Sunday, November 27, 2016

THE FLEECE

“Once he reached for something golden, hanging from a tree,  and his hand came down empty.”  (Carole King, ‘Tapestry’)

This is the way it ends for the broken kind,
Missing in a maze of trimmed hedge cul-de-sacs,
A victim of a simplified minefield that is my mincemeat mind,
With the colours of my culture multiplied and maximised -
White on white but never quite optimised -
Every melanoma scar scaped like scabs on my scared skin,
But pristine compared to the wounds of the suicide within.

The Africans called me a Cambridge wash-up;
But I was a product of red-brick schools and fibro slums;
The Asians said I looked like an old footballer,
A rugby type, thick-necked from too many scrums,
Yet striving to be amongst the thinkers,
While the locals saw me as one who belonged with the drinkers -
Soon to become a rejected son of Australia.
And so I steered the years of quest and failure,
'Til my hand came down empty, though I’d climbed the trees
To reach for the branch where the fleece fizzled in the breeze.

Now I'm just an ageing face in the audience,
Eyes bloodshot red and yellow with jaundice,
Straining to see beyond my reading spectacles, 
Each lens reflecting the specious spectacular,
Restricted to thoughts riddled with speculation,
A wasted brain that somehow became
A mere receptacle for others' brilliant exceptionals.


Saturday, November 12, 2016

THE NEW SETTLEMENT

David Morisset's new novel is now available at Amazon, Kindle, Smashwords and iBooks.

'The New Settlement' is a dystopian fantasy set in a fictional Middle Eastern theocracy during the last years of the twenty-first century. Seven decades have gone by since a nuclear war turned parts of Shemesh's homeland into radioactive netherworlds. The narrative highlights humanity's defencelessness against religious extremism, corrupt governments, and the murderous overreach of state-sponsored brutality. Amid the toxic shambles there is a longing for the better days of a possibly imaginary past usually referred to as the times of kings and queens.

The book (including the Kindle version) can be purchased at Amazon here and at Smashwords here.  For the iBooks version please use the iBooks app to search for books by David Morisset.

Thursday, November 10, 2016

ELECTRIC SHADOWS

I've never been scared
By shade at sunset
But shadows
Other than my silhouette
Can haunt me
Almost to the point of death
With their tailgater's grin
And heavy breath
And the black dog
They insist on walking
As I seek peace
Away from fools talking
To lenses panning
Like madmen stalking
A sad victim
Of chance and circumstance
Not yet invisible in time's expanse
Against blank backgrounds
All set well aglow
With a few faces nodding and gawking
Telling me lies
That I already know.


Monday, November 7, 2016

CHORUS

It's dark
And all the innocents slumber
In quiet places
Stacked with plastic toys
Yet guilty hearts pulse
In the night's blackness
Perhaps that's why I hear
The ambient noise
As this world beats out
Rhythms sent from hell
So loudly
That the sea is rendered dumb
Even as waves
Devour retreating shores -
My weak sleep ceased
When I heard demons hum.


Saturday, November 5, 2016

HOMELESS POEMS

The latest collection of David Morisset's poetry is now available at Amazon and CreateSpace.  A KIndle edition is also available.

As well as descriptions of urban and natural landscapes the poems, mostly written in 2016, explore themes associated with mental health, economic inequality, justice and nostalgia. Locations vary and include Australia's east coast, Thailand, Iran and mysterious places visited only in dreams.

The collection can be purchased at Amazon here and at CreateSpace here.

The Kindle edition can be downloaded here.

Wednesday, November 2, 2016

INTEMPERATE CLIMATE

Now that the jacarandas are in bloom
And the sun hangs far enough south to sting,
Light seeps early into my sleepy room
On these last mornings of our gentle Spring.
The heat that follows will bring a brown glaze
To fields once green and trees once groomed for growth
And bindii will plague worn down walkways,
Kindling many a foul expleted oath.
Parts of the bush will blacken as the fires
Blaze in defiance of our petty plans,
The flames followed by blame and legal mires
While activists will moan and wring their hands.
Then there'll be storms to drench it all again -
Foretold by dusty smells of Summer rain.