poetry index
| The Naked Signalman
a selection of other poems by john bird |
cocktails
all mouths tits defining flanks and restless tails
this cocktail crowd enfolding the joneses they
bounce from hello off hi to how are yooo he
senses the random molecular motion which dumps them
spinning their social wheels alone on the fringe she
frets until they remesh and pinball through to a side wall
from where it's clear the herd's a fractal pattern
of seething sub-circles all properly self-similar
each ring of tails proscribing otherness he
notes internal heat triggers convection currents which drive
some to the edge to cool before they drop back in she
has an eye for particulars is restless and fidgets
newcomers swell the herd and all is dense flux
critical closeness of members sweat
evaporates from hides to cloud against the ceiling his
nose differentiates boiled cabbage from testosterone
and other strange attractors she
leaves his side to cleave into the chaos
on a passage far from random he
jiggles their keys in his pocket
watches her present herself
1st & Published in Anthology, Logan City Literary Festival, 2002
Published in 'Sensoria' by Dangerously Poetic Press 2004
Blue Heron
Soft grey lazy day,
light rain upon the ground,
reflective, receptive,
ah, Blue Heron come on down.
Timid, but with purpose,
crossing dangerous ground,
now hunting in the pultenaea,
on long yellow legs,
in sinewy slow motion,
to rhythms of the stalking dance.
Long throat extends,
pulses at the scent of prey,
now still, frozen blue-grey elegance,
fierce focussed eyes,
silent, breath suspended ...
An elongating strike of grey,
the spoils held aloft,
a shuddering gobble of the throat,
a tremor for the dying insect's soul,
a shaking down of feathers,
then beautiful blue death
goes easing down the slope.
Soft grey lazy day.
Highly Commended & Published in Anthology, Logan City Literary Festival, 1997
Published 'Moving On With Giggles and Dreams', 2002
Glory
my special sister
didn't marry
men called around
stayed a while
then went their way
while her glory box
filled with pretty things
when younger sisters
married off-farm
she was mum's
rock of gibraltar
she must have sunk
or dissolved
like a sugar cube –
or surely they'd have found her
floating in the dam
where she taught me
to swim
from her glory box
they cleaned out
every useable piece
of satin, linen and lace
those
she'd let me stroke
rub my cheek against
while she named
the one
for whom she'd added
each special thing
the box is stored in the shed
empty
except when I get in
to smell the perfume
stroke the lid's
camphor quickness
hold my face
against the dress
and say their names
velvet damask organdy
for her
2nd place, Cedarville Literary Awards, 2003
Shopping Wraiths
After an hour he's still there
stashed on the end
of a shopping mall bench.
No bother and quite tidy
except for grey tufts evading his cap,
flat like those once favoured
by Welsh miners in movies.
His polo shirt and purple shorts
are a last desperate shout.
Interlocked hands are half eclipsed
between the moons of his knees,
arched eyebrows brace his face
in lasting surprise.
His head swings side to side
but not one shopper is caught
in the grope of his limpet gaze.
His bench is an island enveloped
by a sea of fish-eyed shoppers.
Suddenly, I realise I've found
a truly invisible man.
Now I've got the knack of it
I discover the other invisibles
each neatly parked on his bench
all the way up to the end of the mall.
They sit, semi-comatose,
hunched over like semicolons,
of no obvious utility, and yet
they lend the shopping mall form –
focal points in the ritual flow.
A spry lady, inside a grey tracksuit,
flits up and claims the flat-cap man.
He unravels to a question mark, smiles,
rests a hand on the side of the trolley
while she steers it into the street.
2nd FAW Wollondilly poetry competition, 2002
Published FreeXpresSion, November 2002
Published Moving On With Giggles and Dreams, 2002
Accounting
I should be taking stock
of business done today, not
watching valleys fill with blue,
clouds and mountains merge,
swallows cleanse the twilight,
and day
depreciate away.
Prodigal sun has spent its gold.
This is the settling hour when
cicadas end their self-promotion,
lorikeet mates accommodate,
bats fly out to harvest night.
This writing-off of another day
makes private business petty pence,
exchange rates piffling. I know,
on the far side of this interlude,
I'll once more rule the ledger,
carry forward
unaccounted things as tomorrow's trust.
But here and now that hoop pine,
in silhouette on a blurring sky,
totally possesses me.
Published Yellow Moon No 11, August 2003
Elegy for the Straight Line
Champion of the rational,
your reign, so long and rigid,
once seemed endless.
