Five Poems by Terry Wheeler

 

last supper

 

when the french 

invaded milano and

all that bronze

 

earmarked for his

giant sculpture was

turned into ammunition 

 

leonardo sadly noted

the world preferred

cannon to horse

 

unbowed his obsession 

with proportion later 

made those monks

 

think each evening

jesus and gang

dined with them

 

 

 

krishnamurti farewells annie besant

 

 

no need to

fill the silence

 

let it spread

without an edge

 

beyond shackles of

thought and time

 

shed what we're

never wedded to

 

spill all spells

that ground us

 

and forever clip 

our restless senses 

 

love is beauty

in the now

 

 

 

papal bulls

 

when portugal 

and spain divided 

 

the world between 

them with blessing 

 

of the papacy

 

(columbus bumbling

into the new world

 

da gama sailing off

the map to india

 

and magellan further

 

circumnavigating

across the pacific)

 

merchants of venice

contemplated fishing

 

 

 

stum

 

accidental as

a friendship 

 

that becomes 

a lifeline

 

more to it

 

the unexpected 

than gossip 

 

or explanation 

words are

 

too cheap

 

so we 

will pay

 

the price

for silence

 

 

 

patrick bourke

 

long ago

before they outlawed

really good drugs

mother’s father

lived with blacks

tall streak of irish catholic

jackaroo shearer bush lawyer 

camp fire raconteur

helped build highways

that brought the false

promise of civilisation

 

in his forties

settled in brisbane

still went walkabout when

work was scarce

taught himself to

write left handed

said it made for

neater hand writing

his was copybook

his words were whittled

into sinewy poetry

 

became involved in unions

men respected his honesty

they offered him a

safe seat in parliament

told them he’d rather

potter around his garden

supplied the local church

with all their flowers

 

his grandchildren remember

he smelt of  port

his fingers stained from 

too many rollies

his garden was a jungle

roses vines trestles staghorns

his little cottage obscured

his grandchildren remember

best his stories of

long ago

Terry Wheeler - After graduating from law school in the late 1980s Terry worked in the Australian public service for decades. He was inspired to write after seeing Michael Dransfield poems in The Australian newspaper when a teenager. Terry has been published in Australia and abroad since retiring. He lives in Brisbane when not travelling.