Poetry by Pip Wilson

Page 1

All poems Copyright © 2001-now, Pip Wilson, Wilson’s Almanac

 

 

A blessing to my friends

When the concrete speeds around your eyes
and failure's demon heaves heavy on your chest;
when all is lost and bands of broken dreams obtrude your brow,
may mother Moon wash you in her white beams
till all your cells are young again
and torrents of ecstasy whoosh! up your being.

 
When dams of tears unyielding ache,
for fairness isn't in the rules;
when mealy maggot men expropriate
the prize your mind's eye still implores,
while women of jagged ice squeal above like banshee bats,
may the sunrise song of eucalypt and oak and bloom and grass
lay you down in ancient mystic beds of healing
till you slumber unafraid with the silent warm babies.
 
When one and yet another poison plastic chalice
scalds your hand in this your turn for futile hell;
when fumbled chance and yet another,
and opportunity and possibility sink sad beneath your divinity;
when your hands are bound and cannot punch
the wily smoke that chokes your hopes,
and bed again alone adds aching loss to loss,
may misty light float through balmy groves
and play upon the darkling sea
till all around is jasmine dew
and fountains of amethyst and agate rain your night.
 
When guilty gales around your face
are filth with city grit and wasted days,
may all your hero wizardry
light up your golden lamp, and may it blaze!

 

 

To change, or not to change  

Ah, the very meat in me
comfortable in its fridge;
ah, my mental circuitry,
weakly headstrong not to budge.
 
Two actions get the meaty mounds,
behaviour’s weight, to shift
inside my querulous neural wires
and help the stuckness lift:
As thought will follow actions,
(as actions follow thought)
I act the man I heard about
and play the god I ought,
 
and fake it till I make it,
and when this doesn’t solve
the dilemma of my dual wants
I pray it will dissolve.
 
Spite of all my tantrums
against my higher self,
in spite of all my unbelief,
duplicity and stealth,
 
in spite of all unwillingness
to change – in spite of me –
at the very least, for willingness
to be willing is my plea.

 

 

 

 

He beat my sisters and me

He beat my sisters and me,
thrashed us till the welts
raised up on our thighs like purple ropes.
He beat my sisters and me.
 
Sixty years have passed
since the perilous days of the war
and I didn’t know what the Third Reich was.
And sixty years have passed.
 
And we had done no wrong -
but now I understand
why Father beat my sisters and me,
though we had done no wrong.
 
In Germany in ‘41
to be seven was no fun,
and often I wondered what I had done
in Germany in ‘41.  

Is it more than sixty years?
Mein Gott, and so it is.
Yet I see Father with the fir tree rod --
Is it more than sixty years?
 
I still see his glistening eyes
and his cheek all smudged with tears.
Though fear and pain I remembered for years
I still see his glistening eyes.
 
My mother rolled out the dough.
She deliberately turned away,
took a rolling pin and loud as she could,
my mother rolled out the dough.
 
“This is what you’ll get,”
said Father “if you breathe a word
about the family hiding in the roof --
this is what you’ll get.”

 

 

To Henry Lawson
(when I discovered he had lived in Crows Nest, New South Wales)
 

So I was living near you mate
I just this minute heard.
Now it appears we shared a state,
a city -- and a bloody suburb!  

How easily I picture
Henry Lawson treading down
the balmy streets of Crows Nest
down the backstreets, up the town.

How often did you pass
my haunts along the way,
like Feathers Bar and Feathers Bar
and Feathers Bar now would you say
three quarters of a century
have changed the basic rules?
The only ones in Crows Nest
must be poets, drunks and fools.

The nest of roughened cuckoos
perches in the poison airs
empty of its own soul
and half-filled with elsewhere's.

With Naremburn on your side
and Wollstonecraft on mine
Crowy is an oyster
among the pearls and swine.

Gritty boxes of mistaken artifacts
sprawl before my eyes,
impossible to comprehend
and harder yet to prize.
Crows Nest-above-Harbour,
shared by men of rhyming letters.
Ah, Henry my wanton soul,
couldn't we share better?  

Nowhere in those mindless streets
is any bronze of Lawson,
nor, God willing, comrade,
will they be pouring one for Wilson.

Upon my next return there,
I promise to myself
to drink a robust toast
to Henry and his health,
and try to find out in the streets
the "scrub-ridged western side"
... and Henry, I will look to see
"the spectral horsemen ride".

 

(See 'Faces in the Street', my novel about Henry Lawson and his mother and friends.)

 

 

 

Who am I?  

(Answer at bottom of page - no peeking)

My first is in hunger which grows by the hour

and also in bread, but never in flour.

Hunger and thirst are the recipe which

ensures that the poor will serve meals to the rich.

The poor, always with us, help balance my sums --

ah, out of each hardship some good always comes!

 

My second's in stocks, but it's not found in bonds;

in yachts and in oceans, but never in ponds.

Czar, Caesar and chairman cavort on the sea

in cabins of craft, by courtesy of me.

In countries and continents, and in every city

you care for your captains, they do look so pretty.

 

My third is in woman but not found in man.

In liberation, too, this letter you'll scan.

Once barefoot and pregnant I kept them, of course,

until I discovered their new market force.

With reluctance I gave in, but, oh, happily found

fresh factory fodder and new cheque accounts.

 

My fourth's in your son, in your hands, on your knee --

what a handsome young soldier he'll turn out to be.

In science and schooling you'll discover this letter,

in pain and in prison and in national vendetta,

in minds strong and nimble, full of freedom and doubt --

bequeath them to me for a straightening out.

 

My fifth is in food, in containers in stores,

but not found in gardens around you because

I plant the allotments with tar, not fruit trees

come, hungry servants, come work for your meals!

In this nation of plenty, with its vast machines,
you pay for your supper; the price is your dreams.

 

My sixth in employment and motor you'll mark,
for motor you'll need to make the miles to the marts
and the mines and the malls and wherever you're maimed
and manipulated for monopoly management's gain.
For I made my mark on the making of maps,
and if you sleep near your job, it's monotony perhaps.

 

My seventh's in building, demolition, and you'll find
it in nickels and dimes and their equivalent, time.
I pulled down a house and erected a Hilton,
pulled it down and erected a Burgermaster building;
I replaced that with a house (and this is phenomenal!)
I ripped down the home and put up a McDonald's.

 

My eighth's as capricious as any before; it's in Case,
Caterpillar and McCulloch chainsaw.
It's in chop, crash and crush, it's callous, and of course,
it's nearly the end of "non-renewable resource".
I control countries' coffers, but I'll eat my hat
if I'd ever run a corner grocer's like that.
                  

My ninth and my last begins separation --
that's my strategy for staying in complete domination.
Subtly sequestered in separate stations,
my servants are settled in superb alienation.
Separate shacks and sets of supplies,
it's here that my sway on the State really lies!

 

From my first to my last I'm as hidden from mind
as a black man at night in a shady coal mine.
Like fire and water, which can bring disaster
when not held in check, I'm an arrogant master.
Though you blame politicians, and politicians blame you,
all beings are my subjects; now, can you guess who?

 

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Answer to Who Am I?: Economics