A day of poking around
I’m
working on a way to walk
very late to
report for nothing
snacking
on a slice of sunrise
orange flower rods
from potted aloes
popping
my eyeballs out on stalks
making
time for a cat nap
for a
half dream tuned to
river’s spooling
mid-afternoon
riding
smooth
as drifting gulls
sunset’s
getting on
with
its reddening business
by the
time I return home
ice
cream clouds of vermillion
tangerine
and rose
summer’s
floral darkness
did my
bedroom out with jasmine
gladly
I stand at sleep’ s open door
my eyes
taking bites
from moon’s
tropical fruit
Adolescent out on a lifetime stroll
plain boy, frail
moods
solitary life
wanders frozen
city tonight
a world which
sweats
with always distant
women
he’s scoping out
those glowing
homes
suspended from granite
slopes
apartments stuck
on an ice plateau
residences lit
from inside
festive as Chinese
lanterns
thrilling places,
he supposes
filled with all
the women
he fears he’ll
never get
to see up close
striking out at
midnight
knife edge image
in dream engorged
sky
that of a crow
on glowing circle
of a supermoon
delusions drowned
like spiders
in channels
beneath the ice
Written in the year of the monkey
Had we not already
dreamt it
it would have
arrived by imagination
what living would
be like
beyond the realm
of our cosy trees.
Why not, just
swing and play in shiny rainforest
swing and play in
shiny rainforest
swing and play in
shiny rainforest?
To put it in
reverse
had we not imagined
it
it would have been
already dreamed of---
that infinite
beyond
but ever since,
haven’t
we worried too
much
about missing out?
since losing our
grip on an earthly branch
we’ve cut a dainty
pattern
too much thinking,
not enough tumbling
lost our joy when
we lost our tails
been left
with rotten
tasting
synthetically
coloured fruit.
Recurring dream at the junction of asleep and awake
bush flies every wrinkled
hour; shapeless jazz on repeat
taste my
flavourless oxygen, do calculus on my breathing
prescribe me
anything for persist-less sleep
this recurring scenario tossing, tossing…
across my tattered
brain
and it won’t give
up---
now the
warm wind she drags
something
off the warm wind dusting
the
platforms of the station
caressed
by warm wind
at
the edge of cement and a fall to the rails
he wants it
sordid, so she drags
something else off
along
timber racks lacquered by moonshine
timetables
shudder in summer night wind
as
she drags
one
last thing off
signal red glows
on
black train now passing
at the junction of asleep and awake
After reading Charles Bukowski
a full-sized man
hires a naked lady
to spar with him
over seven rounds
truly, he does
pity
her little fists don’t
entirely
fill
the
boxing gloves he supplies
but
don’t you worry
for
she’s a natural
not in a
ham-fisted way
and he’s too slow
a sucker for a
sucker punch
after twenty
minutes
she tells him,
‘For what you’ve paid
the time is up’
then puts in a
quick jab in his gut
after which, he
manages
to say through
bloody teeth
‘I’ll need you
again next week
but make sure
next time
you knock me out
cold
and no mistake’
Ross Jackson lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has had many poems published in poetry websites and literary magazines in Australia and his work has been accepted in the UK and Ireland.
‘Time alone on a quiet path’ came out with
University of Western Australia Press in 2020.
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