The autocracy of line
since pharoahs' time defined
heroic pyramids,
your level and plumb line
penned humankind in streets,
boxed their skyline.
But errant art, uncertain science,
trod higgledy-piggledy stepping-stones,
turned on you, denied you
could measure a heart's delight,
breaking wave or feral cloud,
the scented fold of lover's rose.
Vale, old wand of Euclid,
you no longer set mankind apart.
So ends the rule of rule.
The passing bell is rung by fractal hands.
1st prize, FAW Lismore poetry competition, 2003
After Setting Rabbit Traps
Perhaps he spent nights like this,
that guy who said war's mainly waiting.
Did he too lie on a leaf-litter bed, defeated
by bloody raindrops, infiltrating his poncho?
Did he, like me, remember long-ago nights
when rain drummed the farmhouse roof,
sent me burrowing deep in my eiderdown,
hoping the rabbits'd stay underground,
safe from traps I'd set at their burrow,
on a well-used track, among fresh droppings?
On such nights I questioned: why set traps at all?
Dad in work again, didn't need the meat, and mostly
skins got fly-blown, still stretched on the shed.
Not like they'd over-run the place. Was it simply:
we had traps and the rabbits were there?
Send her down, Huey!
Spare the kittens, save me
From milky does with elastic necks,
Me wringing them wrong,
Getting pissed on. Amen.
Must remember – a bag to bring the dead ones home.
First light. Tropical rain still plops down.
With luck they'll all stay underground… no,
something at that tunnel stirs the milky light.
There, shadow moving. Footfalls on sandy track.
Whump! Whump! Booby-traps! Ours? Theirs?
Girlish screams. Move in! Finish them off!
Body count. Medevac. Piss and vomit.
A bag to bring the dead ones home.
Won Australian Peace Bell Poetry Prize, 2003
ric rules
street rules,
sophisticated as lying,
evolved empirically--
ric's inheritance
to kick-start his life.
sacred skateboard wheels
spun dust on non-bro's,
legendary street wounds
grew disappointing scars,
he sprayed his name on the town
then bashed the fool who called it art,
he gleefully splurged
a million last chances
ric's mind was
bonsai'd by
knowing his place
and an addiction
to magazine muscles
for bashing heads
and rutting and running
where escape is in
and lost equals out
fitting in is everything
the coin of belonging,
won on gangdom rungs,
was not lightly spent
looking round the corner
old hands knew when they saw
a man busy slithering
up the hierarchy
of crime
prison place, less space, but
managing the same pack
and universal rules
of capricious cruelty
unfettered
by leprous hope and choice,
ruminating on the lore,
a fingernail to gnaw,
ric rests replete
Equal 1st, Mt Isa poetry competition, 1997
Published North Coast Poets Anthology, 1998
City Cleaner
Dawn draws night's bandage back
from city lesions.
A street cleaner abandons
his bass broom,
scuttles down the subway ramp.
Reptilian train — sway, lean
into the curve of bowels,
burst into itchy sunlight.
On stairs from station to street
he swims against a waterfall
of scented morning flesh.
He keeps to the wall,
wins his way up.
Suddenly she's there, on the top step,
haloed in unbruised light, beyond beauty.
He grips the handrail.
Her wisp of smile asks right of way
but he's bliss-bound, leg-less.
Her smile broadens into a blessing
before she swerves past
leaving him a step
short of sunshine.
Commended (as 'Dog Watch'), FAW Lismore poetry competition, 1998
2nd Eaglehawk Poetry competition, 2002
A Show of Mutiny
written for opening of John Hagan's
exhiition of Bounty paintings, Lismore, 1998
a horseshoe of wooden floor reflections
circumscribe the kraal of whisperers
italian arias
from height of history
surf down an oval wall of windows
each a narrative pane lit by the inner eye
enlightening in mutiny of colours
yet bound as one by churn of turner skies
history unfurling left to right
a kaleidoscope transports through
adventure-terror-drowning-beauty-paradise
in gentlest hue then sea-brutal blue
of jealousy-treachery-flogging-betrayal
heroes enframed by colour tamed
or rioting in catholic decor
of massacre-endurance-hangings
and love
from death's dominion
from deepest dark now back
goosepimpled spent and led as
reluctant children from their carousel
to supper and to bed
where ghosts of hagan bounty may yet run again
Jamie
scuttles back from peopled streets
slams his door against sunshine
opens a bag of pretzels
boots his system up
in the murk of the sanctum fug
his aesthete's face
floats in martian-green glow
above a chattering keyboard
hunched over he hacks the world
hourlessly scales code mountain
because it is there and they
said it was impossible
he leaves his calling card
deep in ASIO files
– Janus was Here –
then shreds their canteen price list
a mouse hand as his wand
a wanking hand for that second window…
he eats the last potato chip
reverts to his nails
“Footy and girls in my day,” says Dad.
