vines.
I s’pose he had over two hundred cattle.
The spuds and the grapes grew in lines. 

Oh gawd! Jack had me slaving ‘til sunset,
keeping his farm spick and span.
Jack kept his eyes on the...

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Snowfall so heavy in 'eighty-two
 reproduced a Christmas card view.
A biting wind swirled in one foot drifts
 over hanging in bridges..makeshift.

The fields flooded into skating rinks
 into which each footstep sinks,
cracking under body weight so 
not the best place to skate.

Thawing February brings twitching noses...

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ROOBOY

Between the spinifex and gibber, across the dry, hot sand,
Lenny sits as proud as punch with the leather straps in hand,
His roo it has a saddle and a bit between its teeth,
When he wants to change direction, he gives the reins a reef.

You see Lenny...

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I felt I’d been to hell and back before we reached the reedy flat,
where the cattle mobbed before we crossed the stream.
Old Harry called me over, taking off his battered hat
“This is where she died so it does seem”.

He pointed to a river gum that...

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Andean Pampas Grass grows in California.
Its Linnaean binomial is Cortaderia jubata.
This noxious weed disperses far and wide.
With tall stalks and inflorescences, it has nothing to hide.
As an ornamental plant native to South America,
it was introduced inadvertently into California.
I can see tall stalks as much as...

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SUNLESS    IN   NORTH   SHIELDS 


It’s painful when the sea wind 
Drives  rain into the eyes
At the end of Yeoman Street, 
Where I waited so long for that girl in the yellow raincoat,
Who never came. 

Seagulls mocking down...

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twitching noses 
in tussocks
      of awakened primroses

rummaging on hazel boles
hibernating mammals 
poke from the holes

leafless hedgerows 
       where buds now form 
a carpet of white corm
Badgers forage 
      ...

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You are an enchanting cynosure
Beyond my naked eyes could see;
An unbounded briny exposure
Where tiny drops assemble sea;
Unpretentious blustery waves
Evolve from phenomenal ripples;
Flowing endless murmur cripples
Heart deep embedded peeves.

Tuneless prayers by lonely seamen
Resonate in salty humid air;
Buried history at fathom unknown
Sleeps among tussocks somewhere;
Wonder world beneath...

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W  I  N  T  E  R
B  R  E  A  K  S
N  A  T  U  R  E
A  W A  K  E  S
G  A  R ...

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The Levels

The reeds, like tattered banners limply hung
From slender, ghost-like lances held on high,
Like ancient armies, waiting in the mist
To heed the call, a long lost battle cry.
A steel grey shroud lies thinly on the fields
Whilst scattered tussocks, shoulders weighted down,
Keep vigil 'round the distant...

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After a full day grubbing tussocks that infested public land,
in a popular reserve that our committee had long planned,
we relaxed and had a few drinks to help ease our aches and pains,
and we spoke on many topics as we picked each others brains.

On driving home...

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From toothed alps to McKenzie High Country
  to hardwood alpine forest and fernland,
there rises the jewel Aoraki 
  out of the jagged ice age peaks so grand.
And polar winds at its rock face below
  chill Lake Te Anau’s willow and bluegum,
where the...

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Head buried beneath the wind,
hung, grasping an overhang,
hug the thin bones of wiry tussocks.

At the moor's edge
where the cliff-drop, gnaws at the sky,
a jutting ledge raises it hackles,
fingers scrabble, skinned toes curl
within creaking jawed boots

Turn an ankle here,
and you may fall
unleashed
to die somewhere.

Cling!

Laugh at yourself.

Do...

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