The Story In Their Eyes

 The Story in Their Eyes

Eyes narrowing, narrating the evidence

Eyes eloquent in judicial assessment

Eyes, momentarily closing, judging the truth

Eyes, openly evil, laughing at tormented victims, their

Eyes lowered tearfully in distress

Eyes blue and eyes brown

Eyes that do not see beyond cleric closed boundaries

Eyes electronic that tell the whole world

Eyes replete with hate that meet

Eyes terrorised that seek revenge

Eyes translating what language cannot convey

Sadness and tragedy seen through the eyes of others.

 

 

The Chalice

 

The Chalice

Tonight the white waters will wash silently upon the sand in Galway Bay.

Tonight the ghouls, ghosts and goblins will rise as wispy mist above the peat.

Tonight the mysteries of Celtic lore shall echo throughout these ancient hills.

Tonight the standing stones of Carnach will rearrange their timeless pattern.

Tonight the extinct wild wolves will howl in the crystal forest of Tyrone.

Tonight the hooded Druid's words of priestly wisdom shall be heard by all.

Tonight the ears of cats and dogs will prick at soundless motion in the fields.

Tonight the wailing winds of Keltia will brush through your raven locks.

Tonight the spells of primitive dreams will unfold before your eyes.

Tonight the shadowy Eirenic moon will be your guiding light.

Tonight the constraints of time will be unshackled.

Tonight the measures of distance will dissolve.

Tonight the endless cup of love will overflow.

Tonight the covert icons of desire will show.

Tonight the written word will ignite.

Tonight the copious chalice

of creativity in

your mind

will charm,

challenge,

inspire and

foment your delivery.

Tonight you will distil the essence of reason.

Tonight you will drain this potent potion from its bounteous cup.

 

The Emerald Runestone Of Truth

 The Emerald Rune Stone of Truth

 

So gently close your eyes my sweet,

relax and quietly seek solemn solace

in the irradiant green message stone

of your own mind's eye.

From the depths of your mystical memory,

guarding the gates of subconscious,

this arcane emerald rune stone triggers

your inmost repressed desires.

  

You alone can now decode our destination,

so seek intrepid new private passions,

unveil your self secret dream spirits,

reach into the candid cone of truth.

This ancient and esoteric crystal power pack

pulses potently its long dormant message

as we touch, intimately,

for the very first time,

Now if this deed is right for you,

this green stone light glows brighter,

throbs and impregnates your chaste senses

with its wise and latent warmth.

 

And you must trust its teachings, my sweet,

for instinctive wills well deep, with emotions

aeons old, charming, compelling,

yearning, craving, erupting.

The emerald rune stone of truth, now dominant,

burns your brain with its dazzling beam,

violates your virgin body,

saturates your soul's sanity.

And so, as plural blends to single,

two bodies forge together, weld as one;

two mortal minds meld, take off,

soar high on the wings of the bird of love.

The emerald rune stone of truth, soon passive,

has unleashed your innate sensuality, my sweet,

dark menace or personal pleasure dome,

like Pandora's box, your choice.

 

Port Arthur

This is an old poem written after visiting the colonial penal settlement of Port Arthur in Tasmania. Not only was it the centre of convict punishment and associated atrocities, but in 1996 a local lad with an automatic weapon massacred some 36 people with many others wounded. The incident brought about much stricter gun control  in Australia.

Port Arthur

I stood high on your cold, crumbling sandstone battlements

looked down on your blood stained, wooden whipping post

listened quietly to the cat cracking,

callously cutting what little flesh there was

from the wayward young waif's guiltless

ruby rib cage, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I read the element eroded epitaphs on your Isle Of The Dead,

both monument and mausoleum in a picturesque bay,

your lush bush growth born of decay

symbolic fallen headstones recounting

dour struggles for life or even death, if that’s

the lesser evil, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I sat on the smooth stone floor of your solitary confinement cell

slammed shut the solid cedar door, no solace, no shafts of light,

sensed the rabid madness still entrapped

inside this small, dank, airless tomb,

the torture of total silence echoing through this

perverse asylum, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I stalked your hillside roads by night on a shadowy torchlight tour,

sensed your ghostly presence crunching on the gravel track behind,

shivered at your rugged colonial history

its engrossing tales both tall and true

of those who once did and perhaps even now

still do roam here, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I knelt in your roofless church, heavenly refuge but hell on earth,