“At least he's made some internet friends –
Shay, Karl and Marx
I think I've heard him say.”
Commended, Forest FAW inaugoral poetry competition, 2000
Won FAW Eastwood/Hills poetry competition, 2004
porcelain & steel
the noisy suck and surge
of my blood pumping round
pounding for attention
tv let me down again
none of the channels showed
what I ought to be thinking
or was it being secretive
there's lots of that these days
dad's old blades are stainless steel
here watch my wrist – real blood see
& lots more where that comes from
but stay cool just testing you'll know
when I'm dead serious
this bath's like bed on a good night
a warm & sleepy place to crash
to take time off from thinking –
the mop and ajax are handy
I dislike people
–hating makes me too tired–
who I've got nothing against
dogs are different but do they count
do we count them I mean
& why does emptiness hurt
& how can nothing ache
I'd love to see that emily's face
no mess
mum'll be pleased
white porcelain & blue steel
no big deal
Won Mt Isa poetry competition, 2001
Sloughing
He traced its tail to her pubic hair,
and knowing what must be done,
hand over hand he hauled
the snake tattoo from his love.
It came away easily, almost wilfully,
with one long sibilant swish.
She smiled to ease his qualms, said
the shedding was her betrothal gift,
winced when the head broke free
leaving two red drops on her breast.
He wrapped the coils of twitching skin
in the saris she'd forsworn,
stuffed the lot in a garbage bin.
He kissed scars ringing her body,
said even his bigoted family
would find no fault with her now.
They made love with the lights on –
rocked, writhed to rhythms
no sitar could accompany.
Yet, day came.
Physicians broke his enfolding arms,
dislocated her pelvis, to separate them –
separate families' separate funerals.
Priests pondered her beatific smile. But
neither prayer nor dissection disclosed
why their shared tattoo grew more distinct
while rigor mortis came and went.
Published 'Stylus Poetry Journal', July 2002
Published in 'Sensoria' by Dangerously Poetic Press 2004
Long January
She insists on being wheeled
past potting shed,
round rotary hoist
to blossom-strewn shade
of a domed poinciana.
Left there, she squints up
at the flaunt of green raiment
flecked with orange flowers
and delft-blue chinks of sky,
fair disguise for sun-spotted limbs.
From kitchen-sink window
the son watches
for first signs of drooping.
When fetched,
blossoms lie in her hair
and lap – she picks them off
with shaky fingers,
smiling, tells her son
the tree is teaching her
how to die with grace.
Published NRWC Anthology 'Body of Work 2', 2004
Winter Mandarins
Moonlight frosts the paddock you cross
to the neighbour's orchard – a grid of shadows
pendant with gifts, a burnt-gold in this thief light.
They rustle off trees, plop into your sugar bag.
You lug your swag home, behind white breath,
bare feet crunching a track through stubble.
You swear to your Fagin father no tell-tale peel
was left at the scene. By the open fire you salivate
while on the kitchen table he builds a pyramid
nearly as big as those in the green grocer's shop.
Winter sneaks in between vertical slabs of the wall.
He takes the very top mandarin, tosses it to you.
Chilled fruit, heady, as only the stolen can be.
You bare the white-veined flesh, suck its sunshine
into your body. The peel is a net of scent-pot pores,
but tossed in the fire it splutters, chars into gargoyles
to people your ember city. The citrus air hangs sweet
and uncertain as sin and one mandarin is never enough.
He wants you to beg for seconds – it's a test. Your
god-fearing mother won't eat of the fruit, just as your
father knows. His shrug ends the ritual tempting.
As she withdraws, her pursed lips repudiate all devils.
You massage your feet, listen to the spit-hiss of seed
while he smirks, knowing she'll pray for you tonight.
Commended Woorilla Poetry Prize, 2003
Highly Commended NZ Poetry Society competition, 2004
Published NZPS 2004 anthology, 'The Enormous Picture'
Brunswick Heads Revisited
Lick of light. Dawn's breath
takes shape in motel curtains.
My executive partner sleeps on,
her body heavy with love, is
at last free of city twitches.
The smell of her sticks to me
as I pull on my wetsuit. It still fits.
