The Mating Game
I saw
two Willy Wagtail’s today
a simple thing,
watching
these small birds boogie,
flaunting,
wagging
their tails undisturbed
by passersby.
I think of
the woman who contentedly
walked past them
a young mans arm
draped across her shoulders,
hips
moving in tandem,
flirting.
© debarnes February 2002 -26
The Wall Came
The drizzling sky was gray, ominous
as the couple crossed the Todd river causeway
unaware of the distended ferocity
surging swiftly nearer, towards them
down from the hills.
They were young tourists
their Holden Ute’s wheels, pushing slowly
through the low waters
its dirty-white froth an ancient warning.
Suddenly, all too real
a rabid wall of water and debris,
six feet high struck.
The couple’s Ute swiftly swept away.
It was days
before the rivers power subsided,
and the Ute found wedged eight feet
up a gum tree, twisted in the branches.
The town searched long hard down-river
over thirty miles along the banks,
from the Alice Springs causeway
and their bodies were never found.
Two weeks later
white sands were bone-dry
ghost gums stark in the sandy bed.
The midday sun scorching hot, the long dry
drought ended.
Rarely will the red-center
give up its concealed secrets,
and perhaps it never will
perhaps that is what the desert-river
had in mind.
© debarnes March 2002 -20
"All Quiet At 3: am..."
I have spent years perfecting my surrender.
Searching for the one love to fill my old wound,
after all these years I feel the dissolution.
My loneliness is a recurring nightmare scene
pain it seems - prefers you awakened from your sleep;
"I didn’t recognize you
in my tea leaves at 3: am..."
I have spent years perfecting my surrender.
Now my body obeys its own variable patterns
at times I think I am too old for lightening to happen;
pain it seems - prefers you awakened from your sleep
and my dry old tears
will not bring back a life.
I have spent years perfecting my surrender.
You said to find another that I need a woman by my side,
has your death coloured my eyes blurring my mind.
If this is so I will be forever invisible in the night
pain it seems - prefers you awakened from your sleep;
drinking warm tea or coffee
looking up for her - as I write.
© debarnes March 2002 -12
David Barnes:
A brief- Bio'
of my life--
I began writing at 18 years of age when I took up folk guitar,
performing at folk centers around main-land Australia and Tasmania.
I worked as a carpenter in Melbourne, leaving for the bush in the early 60's,
finally settling in Perth 1972.I became a full-time writer poet in 1996.
I have been an active Internet poet, and have been published in Australia and
at many online poetry venues in America, England and France.
I was first published in the Paris/Atlantic,a literary journal in 2001.
I also have poetry published in Anthologies released in 2001 & 2002 by Empowa Inc.
here in Western Australia.Further work has been published in Firefly Magazine
and in the Poets Hall of Fame Anthology released late 2001.
My poetry has been acccepted for an Anthology Number ( 2 )
with its release in Austin U.S.A., 2003.In addition to writing,
I have been the publisher/editor of Poetry Downunder 1998-2002,
an online poetry site now known as Numbat Poetry Journal.
established January 2003.
