All Poems
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Pigs
© Les Murray
Us all on sore cement was we.
Not warmed then with glares. Not glutting mush
under that pole the lightning's tied to.
No farrow-shit in milk to make us randy.
Late Summer Fires
© Les Murray
The paddocks shave black
with a foam of smoke that stays,
welling out of red-black wounds.
Bat's Ultrasound
© Les Murray
Sleeping-bagged in a duplex wing
with fleas, in rock-cleft or building
radar bats are darkness in miniature,
their whole face one tufty crinkled ear
The Dream Of Wearing Shorts Forever
© Les Murray
To go home and wear shorts forever
in the enormous paddocks, in that warm climate,
adding a sweater when winter soaks the grass,
The Aboriginal Cricketer
© Les Murray
Good-looking young man
in your Crimean shirt
with your willow shield
up, as if to face spears,
A Retrospect Of Humidity
© Les Murray
All the air conditioners now slacken
their hummed carrier wave. Once again
we've served our three months with remissions
in the steam and dry iron of this seaboard.
An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow
© Les Murray
The word goes round Repins,
the murmur goes round Lorenzinis,
at Tattersalls, men look up from sheets of numbers,
the Stock Exchange scribblers forget the chalk in their hands
and men with bread in their pockets leave the Greek Club:
There's a fellow crying in Martin Place. They can't stop him.
The Meaning Of Existence
© Les Murray
Everything except language
knows the meaning of existence.
Trees, planets, rivers, time
know nothing else. They express it
moment by moment as the universe.
Travels With John Hunter
© Les Murray
We who travel between worlds
lose our muscle and bone.
I was wheeling a barrow of earth
when agony bayoneted me.
Poetry And Religion
© Les Murray
Religions are poems. They concert
our daylight and dreaming mind, our
emotions, instinct, breath and native gesture
Ka 'Ba
© Imamu Amiri Baraka
A closed window looks down
on a dirty courtyard, and black people
call across or scream or walk across
defying physics in the stream of their will
Epistle to Neruda
© Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Superb,
Like a seasoned lion,
Neruda buys bread in the shop.
He asks for it to be wrapped in paper
Memento
© Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Like a reminder of this life
of trams, sun, sparrows,
and the flighty uncontrolledness
of streams leaping like thermometers,
Babi Yar
© Yevgeny Yevtushenko
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A drop sheer as a crude gravestone.
I am afraid.
Today I am as old in years
Conviction (ii)
© Stevie Smith
I walked abroad in Easter Park,
I heard the wild dog's distant bark,
I knew my Lord was risen again, -
Wild dog, wild dog, you bark in vain.
Conviction (iii)
© Stevie Smith
The shadow was so black,
I thought it was a cat,
But once in to it
I knew it
No more black
Than a shadow's back.
Pad, Pad
© Stevie Smith
I always remember your beautiful flowers
And the beautiful kimono you wore
When you sat on the couch
With that tigerish crouch
And told me you loved me no more.
Infelice
© Stevie Smith
Walking swiftly with a dreadful duchess,
He smiled too briefly, his face was pale as sand,
He jumped into a taxi when he saw me coming,
Leaving my alone with a private meaning,
Bag-Snatching In Dublin
© Stevie Smith
Sisely
Walked so nicely
With footsteps so discreet
To see her pass
You'd never guess
She walked upon the street.
Conviction (i)
© Stevie Smith
Christ died for God and me
Upon the crucifixion tree
For God a spoken Word
For me a Sword
