The Andamooka Storm
The saltbush stirred in a sullen breeze
At the Coober Pedy Mine,
Where the ground was baked to a shallow crust
With the surface cracked, and lined,
For it hadn't rained for a seven month,
And the sky was clear and blue,
While a spirit crept from the Opal stone,
At Andamooka, too.
At Mintabie, the wind crept out
Of a hole in the sacred ground,
It swirled and it swept across the land
As the spirit scowled and frowned,
It formed a cone and it swept around
To the Andamooka side,
And joined with the Coober Pedy wind
Like a bridegroom to a bride.
The cone spread out three hundred miles,
It growled as it whirled in grace,
And the dust it stirred streamed skywards up
Like a funnel in outer space,
While the men below in the Opal Mines
Hid deep in the dugout's lair,
Lay flat on the floor and held their ears
From the scream of the storm out there!
While less than a hundred miles away
In the depths of a grim old ruin,
Sat a slip of a girl with a surly mouth
At a table, in the gloom,
For piled up high on the table lay
The fruits of her father's life,
The greens and the golds of the Opal stones
That he'd worked for, with his wife.
But the girl sat quite alone in there,
And could it be, she smiled,
These sacks of rocks, not the only things
That lay by the demon child,
For by her hand lay a hammer, stained
With the colour of earth and mud,
And something that glistened and dried on it,
The red of her parents' blood!
She strained and heaved at the sacks of rocks
And dragged them out to the car,
Then looked across at the mound of earth
That covered a gaping scar,
She dragged the last sack to the porch
As the wind burst over the hill,
And she saw the funnel of dust that swirled
As she worked her evil will.
The edge of the swirling hurricane
Whipped over the shallow mound,
Then swept it up in a stream that brought
A scream of a different sound,
She ran out waving her puny fists
At the spirit of Mintabie,
But the storm had growled as the girl had howled
At the storm, to let her be!
The old prospector's body lay
Uncovered at last out there,
His wife beside as she too had died
With the blood running through her hair,
They stared unseeing before them now
At the daughter who screamed and cried,
But the storm drowned out the daughter's shout,
As she tumbled about, outside.
The funnel whirled for an hour, then left,
It ravaged the countryside,
Took a hundred thousand tons of dirt
On a whirling dervish ride,
It covered the Sydney Harbour Bridge
Left cities to choke in the dust,
To tell of a daughter's parricide
And the loss of a mother's trust!
While waiting out by an ancient track
For the next car passing by,
Is a sight to curdle the hardest heart,
Two corpses, side by side,
They lie uncovered, while straight ahead
In line, where their eyes had been,
Is a girl who's buried right up to her neck,
Who couldn't be quite fourteen!
25 September 2009
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Swan Song
Her hair was as black as a starling's tail,
Her cheeks as pale as a swan,
Her eyes, like two slim moonstones, glowed
And her mouth was the Holy Grail.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.
While I still rise with the early bird
To tend to my father's fields,
As the only son of an only son
I watched the woman leave.
She cried sweet tears as she said farewell
And vowed to come back, and soon,
But the village streets of a western town
Hold nothing for Ling Xiaodan.
The weeks went by, then the months and years
And I heard of her now and then,
She was dressed in expensive clothes, I heard,
She was driving a shiny car;
She was seen at the Beijing Opera
By a man who worked at the door,
'She glided by like a Queen, ' he said,
'As her dress trailed long on the floor.'
And her wai po, down in the village square
Would brag of her daughter's girl,
'She will snare some man with a million yuan, '
She said, 'not a farmer's son.
Go home to your fields and forget her now,
She's not for an also-ran! '
And laughed, as the tears sprang into my eyes
For the love of Ling Xiaodan.
She came back once to the village street
To her home, as ever we must,
But carefully held her dress up high
To avoid the rubbish and dust,
I stood at the side and she looked at me,
Then turned, looked quickly away,
For Ling Xiaodan and a farmer's son
Had nothing at all to say.
But I saw her once before she left,
Alone by the mountain stream,
Her eyes were sorrowful, in remorse,
Remembering how we'd been.
'I loved you once, as a child, ' she said
'But the world is harsh, and grey...
