Stealing Blue

haiku & poems

Uluru

I never realised the rock was female

Till I arrived,

And she showed me —

Lying belly up,

gravid with meaning, pregnant with life.

So generous, frightening in her clarity

As I trace the memories of her past couplings with the Rain —

The water caressed and cradled in her fertile clefts

And today, despite the dry,

squeezed between her curves and folds

Over ancient, bloody trails

To

drip

in

this

clear

waterhole


Gippsland Haiku


silence — then the bat

coming this close to my face

sound of tearing silk

they call them shit birds —

ibis — those angels in flight

farmers' poetry

cows here wear earrings

No. 9 tastes windfall apples

with blue-black tongue


clickety-clack

over old wooden bridge

loose teeth and small change

down the mountain

larvae scribble bark

I pocket a scroll

Clickety-Clack & Down the Mountain published in Rusted Hinge (2006); Silence—then the bat in Poetrix 1(1994); Cows and Earrings in Hobo (1997); Ibis in Moments 1(1996); Uluru first appeared in Poetrix 3 1994.