Long Curlews Poems

"Salvage"


Salvage the fixating salvation 
unfurling from the wreckage
of a numb world twisted inside
treasure climbs swimming 
the ladder from the deep of all things 
reaching upwards travelling in a new time
of melting morpheme moments overlapping 
dissolved...

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To her family she was coy
         but truly she would be their Joy,
 a country girl from Kingaroy -
        ...

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Human tastes vary and so are the desperate cravings to capture the best in human ambition,
A more desperate thirst for fame, riches and for power can be a low, vulgar bitter taste,
I admire the spirit...

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As the year thunders on the autumn days begin to get shorter the nights are early,
My old dog stretches out by a blazing log fire only turning over when he's too hot,
Arthritis is slowing him...

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As the year thunders on the autumn day's begin to get shorter the nights are early,
My old dog stretches out by a blazing log fire only turning over when he's too hot,
Arthritis is slowing him...

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Curlews crake against white limestone walls
Their echo shrill in the early mist 
Wake those who danced the night before
As bog sighs from heat release and black water buzzes
The insects a top scoot in siderwinder display
Heather...

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It’s time for concealing in hides and in nooks,
with a a ledger; glasses; camera, and books, 
spend hours with patience in salt bush or long grass,
in hope there’s a moment, one cannot let pass.
 
Creeping...

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How delightful is the softest sound of a clear and starry summer's night,
You may hear a moth bashing up against a cottage window pane near a lamp,
If you listen really hard you can hear him...

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Our great debate is about to start
  Over which aspect is the essential part
Of the word 'kiwi' -- Is it that strange-looking bird  
  Or is it the green, fuzzy fruit that...

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And I heard again those voices, 
 Buoyed upon a murmuring wind, 
   And oyster-catchers with their
  Distinctive, shrill-piping call;
The plaintive cries of floating 
 Curlews,
   Carrying on that wind,...

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Flaxen fields of rye and wheat
Basking in the summer heat.
The curlews haunting, plaintive cry 
In hurried flight they cross the sky.

Around the fields the hedgerows grow
Full of thorny briar, and hazel too.
Stinging nettles crowd the...

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Once were badgers in leafy dale, 
once were rabbits and foxes too,
once were pheasants in shining copse where cuckoopint and coltsfoot grew.

Once were songbirds in privet hedges, 
once were bluebells for mile upon mile,
once were...

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You are in your prime, and I’m in my clime;
Why sweetie in twenty then we waste this time?
Come, dance; we can gently our pleasures hound,  
For here’s a time for us to go merry-go-round....

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The bog cotton hisses in concert with the curlews bubbling wail.
The salt air stirs the marram grass, the sand sedge and sea kale.
Alone she walks in beauty 'neath the dappled harvest moon.
Her night-time wanderings witnessed...

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SUNSET


When sun goes over hill at end of day
And draws its purple veil across the sky;
When curlews settle down from work and play
And no more through the twisted branches fly;
The woodsman takes his axe and...

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We remove the stones from the field
like they were rotten teeth
stepped carefully over hawthorn hedge 
stepped with tired and heavy feet

Remember this by the fireside
ash and flame and sap and sound
calloused hands over death black...

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Beyond my Grecian villa walls of stone
  a great bridge does cross the river’s divide,
and the Maroochy water’s gentle groan
  concentrates my mind betwixt moon and tide.
Where over burning canefields black soot ash
...

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SPRING MORNING

The Bluebells hail the morning sunrise
tears of dew grace stems of green,
the valley nestles in God’s franchise
foliage awakening across the dene,
here a spring morning reigns serene.

SPRING DAWN

Morning tide enhance sweetness of the songstress call
buoyant...

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