There’s nothing here
That wasn’t here
A thousand years ago …
Except a seed
That was a tree
Though time has seen
It come and go
And flowers there
On which our eyes
Can feast for just awhile.
But we could walk for time at length
And still have covered
Nothing more
Than just a mile
In this great land,
Where another race
Of people stand,
And still marvel at it all.
First published in “Barking Dogs”, from
The Writers For Radio Project, Alice Springs 1995
in this outer suburb,
times are ungenerous -
a struggling main street
business community
competing for custom,
but we get to our local
weekly
where publican Dave
talks up regulars
who make trade viable
in conversation
i learn of those
obsequious
inner suburbanites
wanting to impress friends
with bulk bookings
unsuited to this establishment
Dave can’t cater
for larger groups
and those phone calls, he says,
never end well
when i leave that welcoming,
warm open fire, mid-afternoon,
two neo-moderns enter
and request,
a lemonade & raspberry
and a pineapple juice
tough times, surely
First published in “Platinum Poems Anthology”,
20th Anniversary of ‘Frances’, 2019.