Outside, in the dregs of night
I thread a village of boyhood memories,
become knight errant wielding waxed surfboard,
on a pilgrimage to the East.
Pines lance park's darkness.
A flutter of rags in branches – kites still
come here to die.
A boy with my face, bare feet on his dog,
watches me pass his bench.
The surf track through bitou bush
is like the ocean's umbilical cord. I follow
through banksia silvered with spider webs.
Last dune – butterflies tease my stomach.
A gash of light splits sea from sky,
the horizon curves to embrace me.
Surfboarder silhouettes dot a flat sea.
Basalt rocks of the south wall
sink and rise in the swell.
I follow sandpiper tracks into waves
that wash the world from my feet,
welcome me with a blood-warm buoyancy.
I paddle out, become one with the pack
cradled on the world's belly.
A set of waves grows unbidden.
Slanting sun tints them lambent green and
suddenly one's alive, particular and mine.
Go. Kick. Arms. Up. Got it? Oh, yes!
Working the wave I read the world's braille
through my feet — cutaway — crest — drop off
— the little death in playful foam —
then my leg rope tugs me back again again.
I grind up the beach with trembling knees,
remember her and I'm itchy with guilt.
Behind me the sea heaves in its oily skin
and I realise nothing's resolved. Inland,
egrets rise from shadow into sunlight.
The footbridge is a reach of piles and planks,
always my favoured way home, a tether to boyhood.
I dreamed of holding this bridge —
Horatius with helmet, sword and thrusting spear,
dead Etruscans piling up, the river running red.
Wavelets slap the river bank, crab holes slurp in turn.
Motel's a mile away and the surfboard's growing heavy,
crotch full of sand, runny nose, goosepimpled flesh.
She might be awake by now.
At the highway motel, early traffic drums south.
The sign on our door, "Do Not Disturb."
She lies as I left her. I roll off the wetsuit.
My skin is crinkled and salted.
Commended FAW Far North Coast, poetry to 80 lines, 2002
Won Ararat Golden Gateway Literary Festival poetry competition 2004
The Schoolgirls Going Home
Nymphs wearing backpacks
flicker along our paling fence.
Their blue serge invests
a lattice of elm-tree shade
and laughter sprinkles the footpath.
It's the schoolgirls going home.
They are blossoms that ride full tide
from school to downstream homes
past billabongs of unseen boys,
they swirl through their pastoral.
Sometimes they loiter by our front fence
embroider their chatter with yes... me too's
spill innermost secrets on wide-eyed friends,
speak things that can only be said
in the space between school and home.
When the schoolgirls sing themselves home
they can tease the concrete to tears,
but none can hold them, prolong their song,
not Cat, Wind or Currawong; not me.
Each afternoon at three, ginger Cat
feigns sleep in my garden chair.
(I don't know when she started that.)
She has the gift of listening
from behind shuttered eyes
while she curls into their song.
Wind is in love with them, waits
in my garden each afternoon, plays
with autumn leaves until he can tousle
the schoolgirls going home.
Wind sweeps busyness from their path,
pulls leaves from Currawong's tree
so winter sun warms their way.
To old Currawong they are evensong
and, perched on an elm-tree branch,
he watches them scramble along the ground
but foresees the day when they'll fly.
Currawong knows about seasons
and wonders why, on their side the fence,
it's ever Spring and they never age.
I wish a pathway from the school
passed by my graveyard plot
so that I might forever hear
the schoolgirls going home.
2nd New England Review poetry competition, 2000
Won FAW Moocooboola poetry competition, 2000
Wollumbin Kangaroo
Wollumbin, meaning “Cloud Catcher”, is the Bundjalung people's
name for what Captain Cook later called Mount Warning.
A squat of booyong trees
occupies a gully
on lower Wollumbin.
Their summer shadows float
on haunch-high grass, slap
at bare patches of basalt.
Through this portal
old man kangaroo re-enters
Gondwanaland.
Even Minjungbal man
doesn't see the mountain
assimilate grey boomer.
Roo sprawls, ruminates
killingtime-dreamingtime, certain
Wollumbin won't give him up
until sun's dying release –
a breeze to stir fur, bring
smell of water, fresh grass, female.
Then he'll stand full height, twitch,
snort, scratch until the moment's right
to bound away and become the night.
Very Highly Commended, Leeton Eisteddfod 2003
Published by Kindamindi Press in 'Moving On with Giggles and Dreams' 2003
Published by FAW Summerland in 'Jottings' 2004