STORIES and POETRY




Man Stands at the Crossroad and Contemplates Humankind Making
its Way Beyond the Cosmic Machine. Cecilia Bustamante

Literary works by leading poets and thinkers of the English world
AUSTRALIAN CONTEMPORARY POETRY - Anti-war and Social subject poems       Contemporary Poetry 7






THE VISION OF ST EUSTACE

David Brooks

Four weeks ago a wind
straight from Siberia
scraped through the square
snapping the leaves off plane trees,
hiding the village
behind closed shutters, curtained doors.
Now, the weather milder, nearing Christmas,
small boys are kicking footballs
in the Place Jeu de Ballon
while their fathers
trim vines beyond Tressan
or play petanque behind the Mairie
and Madam Sabatier's idiot brother Robert
sits on his bench
with his one yellow glove
shooting imaginary pigeons from the air.
Straight
from The Vision of St Eustace,
a young brown dog, too
callow for the hunt
runs down the Impasse des Cigales
with a stolen croissant.
A few granates
still cling to the winter bushes; the path
to Le Puget
is strewn with fallen almonds.
In the field by the highway
the pheasants
have nested over the ancient ice-house.
After the thunder
of the Mirage chasseur
a slender glider
drifts soundless through the light-grey sky.
In the White House, half
a century away,
the President wipes his prick,
declares another war against Iraq;
on the tarmac, intelligent missiles sit
in cold and steely silence, unable to think
of what they are about to do.

    INVOKING PEACE


    Jenni Nixon


		 1.

Ubaka is beating her drum     
in a small Lilyfield community hall 
in my memory     grown there     
seeded from song
Ubaka    is singing the world awake     
she is healing the earth    cleansing the waters      
Ubaka  is chanting
we won’t fight your war   /  we won’t fight your war
Calling Peace    Calling Peace

Ubaka is beating her beloved drum     
magic thrums the air    
as women dance    shake their booty   
bums and bellies undulate
women stomp their feet     
bang the beat on drums  
we are shouting
we won’t fight your war   /  we won’t fight your war
Calling Peace    Calling Peace



		2.

just don’t talk to me of war: 
crusades against the Infidel 
formidable foes   reaping the whirlwind 
Satan and the Axis of Evil    student of  Stalin
homicidal dictator   addicted to weapons of mass destruction
the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud

I’m suffering battle fatigue     
bludgeoned  by speech writers   
who never learn their history

don’t tell me:
those towel-heads should pack up their carpets and go back home to the desert
queue jumpers are illegal refugees    and   you gotta draw the line somewhere don’t ‘cha

‘Voice of God’  voice-over tells me:    warfare isn’t natural     
Pyramids of Caral   -   ‘Mother City of Civilisation’    
in Peru    trading with neighbours    
prospers in peace   for a thousand years    
the desert blooms    irrigated for cotton       
no fortifications     no weapons of battle       

				2002

         HUNGRY

Dorothy Porter

Listen to the Poet Read
    Money, I'm thinking money

as Mr Norris
in his blue faintly BO'ed suit
leans on the balcony rail
scaring the lorikeets off their sugar

a moody man
who signs the cheques
and lets his wife do the talking
when its the kids not business

he hopes, as usual
there's nothing money can't fix

I'm hopeful too

'There shouldn't be a problem'
I say to his tense shoulders 'I'll bring her home.'
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