I won a poetry prize to go visit the lake isle of Innisfree.
But I didn't wanna go, cuz there's nothing there I particularly wanted to see.
I hear there's just a clay-and-wattles cabin
with a bunch a bees a-blabbin'
and nine rows of beans, and that doesn't really interest me.
Categories:
wattles, 12th grade, allusion, humor,
Form: Ekphrasis
Serpents slither here. Scorpions hide beneath our bed spreads.
Spiders, bugs, sticks, ants, and centipedes occupy our beds.
We have coasts. But what use of these? They burn with sultry heat.
Pirates sail to our harbours with their armour-filled fleet.
Predators of all kinds have filled our once lovely islands.
Where, once, flora and fauna flourished, wattles and burrs shake hands.
Our architectural castles seem to crack and collapse.
Dilapidated sanctums of temples reveal time's lapse.
Archaeologists try to explore our mausoleums.
They find noxious inland Taipans in murky museums.
Dogs bite their masters; cats, like tigers, cull their lords with claws.
Cows, bulls, and goats butt, stamp, and pin their herders for no cause.
Arrogance and aggression emblazoned by humankind
Their hearts and minds by evil thoughts, words, and deeds are maligned.
This place too is made by God, I know, like other places.
But, to cut the heads of others, here, each one runs races.
Categories:
wattles, evil, life,
Form: Couplet
August down under is winter torn asunder.
Under leaden skies, lightning clouds make thunder.
Gardens revive, buds pop, the yellow wattles bloom.
Unfolding butterfly wings, like feathers arrayed, plume.
Sunny days with showers, mist the air with scent.
Titillated taste buds arise, foretelling spring's ascent.
Categories:
wattles, august, spring,
Form: Acrostic
Weebles wobble
but they do fall down.
Once without windup whimsy weebles wobble writhing in wistful wiggly wattles,
they bubble, bobble, boggle, bottle and boondoggle coddles and dawdles;
a colossal ensemble debacle joggles and toggles the toddler's throttle
waiting on wafting waffles the twaddle and goggling the toppled pottles.
Just google that old fossil's nozzle schnozzled squabble.
Tongue twister:
without windup whimsy weebles wobble writhing in wistful wiggly wattles
Categories:
wattles, children, word play,
Form: Blitz
I do ponder on Aristotle,
In these groves of golden wattles,
Was Aristotle on the bottle?
"What is beautiful?" he asked,
He set us such a puzzling task,
How to define beautiful?
Maybe, things inspirational,
Or, indeed, something admirable,
A pretty verse, so lyrical,
Or scenery beautiful,
Or a woman, lovable,
Maybe it is a life of harmony,
Are these beautiful, prithee?
Excellent question, Sir Aristotle,
Maybe I should hit the bottle!
Categories:
wattles, beautiful, inspirational, love, woman,
Form: Ghazal
A twisting whirly musters
hard baked leaves and bark.
There’s another red sunset,
just before it’s dark.
The wilting wattles weep,
and plea ‘I can’t live on!’
The strong keep fighting drought.
The weak, soon dead and gone.
Wheat fields and their bounty,
wither in the sun to die.
Red dust leaves forever,
adding color to the sky.
A man who’s living heartache,
is this economic pain.
Prays to the Lord and waits…
Then he can smell the rain.
An inch falls in the Mallee;
the Mallee don’t need much
to fill the pans and lowlands,
that yearn to feel the touch.
In the days that follow,
changing is the scene.
An inch here in the Mallee,
and red soil turns to green.
Lightning dances in the sky
to the beat of thunders drum,
heartbreak storm passes on,
the follow up don’t come.
But drifting from the west,
clouds hide the sun away,
land is cast in shadow…
the sky turns steely gray.
And rain falls in the Mallee;
the Mallee don’t need much
to fill the pans and lowlands,
that yearn to feel its touch.
In the days that follow,
changing is the scene.
Rain here in the Mallee,
and red soil turns to green.
Categories:
wattles, nature, weather,
Form: Lyric
SLEEP AND ARISTOTLE.
How to get a good night's sleep--
Instead of enumerating sheep,
Recline beautifully with Aristotle,
Don't decline, hit that bottle,
What does rhyme with Aristotle?
I ponder passing parades of axolotls,
Maybe Australia's golden wattles,
Driving by, foot on throttle,
Yes, they all rhyme with Aristotle,
Maybe I shouldn't hit that bottle,
I'll curl up with this learned book,
"What is beautiful?" at Aristotle I'll look,
Musing thoughts so philosophical,
Aristotle waxing lyrical and logical,
Far different from enumerating sheep,
Drifting into a good night's sleep..........
Categories:
wattles, allusion, books, philosophy, sleep,
Form: Free verse
What is beauty if I cannot write it
On the pages of my book,
What nature in it’s endless glory
If I can but stand and look?
If fragments of a broken sunset
Glimmer in a purple sky,
And etched against the glowing background
Silhouettes of eagles fly.
If night is born in every shadow,
Growing with the dying day,
And slowly, slowly, hill by mountain
Shape and colour melt away.
If stars in multitudes, in millions
Shape the heaven’s works of art,
And in each stellar constellation
Beat an ancient legends heart.
If whispers stir the leaves and branches
Of the mighty Blackwood trees,
And in the dark I watch the wind
That bend the wattles to their knees.
How can I stand and hear the calling
Of the night’s elusive birds,
Or watch the silver shafts of moonlight
Without searching for the words?
If I could write these hills and valleys
Fable-like reality,
If only, oh if only
I could trap in words what I can see.
Categories:
wattles, write, write, write,
Form: Rhyme
They are in need of me today
of all days
so the table can be set with unbent forks
and their silent
roosters--ye soft wattles play on.
White linen veils
the ancient splintered picnicktop
for small hands
as chipped mallets tick-tock clumsily
between bowed feet.
So eggs are not too devilish to eat
or be found
among the thick Virginia grasses.
I tell stories
of the fabled light of Notre Dame
they can't believe
entirely because God is not a wafer.
They are in need of me today
as the son
for theirs has disowned himself to the hedon coast
listening to Phish,
and the postcards speak of nothing
but brilliant light.
They are in need of me today
as the daughter
for theirs is grown and has grown
a wailing cherub,
but fiddle folded napkins when I speak
of Cixous, Butler, Luce.
They are in need of me today
as the resurrection
of their spirits in fading Virginian light for I am
their beautiful heathen.
Categories:
wattles, easter, family, me, light,
Form: Free verse