All Poems
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A Description Of The King
© Zbigniew Herbert
The king's beard on which sauces and ovations
fell until it became heavy as an axe
appears suddenly in a dream to a man condemned to die
and on a candlestick of flesh shines alone in the dark.
Notes To Be Left In A Cornerstone
© Stephen Vincent Benet
So, always, there were the streets and the high, clear light
And it was a crowded island and a great city;
They built high up in the air.
Market Day
© Amy Lowell
White, glittering sunlight fills the market square,
Spotted and sprigged with shadows. Double rows
The Sailing Of The Long-Ships
© Sir Henry Newbolt
They saw the cables loosened, they saw the gangways cleared,
They heard the women weeping, they heard the men that cheered;
Far off, far off, the tumult faded and died away,
And all alone the sea-wind came singing up the Bay.
Prospect NSW (For Anita Cobby)
© Dale Harcombe
The hushed dark hugs the streets.
Somewhere a cat snaps the silence.
Dogs begin to bark, like a pack
moving in for the kill.
Advice To The Ladies At Bath. Written By A Lady.
© Mary Barber
Ye heedless Fair, who trifle Life away,
Let either Brownlow set your Notions right:
Be, like the Daughter, innocently gay;
Or, like the Mother, prudent and polite.
Home's Kid (For Glenn)
© Dale Harcombe
This time I know
I will never see him again.
For a time he played the game,
like a child experimenting with blocks,
The Swan
© Rainer Maria Rilke
This laboring through what is still undone,
as though, legs bound, we hobbled along the way,
is like the awkward walking of the swan.
Mollymook
© Dale Harcombe
All week, in this rented house,
sea spray and whispers of wind
weave through the eucalypts,
like a Sondheim melody.
Bruise blue
© Dale Harcombe
Frail as smoke, she drifts
through the crowded train,
bringing with her
the cold ashes of poverty.
One Of The Signers
© John Greenleaf Whittier
O storied vale of Merrimac
Rejoice through all thy shade and shine,
And from his century's sleep call back
A brave and honored son of thine.
For Joseph
© Dale Harcombe
*first published Westerly 1993 - Republished Central Western Daily January 12, 1996
recently republished in On Common Water the Ginninderra 10th birthday anthology
Brass Kaleidoscope
© Dale Harcombe
I had a kaleidoscope once.
Sometimes
I still see oblique patterns.
Apollo And The Graces
© John Keats
WHICH of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me?
My steeds are all pawing at the threshold of the morn:
Which of the fairest three
To-day will ride with me
Across the gold Autumn's whole Kingdom of corn?
Quest for Thee
© Vanessa Perkins
pain used to hurt
the words cut me life a knife
shame filled my head at night
I used to think there was no place to go
i searched for a place
to hide and bury my thoughts
XIII: Epistle: To Katherine, Lady Aubigny
© Benjamin Jonson
'Tis growne almost a danger to speake true
Of any good minde, now: There are so few.
The Return of Frankenstein
© Edward Field
He didn't die in the whirlpool by the mill
where he had fallen in after a wild chase
by all the people of the town.
Two Centuries
© Katharine Lee Bates
Above the tall elms' green-plumed tops, etched against low-hung, gray-hued skies,
Straight as the heaven-kissing pine, the home-bound mariner descries
The goodly spire of the old first church, reverend, serene, with old-time grace,
Symbol and sign of an inner life deep-sealed by time's slow carven trace.
The Bride of Frankenstein
© Edward Field
The Baron has decided to mate the monster,
to breed him perhaps,
in the interests of pure science, his only god.
