WHAT CAN POETRY DO?

Tags

existence, Humanity, identity, meaning, Metaphysical, philosophical, poem, poetry, The ocean, the sea, Water

WHAT CAN POETRY DO?

I asked the sea
to speak
(always thundering
nobody listening)

some theological type
told me need
to be more porous
let the
briny wisdom
flow through
me

take me back to
that salt time when the
ocean was our all, was
out complete being

I asked the sea to speak
speak quietly right
in my ear
or, alternatively, so
mountain loudly it
drowns out
the noise, this noise

what stops you
from hearing me

stops me
from hearing you

wave upon wave
freak giant to
the barest ripple

when we share this
special time, this
moment

what can poetry do?

OLD SCHOOL

Tags

Australia, burning, bush fires, poem, poetry

OLD SCHOOL

“‘Tis not too late
to seek a newer world”
Heraclitus

and now we
know
what the
truth
looks like

we started to
lose sight of it
lost
sight
of it completely

no, truth is
old school, truth
is elemental

is earth, shaking seismically
beneath up, erupting with
terrible toxic power

is air
whipped up into storms
of irresistible power, were
once
beyond imagination

are the waters rising, swamping
flooding, drowning
tsunami waves to
eclipse the
highest tower

but it is you
fire

who speak the truth most
plainly, most openly

you whose physics of raw
angry energy
cannot be denied

NOWHERE GIRL

Tags

air, earth, elements, Fire, identity, love, poem, satire, Water

NOWHERE GIRL

will you be
fire
will you
be ice

volcano, glacier,
soft earth, hard rock

or, when I hold you,
will you be
true to your element

air?

be everywhere;
nowhere?

EARTH ETC.

Tags

astrology, elements, poem, poetry

EARTH ETC.

Earth
Air
Fire
Water

crumbled,
went out,
evaporated
blew away

AIRHEAD

of all
the elements
I trust air

let a tornado
come and take me

better so
could have been
standing on a
volcanic fissure
about to blow

and that noisy seismic nonsense
sure to trigger an ocean tsunami

better to
fall, fall, fall

thinking how best
to procure a
parachute somewhere

PISCES PEOPLE

Pisces people
walk funny

waddle
like ducks

find it
strange
to be
on dry
land

and as for dance,
hopeless there too
unless you count
Nureyev, Baryshnikov
and Nijinsky.

MR TIGER’S EYE

I see you now, Mr
tiger’s-eye,

rock idol long before
electricity
turns the
world fluorescent
into
a
compact disk

and I wonder
if you
can still shepherd us
through those
surreal doors

where everything
devolves

is
ceaselessly evolving

I THINK

I think that time
has winnowed, is
winnowing me
(though I had to
look up the word to
check if it was apt to
speak
in terms of
a kind of austerity via
refinement, a
minimalist beauty)

love that word
as much as the air (always
taking more now
stripping me down
to a core, letting
the solution
evaporate) loves
me

and there I go, bit by bit,
including the bits that
you loved
and loved you

they
will not travel far
or long, I am assured

so great the need
bound to find a home.

STORM

who brewed
this storm
with all its Shakespearean
atmospherics and
theatrics?

what witches seasoned this
thunder, made sure
the lightning forked beautifully

they may
have the appearance
of ancient sisters
but once
I beheld them
(and they me)
differently

STEAM

hate being chivvied

put in a
pot of pressure

observing how when
my water meets air meets fire
(as blessedly I slip out of
myself a microsecond)

it turns to
screaming steam