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| Gary Robinson |
Little Day
Little Day abandons me
a child's kite tossed
up high,
discarded and bruised by
the boxing wind.
I walk down the sandy sun,
shrivel like an orphaned icicle
as time counts away
my shadows
heel by heel.
Plane in the Sky
Lights, red and white,
carry the sky
high and wet.
Noise falls,
falling
out with night.
Going west, lonely
one, going west,
beautiful one?
The Day was Blonde
The day was blonde, I remember that.
It sighed and swayed like a
petulant woman who wanted to dance
but couldn't find the right partner.
The music was there alright,
the trees rang like blue saxophones
while the wind had a soft drumbeat going.
Yet something was wrong.
The hair of the clouds flicked in a rage,
there would be no dancing,
none at all.
When the thunderstorm and its fatal
limbs arrived,
we were already in bed.
Explorers
A boat in every leaf.
This seen on wet days
when dark streets and laneways
dive with blind debris.
What to say about this profuse armada
flight and disorientation
since many pummel into curbs and lawns
caught in crazy disarray
when they may have been dreaming trees
that morning before elements
translated them into another career.
I have always admired a storm.
No grace in its journey
breaking like a psychic nightmare
from the mind of sky.
Lightning kicks like bony legs in spasm.
Rain is a trip any leaf may take.
Children when they step
rubbery and grinning
from their draining homes
know something has happened.
Travels made and stories
washed up after slippery voyages.
Step and splash among the wrecks of legends.
Once I went on a tour
of the Thousand Islands,
jumping through the teeth of waves.
But though I stood on that boat,
I was never one myself.
There. A leaf.
Sails outside my window.
Silent expedition.
How I envy the explorers
in the waiting foliage.
Pandas
The panda slouches,
eyes patched sadly,
a washed-up comic
who discovers while
the audience claps
politely and even
smiles, no one is
laughing at the punchlines.
With some bamboo
for a flute he hopes
to take up another
act but isn't given
enough privacy
to learn his lessons.
We need new
entertainment,
routines that do not
invoke a cross
of blood.
The sit-com of martyrs
should be cancelled.
Let these betrayed actors
retire to townhouses
and beer.
No more circuses
where we claw
happily at our
own colourful defeats.
Beautiful poetry
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