Evelyn Grace Briese

Evelyn Grace, I never got the chance to meet you.

To say hello. To say goodbye.

No chance to see your sweet face, your tiny hands, your perfect feet.

So I am sorrowful, sister dear, but you are happy.

As the wise man *wrote, you are more blessed than both the dead and the living.

And your soul is rejoicing, and your spirit is singing, for you are with Him

and you are experiencing the joy of living with Him face to face.

So dear little one, I know that we will meet one day

and we will greet each other as we truly are; fellow sons of God.

And we will never have to say hello

or goodbye.

*Ecclesiastes 4:2-3

Autumn in Toowoomba

Solicitous as a maitre de

the autumn dawn arrives filigreed with

the warble of wagtail and finch

Cumulus measle the grey sky

Ironbarks discuss needless alibi while

lawyer-gowned magpies hypothesize over the breakfast menu

The day unfolds to reveal

some drunk’s vomit congealed in

the gutter joining the stench of rotting leaves and diesel

Dusk settles with the authority

of ceaseless repetition as

the silent majority make their way home from work

Fast-food dishes of pizza and noodle

Eaten in front of programs with scant scruples as

the remora of twilight’s grey skin, the blue wash of digital

screens, appear on-cue

MDC

April 2018

King James Quoting King David

King James quotes King David

If, by morning, I leave any that pisses against the wall”

I was taught as a child that piss was a vulgar word,

not to be used by persons of good breeding

or polite nature. So you can imagine my surprise

to discover these words in my young teenage years.

A king using such language? If it is permissible for a king

to talk like this, why not a pleb?

Still, I have never felt free to use this word.

I suppose parental admonition is stronger than royal decree.

MDC

March 2018

Driving to Stanthorpe

We set off on the journey, suitably groomed,

clothed, and suitcased for a week at Grandma’s.

Days filled with fresh air, tea and shortbread loomed.

We breathed a mixture of anticipation and resignation.

The potholes in the road were filled with water

that captured fragments of the overhead sky

in portions larger than if they were filled with mortar;

Bringing the sky down so it was over us and under us

Feeling eerie, we drove between two skies expecting the universe

to fissure any minute from our unnatural action,

But the skies remained calm, clouds interspersed,

puffed and pompous like French pastries.

Empyrean dainties plump with heavenly manna,

watery intent dripping from their brows.

The universe split, dumping again its wet hosanna

with distemper and petulance upon us.

Arriving at the matriarchal residence

as we dismounted from our muddied sedan

the cerulean skies belied the sullied evidence;

We looked like travelers venturing from a previous epoch.

MDC

March 2018

Ode to Banjo

I’ve always wanted to write poetry just like ‘Banjo’ Paterson,

But I’ve neither had the intelligence or the wit.

Words flow from my mouth more easily than my pen,

And I’m often taken by many for a twit.

Banjo wrote of sheep and stockmen, and Clancy of the Overflow;

And characters you found along the track.

He made the past romantic, with somewhat of a lure

And I’ve often wished that I could travel back.

He had a sense of perception not common in our time

Though it was more usual in his day.

He could make you cry with a verse but when you turned the page

His prose would have you laughing all the way.

I could never hope for the skill or even for the wit

To write my verse with Banjo’s kind of flair

For history was his canvas; for colours he used words

And his “paintings” shine with a stately kind of air.

MDC

April ’81

Ball Tampering

A decision made in an unguarded moment

Lightly made as a result of faulty thinking, not realizing

the corrupted logic lying within

And like the decision, the execution of the dastardly deed was

haphazard and poorly discharged

Opening the way for inevitable discovery, making

the obviousness of the shame clear in an instant.

If only that clarity had exploded upon you before the event you would have

realized how puerile and distasteful it would seem to all

and now you wonder how you missed the undisguised rancor

that your behaviour would inescapably make.

Yes, so preventable, but your true motives and intentions

are now broadcast and the world sees that it was not

your decision that was unguarded but your true heart,

and now you are ashamed.

MDC

28/03/2018

Sunday Afternoon

An afternoon zephyr provides just enough

relief from the noon’s heat.

The hammock’s oscillation gently supporting

the whisper of the leaves conversation.

The stillness of the space causing time to halt,

the quietude becoming its own inertia, allowing eternity

room to express its presence.

