Saturday, May 31, 2014

CHARON


Somehow you'd suck what's left of life from me,
Leave me drained dry, bloodless, broken and spent;
Yet I long to make us from you and me -
Thus my heart can never ever relent.

My summers have gone by with few flickers,
Seared more by heat than shining beauty's light.
Now comes the ferryman's sneering sniggers -
He grins and rows to my winter's cold blight.

When I am burned and cast across the waves,
Will I recall more than your promises?
Will yours be the great love that my soul craves?
Or will I never taste your lips' kisses?

What if the oarsman's hand demands my coin
Before our bodies can couple and join?

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

TOOWOON BAY TWILIGHT

The sea displayed royal colours of kings.
Purple dye adorned with alabaster,
In clumps and speckles and madly
warped rings,
Painted surf the smallest child might master.

Breezes fluttered offshore in cool forays,
Fanning breaking waves' crests into
showers -
Pristine creamy fronds and frothy white sprays
That withered dry like discarded flowers.

As the sun slid lower behind the rise
Of bent banksias and conifer trees,
Bold streaks of red and gold filled out
the skies
And flashed across the flat ocean with ease.

Then shadows were imprisoned by new night
And stars escaped to dot the black with light.

Thursday, May 22, 2014

STRUCK WITH PINK

Sunsets struck with pink's bold and lollied hue
Remind me of the dress you donned that day
We walked down to the jewels and crowns on view
Before the murderers stole it all away.
Some funded their false revolution's spread
To lands once happy and free to revel
But where people now die in drear and dread.
Yet most lines vaults vouched for by the devil.
Today we might have walked at wave's edges,
I could have whispered words to dry your eyes
And revived all our forsaken pledges
While we watched stars prick through the darkening skies.
How can I send the heavens' lights to save
You from the cold black prison of your grave?



Sunday, May 18, 2014

BRITTLE HEART


I am so fragile
I must be alone.
It is my sadness.
It is the stone
That will shatter
My brittle heart.
So bid me no challenges
And censure me no more.
I'll do what I can
If no-one keeps score.
I'll exit with grace
When there's nought to give.
I'll climb into space
When I cannot live.

DOG ACTS

David Morisset's new novel 'Dog Acts' is now available through Amazon and CreateSpace.  An ebook version can also be obtained through Smashwords.

When a young man is king hit on the streets of Kings Cross by a drunken reveller the aftermath exposes failures in the legal system that prompt an unscrupulous group of men to implement their own model of justice. Set in the suburbs of twenty-first century Sydney ‘Dog Acts’ pits the hopes of youth against the fragility of life. It asks questions about vengeance and forgiveness in the context of the city’s loss of community. Modern Australia emerges as a nation without a heart and ripe for reconfiguration in the hands of entities with the determination to implement their own distorted visions.

The Amazon sales listing can be found here.

The CreateSpace sales listing can be found here.

The Smashwords sales listing can be found here.

Saturday, May 17, 2014

BURNISHED GOLD

When I first see this shore of burnished gold
I wonder why it thrusts so insular
And brags about the tallest and most bold
Across every man-made peninsula.
But then the powdered white sand warms my feet
Under a sun that never ever fails
To lure bathers down from the brazen street
While towers cast shadows like gaff-rigged sails.
Ear drums are schmoozed by fizzing seas and breeze
That leaps above the waves of stone-washed blue
And stirs each crest into a creamy tease
Of frothy foam - a cool, refreshing brew.
Wooed and smitten I can sink into rest
And bid my mind forget my tarnished quest.

Friday, May 16, 2014

FOOL


And all guidelines of hope are hard to breach
As long as there's a mouth open more wide,
Always wanting still more and primed to leech
While one is lost and messed up by the tide.
So much can be offered in many ways
And yet it's cash that makes a cache so neat
As if this game has far too many plays
For honest men to grasp and cop it sweet.
Beauty can kill and lust can dig a grave
While love can teach a king to be a fool;
But when distressed damsel becomes a knave
It's then her suitor turns into a tool.
We see nothing of each other's cheap need
Until a heart breaks smashed by sickly greed.



Tuesday, May 6, 2014

MOURNING SICKNESS

He was a real child
And he had a name.
But she never knew him.
She never once
Bounced him on her knees.
The milk of her breasts
Never ever filled
His tiny stomach.
Her son’s personality
Was either blank
Or whatever she wanted
To invent for him.
She saw his little face
In her mind
But she could not imagine it
Growing
Or ageing.
He was a ghost
In every sense.
No words were ever
Uttered by him.
The doctor had said
The baby was a bit sluggish,
And sluggish he remained
Forever.
So sluggish
That he never cried
To be fed.
Nor did he reach out
To be cuddled.
His teeth were still
Dormant in his gums.
His eyes would never adjust
To the light of day
And the blackness of night.


Thursday, May 1, 2014

NORTH SHORE LINE

A daylight ride can be magic.
The harbour tantalises
At first sight.
The western side of the city
Manhattan-like;
The shimmering blue
Beginnings of the river;
The inner west,
Where steeples still stand.
On sunny days
Solar beams flash off
The glass facades
Of right-angles in the air.
Behind the windows
Armies of minor drones,
Hunched over keyboards,
Drunk on coffee
And drugged by chocolate.
When the view has gone
Dirty sandstone sidings prevail,
Invaded by weeds long ago.
Short tunnels that still house soot
From last century’s steam trains.
Glimpses of old workmen’s homes,
Some terraced,
Some freestanding.
Narrow blocks that made
No allowance for cars.
Now exclusive locales.
Brightness dazzles
Before the bridge.
In vivid outline
The coathanger rises
Like the output of a gifted child
With a slate-coloured mecanno set.
The arch is so graceful
And bird-like.
Only the immense greystone pylons
Stop it flying away
Like a colossal boomerang.
Between the iron girders
The city shines
Like a wall of unrelated crystals.
Multi-coloured,
Multi-dimensioned,
But resolutely phallic.
From the deck of the bridge
The priceless emeralds of the water
Dominate and dwarf
The feats of men.
The opera house alone
Makes a worthy challenge,
Its off-white sails
Arranged like a demented flock
Of seagulls in search
Of one remaining chip.
The cluttered west looks on
As if in perpetual envy.
Ferries, sloops and water taxis
Carve froth and bubble tracks
Of whitish foam,
Clinging to lurching hulls
Like splashes of melted ice cream.

At night the lights
Of the city and the vessels
Blaze like a tame bushfire.
The inner west is like a fairlyand.
It blots out all the stars
And replaces them
With stretched reflections
In the glassy black water.
The bridge is lit up
As if it was a reminder
Of permanent Christmas
In the lucky land around it.
Car lights – red and lurid white –
Move like torches
Pinned to a mechanical track.
Skyscrapers are festooned
With neon signs –
Household names
And foreign raiders.
Fluorescent tubes burn
As immigrants vacuum endless carpet.
The opera house draws every eye,
Apparently cut adrift
From the gaudy boxes
That block the gardens.

The place-names are wealth and privilege.
Opulent apartment buildings soar
On the lower north shore,
Rambling mansions blur
The eastern suburbs.
Money lines the foreshores
And drips into the waves
Where it floats
In the form of cruising yachts
And boats boasting
Ludicrous luxuries.

Yet most Australians sleep
By way of disturbed dozes
In the choked streets
Of landlocked outer suburbs,
Far from the postcodes
Bordering the bays,
Where life beats them down
With the pitiless schemes
Of the elite,
Devised on the waterfront.