“The Catch of the Evening” by Kristin Martin

Leave a comment

The Catch of the Evening

When the gully breeze bustled through the gums

skimming the heat from the day

we bowled out of the house

and set up stumps under the blue gum.

As always, the catches were what mattered.

Mum’s was the first.

She glanced up from yanking a thistle out of the hardened pitch

and plucked the ball from the air.

Jack caught me out on the full

ball clasped tight against his chest

his whoops and air-punches claiming more skill than he displayed.

Dad didn’t even get a look in

with his collection of one-hand-one-bounces

but I caught him mid-air with a spectacular leap from atop the slide.

Then, as the mosquitos herded us indoors,

I turned to grab the stumps and saw the uncontested winner.

Our blue gum. It had caught the moon

and was holding it triumphantly

in the crook of a branch.

by Kristin Martin

“Worm-Farm Blues” by Kate O’Neil

Leave a comment

WORM-FARM BLUES

                              

It’s a no-good life livin’ in this worm-farm—

It’s no life a worm would choose.

We’re writhin’ around, tangled and mangled

Topsied and turvied and confused. 

There’s too darn many in this worm-farm

We’ve all got the worm-farm blues.

We loop to and fro 

with nowhere to go

singin’ the worm-farm blues:

 

Chorus:              

We’ve a dream in our head

Of a vegetable bed.

We know it’s not far away.

With room to roam

And plenty of loam.

But we’ll never see that day.

Oh Blues! It’s blues all the way! 

There’s nowhere to go in this chock-a-block worm-farm—

No place where we can snooze.

We twist and we twine, huddled and muddled,

contorted and thwarted and abused.

And all of us here in this worm-farm

are sufferin’ the worm-farm blues.

We’re just ravellin’

Can’t do travellin’

We just sing the worm-farm blues.

 

Is there anybody there listenin’ to this worm-farm?

Anyone to hear our views?

We tumble in a jumble, pulsing and convulsing.

We’re rumpled and crumpled and bruised.

We‘re goin’ on strike in this worm-farm:

There’ll be no more worm-farm poos!

We hate this scramblin’

We wanna be ramblin’

away from the worm-farm blues.

©  Kate O’Neil

“Wormy Work” by Celia Berrell

Leave a comment

Wormy Work

Earthworms don’t have bony bits

and so they’re called invertebrates.

There’s billions living in the soil

that burrow, stretch, contract and coil.

 

Creating holes within soil’s layer

can mix it up and add some air

which helps break-down organic waste

and drain the rain in record haste.

 

Organic matter, we conclude

provides the worms with all their food.

Consuming soil is what they do.

Excreting lots of earthworm poo.

 

These squiggly clumps of mud have passed

through worm’s insides.  They’re called a cast.

Those casts make soil a better place

so plants grow at a faster pace.

 

Without the worms, the soil would not

stay very clean and start to rot.

The earthworms all have key careers

as eco-system engineers.

Celia Berrell

“Yesterday” by Di Bates

Leave a comment

Yesterday

I was a golden dragon

The kiss of grasses brushed my ankles

And then I rose into the sky 

Where I cavorted at first

Then drifted 

brushing the clouds,

a wondrous lilting shape that those below 

beheld with awe.

 

Golden and crimson I lapped the world

like a god commanding

everything

and everyone

all things revolved around me

I owned the day

Shattered it with my beauty

And my gigantic roar.

 

Today 

yesterday was a dream

and now I am but a mere child

my mother standing over me

with her many demands

I must obey.

Dianne Bates

“A Girl’s Head” by Katherine Gallagher

Leave a comment

 

A Girl’s Head

(after the poem, ‘A Boy’s Head’ by Miroslav Holub)

 

In it there is a dream

that was started

before she was born,

 

and there is a globe

with hemispheres

which shall be happy.

 

There is her own spacecraft,

a chosen dress

and pictures of her friends.

 

There are shining rings

and a maze of mirrors.

 

There is a diary

for surprise occasions.

 

There is a horse springing hooves

across the sky.

 

There is a sea

that tides and swells

and cannot be mapped.

 

There is untold hope

in that no equation exactly

fits a head.

 

Katherine Gallagher

(from Poetry Street 3 (Sale & Orme, 1991),

“Dreams” by Jenny Erlanger

Leave a comment

Dreams

 

I wish my warm and cosy dreams

would stay inside my head

Instead of floating off for good

when I get out of bed.

I’d like to put them in a box,

all those I want to keep,

then choose the one I want at night

before I go to sleep.

 

Jenny Erlanger

“Improving the Alphabet” by Monty Edwards

Leave a comment

Improving the Alphabet

Take pity on poor letter C:

It always follows A and B.

When Aussies write their alphabets,

Then third’s the place it always gets.

It hardly seems that this is fair

That C is always sitting there,

Behind the letters A and B,

But never leads, don’t you agree?

Forgive my words if I am blunt,

But I think C should be in front.

I’ve had enough of A-B-C:

Let’s have a change to C-A-B

Now C-A-B’s a proper word,

But A-B-C is quite absurd.

Then after CAB change DEF to FED

No nonsense now: real words instead!

Monty Edwards

”Encounter” by Virginia Lowe

Leave a comment

Encounter

They met at the back door

He was going out

She was coming in

Bemused, enchanted

They stood face to face

Eye to eye

She was charmed by

His long fluttering eyelashes

Then she took a peck

We rushed to sweep him up

Before she reached his eye

Only eight months old

Though already walking

Without boots

Who was he to stand

Between a chook and her beloved

Cat food? 

12 May 2018

Virginia Lowe

“Grandpa’s farm” by Jenny Erlanger

Leave a comment

Grandpa’s farm

My Grandpa rang this morning.

He’s just bought a farm, he said

and so I’ve started dreaming

of the fun that lies ahead.

I see myself with bottles

helping feed the baby lambs,

I’m saddling up the ponies,

catching yabbies in the dams.

I glimpse a pretty orchard

filled with trees for me to climb –

the apples smell delicious

so it must be picking time.

I hear a rooster crowing

as it struts amongst the chooks

near a cosy little cottage

like the ones in picture books…

But now the vision’s fading

thanks to what I’ve just been told.

My dreams of country living

I may have to put on hold.

I won’t be catching yabbies,

won’t be riding through the scrub.

My Grandpa’s little farm is…

just some worms inside a tub!

Jenny Erlanger 

“Autumn Elegy” by Monty Edwards

Leave a comment

Autumn Elegy

Autumn leaves come tumbling down:

Orange, yellow, shades of brown;

Sun-dried, shaken, lost their grip:

Sailing breeze-borne like a ship;

Tossing, tacking, left and right:

Unpredictable their flight;

Watch them wander down the street, 

Where in huddled heaps they meet;

Left behind their mother tree:

Weeping still as each floats free.

Monty Edwards