The Day Before an Election
Is the answer keep
talking?
Why do we
persist?
Has anyone
listened?
Do we
listen?
Change must come
to stay the same
(this core human aspiration).
I’m part of an unsteady purpose
yes, part of some watercourse.
But there are rivers everywhere, they’re
a sewer or border
holidays or holy.
Rivers are nothing until they’re gone.
A “good leader” paddles upstream
perhaps ordering the course to change.
He’s a he (of course, this is another current).
This flow
forgot itself.
In no time he who
wanted a huge splash, gets just a plash.
Puddles I’m told
can be a lifespan.
I of course
have my fissures —
can laugh like
clay.
What of his reputation
cracks & croaks.
Not enough for a single good mud.
Warfare up on the hills never helped
while surrender just stirs up more problems.
You thought extinction would be easy?
I will march
& vote
then try to
start listening all over again.
Chicken Little
I know less now.
Just as birds are
Triassic & air
not poultry
some talk society
but
others economy.
We are chooks.
To strut corporate
grasses
promise of no
death through no life.
There was a story
our grandroosters took
with a tot of rum
for sleep
& regular
bowels.
If I published it
there’d be a solid
pecking from a righteous mob.
We all crowd the
middle, see me there.
Free range? Sure,
pleasures are in there
a bassline like
heartbeat
the surprise of
harp.
Though under laws
of pre-eminence
we will still have
to queue
at the machinery
of predation.
So choice (but
circumscribed)
I always poke
about,
savour those
critters in the compost
but won’t eat
garbage.
Why else these
beaks
but to sing songs
about occasionally
saying no.
I have fought
& flown,
secreted
hatchlings in the corners of the coop.
There’s the love
of flock
& the pain of
isolation.
This tiny lifespan
is inexplicably complete.
Wand Chalice
Book & Blade
The first ceremony
was a bass line
raw.
The second was
a pen, that only pretended
to be carved from an unbled dagger.
These new/ancient beliefs talk uncommon sense.
Aging women
& men have little use for maidens —
it’s about the spells wrapped in
will.
Pallid & exhausted, skyclad well’n’good but it’s freezing.
When you come
back, pretend
you never left.
There’s witch in my genes.
A faun quivers.
This Mother isn’t worried,
women’s business is open for that
man
when gender will soon be
forgotten altogether.
Because these ropes were weaved by xians
sure we were burnt
but that blaze was also a kind of worship.
air, fire, water, earth & aether
The years do
not impart percipience
Pagans at the Pub 2nd
Tuesdays
one must learn, listen
to the land
reality plus.
Strength
has nothing to do with slaughter.
Dirt is order.
There are few rules
almost laughable.
Kate thinks it’s spiritual jamming.
Consensus tires. I have been too sensible
so will return perhaps.
Back — when at 17
outside & absurd
I felt obligated to believe,
there was a hand.
Had caught a bus to the sabbat,
if my parents only knew.
So fringe it fits when nothing fits
we’ll save the planet
then dance a little.
An Aspiration
for Firmaments
What you need ain’t
what you get.
Wanted wings, she
had been paying for years —
saved feathers in
a memory jar
with her truest
love’s ashes.
Her tears were
kept pleated,
locked in her
special cabinet.
Thought maybe when
those feathers
outweighed the
remains
there would be her
last transaction.
Where are all the
travelling salesmen now
or those Avon
ladies promising pinnacles?
One gentleman did
show up.
Door to door he was
just selling doors.
There had been a
promise
that when she had
enough of them
wings were
unnecessary.
Bi fold, French,
pivots, sliding
she bought &
bought.
Eventually,
deliveries stopped
& she, still
flightless
had flapped those
doors so much
the hinges became
unhinged.
She wondered about
any man’s promise,
whether even the
sky had lied
in its pernicious
blue.
There’s talk about the newest wave…
1. Politics, the ocean’s flat
barring that
worrisome undertow
that can pull anyone
south
towards
extremity.
There are
dolphins about
but more
sharks.
That Surf Club
is rundown.
Salt eats
anything.
Each time I’m
out here
there’s talk of
the clean ride
a synergy of
energy
pace with
purpose, clean water.
It’s both a
distant memory &
perhaps
imminent now.
2. Never had much time for fashion;
my Hawaiian
shirts, like patient surfers between sets
still amidst
the churn
back into
style, just the right barrel every 9 years,
an ideal break.
I’m told there
are regular fights
outside the
Surf Club on weekends.
3. Food today is like the beach
at the end of a
long Sunday drive.
Traffic has
been dreadful
your park is
blocks away
& the queue
of surfers down to the edge
don’t even say
g’day.
Nearby malls
have everything.
Tourists can
ride a few peckish meters
then tick a
“cuisine experience” off the list…
Bhutanese,
Venezuelan.
4. The largest wave is friendship.
Heard stories
about seamlessness
that sleepy
beast of an upsurge that carries you in
until your fin
cuts a channel in the sand.
There are
dumpers that leave you gasping.
Will &
persistence, how a cold current
can race to
your head.
This is no
sport for amateurs
though we are
all grommets to the end.
So many dropped
off
or drowned.
5. I look across at the woman beside me,
longboard is
battered, wetsuit has a tear.
Her nose is
peeling with sun
eyes beneath reefs of laughter
sandbank of a smile.
All this
struggle hardly worth it?
Don’t be
stupid. She points & yells Look.
A new swell rises.
* A grommet in "Australian" is a very young, inexperienced surfer learning the ropes
Les Wicks Over 45 years Wicks has performed widely across the globe. Published in over 400 different magazines, anthologies & newspapers across 35 countries in 15 languages. Conducts workshops & runs Meuse Press which focuses on poetry outreach projects like poetry on buses & poetry published on the surface of a river. His 15th book of poetry is Time Taken – New & Selected (Puncher & Wattmann, 2022).
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