Long Wharves Poems

This dread disease that has afflicted my home, 
This malady, this plague on my house;
This making convertible the former quaintness and provincialism thereof 
Into something wholly despicable and disgustingly homogeneous,
Yclept "cosmopolitanism," and "worldliness," and "globalization,"...

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how the  else you going to progress
if you don't Sherlock Holmes the mirror
look what we've become
men hunting each other
for sport money and babes
an insane ability to believe anything
and that's all there is to it
you...

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When Portland is soaked wet with rain
And the rivers overflow
When soil washes away again
And no sunset is aglow
Do you climb the hill to DeMonteven
And look with longing towards the cove
Does your heart search trees and...

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ANZAC

Few among them knew the name Gallipolli
no crystal ball foretold the hell it spawned
but in the misty dawn of 25-04-15 
the legend of the ANZACs would be born.

standing tall in khaki pride
he held his wife...

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                         Stateless

			…thatched houses catch fire
sparrow tires from romping in the coned-flower...

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Galactic curls in spirals swirl, entwining twisted mystery,
where time unrolls in blackened holes, no longer bright and blistery,
but writ like runes on starry dunes enclosed in cosmic history

Galactic dust, from novas' gusts, congesting empty spaces
once...

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I see America in majestic mountain ranges, lush vegetation and sandy shores.
I see her in gold fields blending into deserts and the Rockies of her Southwest
or to her east –  melding with green rolling...

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RELATED BY CHOICE

For my adopted grandmother Nancy Enloe

I met you at a friend’s house,
standing stately on your cane,
tall and rosy-cheeked like me.
In your smile, I basked and thought,
“Long-lost cousin, could you be?”

Like my great aunt...

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The canal poked like a finger
into the wrinkled abdomen
of the Port. Along its length,
ketches once bruised
wooden wharves unloading wheat
shipped from outports across the gulf.
Pigeons stalked the spill of grain
from hessian bags torn 
by wharfies hooks....

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Truths, as though fairy tales, I have heard so miscellany,
That her flora and fauna reveal true theophany;
Rolling and spinning lowlands with hill-like granite blessings,
Moss misty magnificently mysterious dressings;
Romantic and luring - they say - her...

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O,  elvenstone! O, elvenstone!
O, would that you could be my own.
To quest exhausted, all these years,
And not obtain those pointy ears
To sharpen sense, to hear my phone.

O battle axe! O battle axe!
For thy pursuit,...

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When the boats washed up surfless from wars
                     We dived from the United Fruit Company...

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Come, let us together consider the finer things
Like mystical pyramids and fringed silk scarves
Stones that bring comfort to the aching bone
Intricate ebony statues the lonely man carves,
A secluded stroll through a shaded pine grove
The glimmer...

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On the edge of barren, corroded shore
Where sailors ply their trade no more
No tenured harbor gallant fleets to moor,
or docks to greet restless crew, strident commodore
No expansive peers into the mighty ocean waves bore,
or rustic...

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Never in secluded pools they dwell,
I speak of ornate  waterfalls,
they rise and fall majestically,
near docks, wharves and piers,
sparkle, gleam, smooth flow trickle,
eye balm whirl fantastic perk on tap,
stickybeak on podium rapids,
instigator signage when our...

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Just a slip of a lad as a probationary constable
I walked the beat in Port Adelaide as my fable
So up and down St Vincent Street
Then onto Commercial Road made it complete

At closing time we converged...

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Back Creek Smells 
My nose senses the unseen, 
Like a final Act’s scene, 
When I arrive near the Bay, 
I sense my sinuses are gray, 
From inhaling  the city. 
Fish scents replace the gritty,...

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