PostPoems Be Artistic. Be Creative. Be Inspired!

Overture



Let there be lights!

Let there be action!

Or at least Stand Up

you lazy bloody bastards!





Come, compatriots all, hands to the flames,

as the dawn rises over the waves,

of the one ocean,

of the great bay,

to the clamouring sounds of another day,

uniquely just like the last,

in the city of the immigrants

in the city of the quays



stand...



and be amazed:



the anthem of another bloody day!





Variations On The Theme

(i)

Another morning on the Jackson,

ferries at the quay,

proud lines carving

the ocelot pelt dark seas;



yachts in the harbour

bobbing bright like egg shells

clanging and haranguing

their passing wakes like gulls.



The Steyne and Lady Charlotte

ply their horns in earnest,

a morning call,

for compatriots all;



and the knocking of the plastic bottles

against the pylons and the piers

plays

- the anthem of another bloody day!





Another day like these

blue mirages that bridge the shades

between the wavering spaces

of some deep pellucid dreaming:

the threads of reality’s hem detached

and fallen with the wilful angels

across these

God

and golden blue bays.





(ii)

Soundings of the distant traffic

battering against the window panes,

blown about like wretched postcards



manic chance meets frenetic fancy

in every casual eye -  long term survival and ephemeral conquests

equally likely, equally blind.



Walk from Eddy Street  and Central Station

up and down hill to Circular Quay

up hill and down dale

and over the underground water



coffee and a lazy lunch in the pylons shade,

amid the zigzagged patterns

of iron and steel

stiffly starched;

a tailor made arch

for a new colonial nation





(iii)

...and patterns in the scouring

of the late diagonal rains,

patterns changing  nothing

while nothing is the same



something of the jungle in these downpours,

something of the tropics

in the echoes of the concrete under-rhythms



and the dripping wetness of the canyons

and the rushing of the currents

and the jagged recklessness of the flotsam tossed about



then the lights change and another torrent bubbles,

and a city rises in metallic brilliance...



...changing  nothing

while nothing is the same





(iv)

Night falls, instinctively fluttering

as the wind rocks on the water,



night's lights glow sparkling

sheltering in the darkening

of the harbour's softening flanks:



Balgowlah Heights and Middle Head

in the dark arms of

Manly Cove.



Darkness sidles across the bays,

almost apologetic with an ironic

half-twist grin;



saunters, soundless and graceful

and sweetly apocryphallic





Interlude



Before, before,

where once below the shoreline,

they lay their fires down;



amid the mingled, watchful whisperings

of a dreaming wrapped from shore

to gleaming shore



before; before



the wind's whittling of the autumn’s lees





but a dawn again rises over the waves,

of the one ocean,

of the great bay,

to the clamouring sounds of another day,

uniquely just like the last;

City of the immigrants

City of the quays



another day like these

and Another Day like these



(v)

City of the immigrants

City of the quays;

where would you be

without the penance and absolution

of the washing of the waters and the rising of the seas,

without the wandering vastness,

where would you be?



without the death of the rivers and the gorging of the seas,

in all your deep, silent dreamings,

God help and forgive us, where would you be?





...and the knocking of the bottles

against the pylons and the piers,

pays a dividend that no one claims

plays a dizrhythmia that no-one hears





Reprise



Come, compatriots all, hands to the flames,

as the dawn rises over the waves,

of the one ocean,

of the great bay,

to the clamouring sounds of another day,

uniquely just like the last,

in the city of the immigrants

in the city of the quays.



Oh stand and be amazed

you whelps of curs and vagabonds!

Rattle your cups and clash your chains,

Stand Up and be accounted for!



- it’s the mongrel bloody anthem of another peerless bloody day!