We do what our fathers want us to,
And my father sent me away.'
I sat by her then, and held her hand,
Stroking her neck, and hair,
And kissed the cheek, so pale and wan,
And I cried in a deep despair.
'You must get on with your life, ' she said,
'Get a wife and a baby son;
I leave tomorrow to see the man
That my father has met in town.'
I heard that she'd wed a businessman,
And cried in the quiet gloom,
My dream had died by the mountain stream,
On that day, in the afternoon.
She worked in a shop her husband owned,
So they said, but I never heard
'Til the body was brought back home again,
That the love of my life was dead.
It seemed that she'd sold her favours there
In the rear of a grimy store,
To any man with the change to spare
While her husband played Mah Jongg.
He'd gambled his fortune, and lost it all
While his wife kept the fool from jail
With what she earned with her hands and hair,
And a mouth like the Holy Grail.
But then, a man who was ill or mad
Put his grimy hands at her throat,
And squeezed the life from the darling neck
That I'd once both loved, and stroked.
They buried her up on the mountainside
By the stream, in sight of her home,
And from where I stand in the paddy fields
I can see her pale white stone.
She'd played in the dirt of the village street
So long ago, so long...
She'd swum in the pools of the mountain stream,
But now, that girl had gone.
I married a woman I barely knew
And she bore me a black-haired girl,
With eyes like two slim moonstones, and...
A mouth like the Holy Grail.
10 March 2006
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Im The Girl
Ive got a memory
A thousand years old
And I know secrets
Ive never been told
And Ive got jewels
I havent found
And theyll return me
To the ground
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
And Im a siren
Ill wreck you on my shores
And Im godiva
Ill call you back for more
And Im medusa
And Im your favourite doll
And Im a georgia okeefe
Hanging on your wall
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
Im joan of arc
Im the girl next door
Im the mother and the daughter
Of the mother and the daughter before
And I remember being born just sound and light
And sound and light and light
And I remember the first time, skin on skin in the arms
In the arms of the night
Well how many times have we looked up into the starry skies
And how many times have we felt the passion rise
Every ruby-lipped girl baby, old lady, squaw junkie, girl after girl after girl
Every muse, whore, good witch, princess, back arching, year after year after year
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
Im the girl, Im the girl, Im the girl
You know me
Im joan of arc
Im the girl next door
Im the mother and the daughter
Of the mother and the daughter
The mother and the daughter
Of the mother and the daughter
The mother and the daughter
Of the mother and the daughter
Before.
song performed by by Heather Nova
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Cliff House
When the sun has set in the wintertime
And I'm all alone in this grey old house,
I bolt the shutters and pull the blinds
And set a spark to the candlewax;
The wind runs howling about the eaves,
The shutters chatter, the wind-cock spins,
The breakers clatter and clash below
As my world returns to me, widdershins.
It's then that I hear my mother's voice
So faint at first in the storm outside,
She sighs and moans, and I hear her plead
The length and breadth of the countryside.
Her voice soughs out from the aspens near,
Quivers in ferns and rocks, as if
No year that followed has spent her need
For still she sobs at the edge of the cliff.
Her voice comes whispering under the door
I plug my ears and I cry out loud:
'Leave me, mother, you worked your will,
You earned your fee of a graveyard shroud! '
Still she mutters and moans for him
The shape that darkened our outer door,
Whenever my father was not around
I'd hear his steps on the oaken floor.
Then I'd be sent to my lonely room
And told to play as she locked me in,
Her eyes were bright and her tone was gay
As she breathless, left for her wayward sin.
I heard them laugh in the room above,
The steady beat as they rocked the bed,
And then he'd bellow, and she would scream
As I pulled the covers right over my head.
On winter nights she would pace the floor,
Impatient then, and she'd peer outside,
Men with torches were on the beach
And I'd hear them curse at the rising tide.
But then I'd peek through my window shades
To see them marching up over the hill,
Carrying barrels and flagons of wine
To the village, seen from my window-sill.
She caught me once and she screamed in fright,
'You never, never must look, you see!
Those men are phantoms, they're only ghosts
From wrecks aground on the outer key.'