Not asleep, but not awake, my thoughts idly

meander through the crevices of my mind

like unsupervised rivulets leisurely exploring

undiscovered territories.

The hiatus of body and discontinuity of mind

indistinguishable from each other, the vacuum

extending to the edges of reality.

The bang of back-fire startles the tranquility of the interval’s serenity,

causing the crows to caw and cry in kinned pandemonium;

Their unplanned escape successful nonetheless.

The raucous cacophony of kookaburras in the grey gums

laughing at the dissolution of our reverie.

Dogs bark, offended by the interruption to their siestas,

turning their complaints into a contest to see

who rules the neighbourhood.

A door slams somewhere, as if feeling the need

to join the protest against the rude disturbance,

and getting the last word in,

places a punctuation point on the whole affair.

Time to fire up the barbeque.

MDC

March 2018

On A Windy Day

The tree branches engage in a mysterious dance

An ancient frenzy; dos-à-dos and enchufla

The steps of which remain in taxonomic secrecy known

only to the phylum; even the wind does not understand

the choreographic response of the fronds.

The rhythm of their writhing declaring an impenetrable knowledge.

No matter how long I observe their swing,

sway and shimmy, I am no more learned of their communications than

before the weather changed.

MDC

March 2018

The Cost of Creativity

The cost of creativity is born by few while being enjoyed by the many.

More than material cost or financial cost is the personal cost paid by the artist

Knowing aforehand that they will follow their creativity

regardless that fortune and satisfaction will likely avoid them

Bound to their gift like a slave in chains

even though they feel freedom is not a choice available to them

Unwillingly accepting the inherent emotional risks

that are part and parcel of a creative life

Enduring for long seasons at the hand of their endowment

Undone by their gift, dying a little with the production of each work

And yet renewed a little by success, should it choose to come,

such recompense being elusive and fleeting.

And should success, wealth and fame present themselves

To then have to avoid the so easily stumbled upon offenses

of arrogance, conceit, narcissism, and pomposity.

Resolved that their artistry always leads to anguish

Either via the path of disappointment and exhaustion

Or the flame of fame and adoration.

Perceiving that humanity may be willing to adore their works

But not consider it important enough to purchase

That they will bemoan the poor state of funding by governments,

selfish procurement by corporations and

opportunistic acquisition by the wealthy

but make no effective step towards personal cost

in order to enrich their own lives, endow enterprise with pleasant environment,

or even to maintain the aesthetic culture of society.

For this reason, it is rare to find a truly creative person that is

Free without being wild

Expressive without being excessive

Unrestrained without being intemperate

Solitarian without being reclusive

Melancholy without being saturnine

Can we blame them when

Their solitude turns them into an eremite

Their ill-humour into moody antagonism

Their indiscriminate sins into public excesses

And their attempts at amelioration

produces alcoholic manic-depressives

We approve when a corporation commences an expensive re-engineering of itself

in order to better serve its customers.

We demand that politicians commit to a higher calling than their personal betterment.

We applaud when a sportsman lives on the poverty line in order to reach his goal.

We admire the mother who goes without in order to give to her children.

Why then do we observe with disapproval the artist who gives to the point of emotional bankruptcy for the very thing that brings purpose to themselves and amenity to the world?

MDC

March 2018

Considering Past Misperceptions

He sits, pondering, looking out the lounge window
The curtains billowing from the zephyred evening
The twilight air fretting upon his aging skin
His stubborn thoughts fretting upon his aging mind

His opinions framing his perceptions
like the window curtains filter the tableau through the casement
But a window needs drapery and perhaps the faulty
view is the price to be paid for such lovely curtains.



MDC
March 2018

The Concert

The slight nervousness

seeking allocated seats

seeking for known faces in the crowd

seeking for calm before the storm

The programme dims

auditorium lighting

conversations, pins dropping

vestiges of footfall

The roar of adulation

lifting people from their seats

raising their arms in adoration

satisfying their expectations

The first chord strikes

another explosion of elation

another wave of worship

another spike in audience adrenalin

The measure of music

halts chronology

stretches eternity

present and future united

The final encore brings

the thunderclap of applause

the exodus to the carpark

the sigh of fulfilment

the vacuum of insatiable desire

MDC

Feb 2018