Poem # 94 Any other day.

Any other day.

" I want to talk about this. It's important."
  " but can it wait until I get some of the
other things I have to do out of the way. "
" Sure."
It was said in a way that communicated
that she wasn't happy about pushing the
question aside.
  " I can see that you are upset now.
Don't be upset."
" I am not upset."
  " I can sense that you are"
' I just want to make it clear that I am
not in your life to be an assistant."
I was never sure in these situations
whether I should smile or not. I
attempted an explanation."
  " I simply asked if you would do me
this favour. If you don't want to do it,
or doing it is going to have all this bad
feeling attached to it, then we-"
"I told you I wasn't upset. Can we drop
it for now?"
I reached for my glass and took a long
drink, draining it. I reached for the bottle
and poured some more.
  " Certainly," I said, wondering if I
should open another bottle right
now, or later when I had finished
this one.

Poem # 93 No turn left unstoned.

No turn left unstoned

I nearly hit the large wombat on the gravel
road where it dips to the creek.
The light filtered by the stringy bark was thin
in the evening hours.
The big ute drifted with no traction
around the bend and even though I steered
into the skid I completed a 180 before I stopped
headlights pointing in the direction from which
I had come.
This road is way too dangerous, I thought,
I need a beer.
On its own the radio was picking up a weak
station fading in and out. Country and western.
Something about a weekend at a rodeo that
went awry.
I imagined a cement bunker and a lone
radio tower with a blinking red beacon,
personally transmitting to me from an island
in the middle of a dam.
I leaned an elbow on the sill and settled in
for the rest of the drive. Fate.
It was meant to be.
God was watching out for me,
not wanting me yet

Poem # 92 Current ( Flow of Life )

Would she ever be willful again
she wondered,
now that the little one had been born.
In passion she had conceived and
given birth and now she felt that
her own clearly defined identity
was no longer clear or defined,
now at this place of the merging
of three lives.
A river with tributaries where each
stream became a part of another,
that was the sincere hope;
but just as rivers and streams, especially strong ones
erode their banks, would these two do that to her?
Would their needs and demands
cave her in, suck her dry,
just as the little one sucked now
hungry for her life force.

Poem # 91 Night time Chatham Valley

The fire was built from foraged material,
red.
A blood moon in the west and
overhead
diamond stars.
I looked deep into the flames
to see what was there
a symbol?, a message?.
there was wire that had burnt out of
fence posts and left garbled shapes
in the ashes, and coils of it stood in the fire,
and the coils pulsed red hot deep in the
devil eye coals.
In the half light my horses
had come out of the darkness
and stood in the damp mist
falling from the eucalypts,
their coats mussed rough with
damp and their own eyes
burning with curiousity.
I thought of relationships
nearly always based on expectations
and possibly false promises,
or beliefs; and the coils of wire in the flames
spoke to me of the tangled web
which is life.