Thursday, July 30, 2015

RELICS OF THE STRIP

Come and study the sadness of the street;
See the shopfront relics of enterprise
When it was free and wild spirits would greet
You with a smile, and friendship in their eyes.

That one has a curved window -
Smudged and dirty now -
But once polished and buffed like a diamond,
So the red meat would display like plated rubies,
Glowing amongst scattered plastic ferns -
Greener than green -
Recalling techniques before freezers.
Back in the day opening the door would reveal the sawdust floor,
Familiar faces, all shapes and sizes,
Bulging string bags full of prizes wrapped in white paper,
Blue aprons striped with broken bars,
And the mysteries of the chiller
From which miracles emerged -
Bits of beasts dressed and ready for carving or halving
With knives sharpened on a shining steel,
Surrendering first to the chops of a fearsome cleaver,
Pounding like thunder on the bloody bludgeoned block -
It seemed the giant joints and singled sides had all materialised
Inside that invisible infinite space between the cool room's walls.

This one is tiny like a cubby house.
Can you smell the musk?
Or can you taste the liquorice?
Have you three pennies - thrippence -
Or maybe a zack?
Either way, you're fit for a feast,
And you'll come back.

A few doors down you might swear you can still smell cabbage.
The floorboards are so worn they are concave between the beams.
There are scars on the wall where displays of produce once hung,
Tempting, and tumbling if disturbed by the wrong, clumsy, hands.
Perhaps your ears ring with the echo of a cash register,
Or your eyes close to imagine scales swaying like a hypnotist's charm.
Then the man behind the counter winks
And puts an extra apple in your brown bag.

Come and study the sadness of our streets;
See the shopfront relics of enterprise
That thrived before the fancy fictive feats
Of malls and plazas, robbers in disguise.


Tuesday, July 28, 2015

MASTERPIECE

There are times
In blackest night
When I seek
Moonlit shadows
And streaks
Of midnight blue,
A place of softest warmth
And textures sleek,
A bed perfumed
With fragrances of you.

But I miss you most
When God paints the sky -
Crazy crimson
Surrounds
A golden fleece,
Pink blotched clouds
And pale mauve rose air up high -
And we count brush strokes
On His masterpiece.


Friday, July 24, 2015

SURRENDER

Let me hear music
And lyrics of songs;
You take your world
And you right its wrongs.

You fix the climate -
I gave you the tools -
But don't scoff at me,
Aim jibes at the fools
Lusting for cash,
Extending their hands,
Inspired by greed's
Ungrateful demands.

Allow me a poem,
Grant me a novel;
I need no home,
Words are my hovel.
They'll outlast me,
Although left unread.
You're poorer for that,
I've said what I've said.

My sickness is mine;
It's all that I own.
You've taken the rest,
So leave me alone.


The painting is by James Tissot, a nineteenth century French artist.

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

OLD AGE


I have not heard the thud
Of that stumble
When blood bursts
Through viscous ventricles
To extinguish hope;
Nor have I turned my head
To heed the crumble
Of teeth chopping
Through my flimsy plastic rope.

And there are years
And there are moments -
They waste themselves
Before we have a chance -
Then we stoop to neglect
So we can find excuses
To destroy time
Either with hubris
Or someone else's useless ambition.

Somewhere a piano plays
A pop frolic from my youth,
Or is it more like jazz,
Or an heroic hymn
For the bankrupt
And the merchants of the obtuse?

So I'll cry like Christ but without His reason
And chase my dreams again despite the season.
No one will know
And fewer will care or question:
Why?

Friday, July 17, 2015

'UNSEEN POETRY' - AVAILABLE NOW




Hard copies of David Morisset's latest collection of poems are now available here via Amazon.  The Kindle edition can be downloaded here.

Most of the poems were written in Long Jetty where David now lives and writes.  Several of them explore the natural beauty of of the Central Coast of New South Wales.

Friday, July 10, 2015

HOMELESS COASTIE

The rain that comes from the gloomy sea's grey
At the end of a wasted winter day
Stings like the tears of homeless man,
Salty like a single malt, replete with Islay’s peat,
Laced with traces of seaweed, never sweet.

His head hangs,
A fright-fraught face hidden by a hoodie.
He zips up his high-viz vest
To chase the chill from his chest, cheerless,
And sips from a brown bag,
After drinking a long-necked bottle beerless.

He had a mother,
And possibly also
A father
For twenty minutes or so,
When what passed for love,
Spurted from hormones set to soar,
Splashing into the fields of right and wrong.

At some point in this dark night he'll wake,
Screaming at the demons
In his technicolour dreams,
That repeat and recur
Like movie themes,
And rattle with riffs
From rowdy rock 'n' roll anthems
Created by a cursed composer
Immersed in money-making schemes.

When the pounding of his heart
Eases enough to bid him resort to thought,
He'll wonder where he is;
And after a time he'll know
His bedroom is not his.