Reality from Imagination

No more waiting for the apple to fall,
though the branches bend low 

to the ground, as if ready to yield 
to wind and gravity. 

No forward motion in the suspension 
of disbelief. Only retreat

into defeat after defeat.


Weathers 

i

This is the weather the crocodile adores
When the tropic sun bakes
the midday mud
And two million termites dislodge two tons of sod

ii

This is the weather the wildebeest abhors
When the tropic sun scorches
the savannah crossing
And lioness and cobra hold court in the curly leaf
and weeping love grass

iii

This is the weather the crocodile adores 
When the tropic sun bakes 
the midday mud
And two million poets surrender two million hearts 

Open the door to the autumn gales.
Above average temperatures.
Precipitation anomalies.
Dry fuel moisture alignments. 
Wild fires scorching the High Sierra. 
Sacramento. San Jose. Salinos.

Open the door to the brown and cream
Laguna Mountains skipper
(whose mottled wings have not been seen
these twenty years past)
near the mountain that carries its name.

Open the door to philosophy.
Poetry. Descriptions of the natural world. 
Aesthetisation. Politicisation.
Pesticide poisoning. Loss of habitat. 

Open the door to the scholiast 
underlining Pound’s personification 
of Jefferson e Mussolini, 
in the latticed shelves of Langson Library.

Open the door to anaesthetisation. 
Patronage. Personal interest. 
War. Perhaps then, we might see,
how nature ends in art, and art in nature.

As the age of digital reproduction
redacts both. Accelerating towards the sale
of the century.


After the Dreaming

Did the Gundungurra people see
the coming of the British colonialists into their world, 
the chicken pox, small pox, 
influenza and measles, or were they taken 
by surprise as they fled for their lives? 
 
Did the Dharawal people see 
the events of the Appin Massacre
where men, women and children were forced 
by armed men on horseback 
over the cliffs to their deaths at Cataract Gorge?

And what of the other massacres
veiled in secrecy, 
the Black War in Van Diemen's Land,
the Waterloo Creek Massacre,
and 'the war of extirpation' at Gwydir River?

Should we, if we could, still mention the cultural war
against our distant cousins, 
the bloody history of dispersal 
and dispossession, 
the ongoing exploitation and maltreatment, 

every European massacre and genocide?
Should we don the black arm-band
and cry into our cups 
at the back of the lecture theatre, 
or, might we join ourselves to the disquisition

and call it like it is: The Great Australian Silence?


Dead Dog Paradox

Was the dead dog man's best friend?

Did the dog deserve to be set on fire?
Did the dog deserve to be beaten with an iron bar?
Did the dog deserve to be hanged in the street?

Who set the trap to cut the dog in half?
What was the dog’s name?
Why was the dog skinned alive?

Had the dog played ball in the park?
Had the dog gone AWOL ?
Had the dog run amok in the town square?

Who threw the first stone?
Who wielded the knife?
Who shouted the orders?

Was the dead dog man’s best friend?

Mark A. Murphy has published poems in 18 countries.  When he isn’t writing, he spends his time editing online poetry journal, POETiCA REViEW www.poeticareview.co.uk