watched shackled inmates cough their bronchial death throes

heard redcoat rifle butts thudding

brutally against masked, miscreant jaws

whispering heresy at the pulpit preacher

saving their lost souls, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I cowed at the body waste disposal chute in your sordid clinic

repelled the convict's abject screams at blunt saw amputation,

grinding gangrenous bones without

real anaesthetic, just a tot of Gordon's gin,

sniffed the fizzing, pungent smoke from sealing

tar on burning flesh, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I rested in your Broad Arrow Cafe, resplendent in new season decor,

respite for milling mothers, their carefree kids seeking souvenirs;

with mannequins in coarse woollen uniforms and guns

to parade your living story in sight and sound

supposedly to shock, but they just mock

this new generation and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

I absorbed your angel face and blonde hair into my empty heart,

and in some form of personal atonement for your barbaric deed

pried open your psychotic mind

smelt the cankered curse of retribution,

felt the depraved bullets of hate brush past

my tearful cheeks, and I asked the question why

but I did not feel your pain.

 

 

Macquarie Marshes

Macquarie Marshes

Parched flat once grassy terrain

To the horizon distant

Water starved marsh wonderland

In prolonged drought persistent

Jigsaw creeks now dehydrated

Silent and deserted

Migrant vacationers to other routes

Eternally diverted

A quietness so like the end of time

Enveloping the marsh

Having stolen all animal wild life

In retribution harsh

For man’s betrayal of the bush

In slowing up the flow

Of distant lifeblood river systems

Created long ago

With damns, bores, canals and salt

Into the years beyond

A birthplace now only of hope

For nature to respond.

 

 

 

 

 

Looking Out Looking In

 

Looking Out Looking In

Like static distant vistas through the window of a speeding train

life simply passes by.

A rushing tunnel of darkness coerces self reflection most arcane

but easy to deny.

The brazen image focused at a metre merely mirrors the disdain

I see in my minds eye.

Satisfying to complete another day but this mediocre life profane

is still a living lie.

Unable to see value in remaining here with nothing much to gain

yet I’m afraid to die.

Am I then fated to continue to exist in introverted moods inane

nil effort to comply.

See visions of radiated ones in a hospice in Chernobyl the Ukraine 

tears welling in my eye.

A world beckons beyond the raucous chatter of cockatoos insane

mocking me in the sky.

Dare I taste the piquant flavour of the devil’s daily curry once again

of course I have to try

To seek fulfillment and in my personal esteem, higher levels to attain                                myself to dignify. 

 

 

Night Flight

Night Flight

Tonight the air feels strange, not cold, in fact, not even cool

Unusually warm for Sydney in July, Australian Yule,

A perfect night for viewing stars, cloudless, clear and pure

Unspoilt by man’s pollution, no smoke haze to endure

And airport curfews now in place ensure a sky sublime

Pregnant silence coats the land like a Marcel Marceau mime.

Above the regal moon, so full, sits low in elevation,

Infuses mood, instils a sense of eerie expectation.

Peering from behind tall trees promoting shape and shadow

Furtive profiles on the land, lurking late night tableaux.

Such aura from the moonlight evokes weird scenes theatric

A world of two dimensions, a shadow-graph dramatic,

Immobile trees and buildings, flat silhouettes outlined

Robbed of girth and colour just in monochrome defined.

A breeding ground for creative minds, night under attack,

Lost souls and ghouls, a shaman, all shades of black on black,

Intensify the ambient mood as the nimbus rises higher

Flooding the earth with ghostly beams, nocturnal silver fire.

To all intents and purposes there is no night time breeze

Just a hint, a puff, a zephyr stirs high branches in the trees,

Quaintly moulds mixed mind shapes from hallucinogenic fronds

Fomenting fear and panic when a fertile brain responds

As one bold rustling mind shape, hanging high, takes flight

With powerful strokes of webbed skin into the dark of night

Its form quite imperceptible until its moon traverse

Revives foyer poster memories, a Transylvanian curse,

A horror movie cliché now transposed to local skies

Stark and black and potent uttering ultrasonic cries,

That pulse like radar signals across this heavenly stage

Directional technology born of a primitive age.

With strident shrieks this leader bat now signals its cohorts

In manner urgent drawing a shrill chorus of retorts

From shadowy shapes on branches, in querulous debates

Of fever pitch crescendo, which then suddenly abates,

Arrested on command as flapping leather flays the air

Their leader has directed an alternate night time lair

That generates a chilling, but unusual, local sight

A flurry of flying foxes taking off in mass night flight.