Poetry

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Verses to brighten your day.

Tribute to Mark

The darkness of the garden Had nought to do with light Two middle-aged men, sitting Staring at anything but each other As if connecting eyes would confirm And hasten the prognosis Sombre mood, impending loss Uncertainty and fear … but stoic … People depend on us

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I am woman - poem

Poetry: I am woman

February 16, 2021

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Poetry: Folly bizarre

December 9, 2020

FOLLY BIZARRE Do you hear them? Hark! Listen to them chatter keeping back the dark; nor does it matter much what they say holding back despair: try another way throw another party form another pair; Alex sounds so hearty but Diana isn’t there! Sarah’s gone with William he swept her off her feet, Polly didn’t like it but it had been her whim – alternative and ethnic – to do Nepal with Lucky Jim. And look, do look at Katie massaging Tristan’s feet! Karl’s into iridology, Eddie takes his whisky neat. Amanda’s seeing auras and trying ESP – it’s highly…

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Lest we forget

Poetry: Lest We Forget

November 10, 2020

Lest We Forget Till the daffodils glow for the jonquils know and the roses rise again, I’ll scan the skies in the world of your eyes washed in the greyness the softness of rain. They tell us the godwits will come again and spring will be sprung once more. And once more yet, lest we forget a child will knock on our door. Yes, they tell us a child will come again when the land is wasted and still they tell us he’ll climb through a burnt-out land to the top of a black, scorched hill. He’ll look to the…

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Lakes National Park, South Island, New Zealand.

Poetry: The Blechynden Bach

October 14, 2020

THE BLECHYNDEN BACH You by the heater and I, in the chair, but where were the other three who should have been there, curled up on the couches sprawled on a bed? From a sleeping bag pokes out just one tousled head. It’s Finn in a dreamland of raspberry drops and lemonade longing to wake and see the ice stand thick on the streams in the river glade land. But where are the others? Where are the brothers? We called ourselves we – we were a family: where are we? Silence holds its breath, as always if you’re asking why……

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POETRY: The Death of Innocence

September 14, 2020

POETRY THE DEATH OF INNOCENCE Dark clouds roll over the Canterbury Plains To end the summer’s dry Though water comes not from the rains But from the tears we cry People we’ve taken to our hearts Are cut down one by one As our nation’s innocence is split By the thunder of the gun Fifty innocent souls are gone Torn from their families’ arms They came to our land of sun and song Where their families faced no harm But hatred knows no borders Down its deadend path And the assault on peace and order Tore these families clean in…

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Hal Colebatch works biography

HAL G.P. COLEBATCH, 1949-2019: IN MEMORIAM

September 2, 2020

by Jeffry Babb I do not wish to write an obituary for Hal Colebatch. That has already been done. On this, the first anniversary of his passing, I will seek to place Colebatch in the context of his life and times. Hal was the son of Sir Hal Colebatch. Sir Hal was a renaissance man, who dragged himself up by his bootstraps. In his biography of his father, Steadfast Knight (Fremantle Arts Centre Press, 2004), Hal traces the Colebatch line back almost to the Norman Conquest. The only notable ancestor turned out to be Sir Polydore Colebatch, a bold privateer;…

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POETRY

September 2, 2020

HOME “A house is not a home”, a famous book concludes; Not just a mere possession like books, or clothes, or foods. A “home” means more than where we sleep, or where we eat a meal. It’s the company of family, and how they make us feel. An all-embracing view of “home” can see it as a nation. And soldiers on return from war, make “home” a celebration. “Home is where the heart is” – a saying trite, but true; For being far from loved ones – a circumstance to rue. When on exotic travel, to “home” our thoughts may…

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POETRY

August 19, 2020

LOOKING OUT TO SEA I see him sprawled on his back on a beach Ulysses. He is lying, his clasped hands supporting his head, beyond reach of human memory, wounded in one eye. His sighted eye is not scanning the sky programming information for survival, but turned inward, where he sees Penelope at the stone parapet, awaiting his arrival. After ten years, she still looks out to sea. JUST CARE She’s over eighty but he’s telling her off, sarcastic at her expense, a not-so-weighty as hurtful put down, less caustic than condescending. She slips away from listening looking…

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POETRY

REINCARNATION BLUES Though buried by volcanic ash in Pompeii I re-emerged to sweep the slums of Bombay where, fortunately, I died from emphysema. I hope I’m not reborn in Hiroshima. AT A RESTAURANT IN BERLIN, 1936 You asked the famous leader to autograph your napkin. You thought that he was Hitler. He signed it “Charlie Chaplin”. THE STAMMERER In the world of talk she does not belong but the stammerer is set free by song, and the nimble rhymes of a teenage girl become the songs that heal the world. FLAMING BOOMERANG A flaming…

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