Then later came the knock at the door,
I saw the shadow, the wide brimmed hat,
And as she turned the key in the lock,
I heard her whisper, and sigh: 'Oh Jack! '
I asked her once who the stranger was
Who came so late, it was awful queer,
'It's always dark when he comes to call,
He never comes when my father's here.'
My mother grimaced, and turned quite pale
Then said, 'he brings us our victuals, son,
Tea and coffee, sugar and salt,
And a bushel of wheat and barleycorn.'
One day, a team of Revenue Men
Were waiting there in the cove below,
A gale was blowing, the breakers crashed,
I woke when the early rooster crowed.
Then lights and men in a mad melee
And a gun went off and a scream of pain,
I watched as they marched them over the hill,
A line of phantoms encased in chain.
My mother ran from the open door,
Out to the windswept cliff she fled,
I heard her moan as she looked on down
At the figure that lay on the beach, stone dead.
My father followed her, looking grim
As he stood behind in the driving rain,
But mother fell to her knees, and wailed
Like a banshee whirled in a pit of pain.
I left the window, I crossed the room,
I took the stairs at a run that day,
The door lay open to morning gloom
I raced on out in the pouring rain.
But over toward the edge of the cliff
I could see my father, looking down,
Mother lay on the beach below, while
All my father could do was frown.
I'll never know if she jumped that day
To join the shape that lay dead on the beach,
Or whether my father pushed her there,
A love long dead, that was out of reach.
He cried no tears, that I recall
When they buried them both in a hillside grave,
But followed them after a year and a day,
Slashed his throat in the old church nave.
Years have gone, and I prowl the house,
Perched on the edge of this dreadful cliff,
I dare not leave, for my mother's cries
Blow in and out from the storm swept reef.
But late on wintry nights the sound
Of those heavy steps on the oaken floor,
A shadow passes my room at night
And my mother sighs, and I hear no more.
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Devil's Loco
I live by an ancient railway track
Near the village of Nether Stonely,
Though the trains were left in the distant past,
And the ribbon of track is lonely,
The rails are rusted, covered in weeds
And lead to an old stone tunnel,
That squads of Victorian engineers
Once sealed to the height of a funnel.
As lads, we'd clamber up to the top
And peer through the gap left up there,
Into the pitch of the blackness, where
You could still get a whiff of sulphur.
We'd shout ‘Hello! ' there, into the dark,
And listen to hear the echo
Bounce off the curve of the soot-black walls
That seemed to be whispering ‘Loco! '
The legend went that a local lad
In '93, in the winter,
Had followed his dog as it chased a hare,
They'd all been seen to go in there,
A tank, a 2.4.2 went in
To the dark of the old stone tunnel,
With sparks and smoke obscuring the view
As sulphur poured from its funnel.
It didn't come out from the other side,
The boy never reappeared,
The company suddenly closed off the line
With that bevy of engineers,
The loco was written right off from the books,
They said it had gone to the knackers,
And secretive meetings were held at the docks
With directors, and all of their backers!
I slipped right over that wall at ten,
But nobody would believe me,
And felt my way through the darkness then
As my eyes, they thought to deceive me,
A loco, cold, and covered in rust
Stood silent there in the tunnel,
And under the front, a skeleton crushed,
As dead as the old train's funnel!
On winter days when a fog or haze
Comes down, I can hear it barking,
A dog in chase of a hare, and then
The sound of a young boy laughing,
And then the rumble and chuff of a train
Drifts faintly over the meadow,
As I cover my ears to muffle the scream
And the sound of the Devil's Loco!
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Demon under the Altar Stone
As a boy in a ruff and a surplice, gown,
I sang in the choir of a country town,
Under the eye of the Reverend Burr
In a church that had stood for a thousand years.
A church so old that it reeked of damp
From the days of an Anglo-Saxon camp,
They'd built their Church on a Druid site
To banish the wailing ghosts at night!
The Romans had slaughtered the Druid priests
In a river of blood at a Druid Feast,
And still their cries could be heard on nights
When the moon gleamed red by the altar lights.
The beams streamed in through the leadlight glass
With an eerie glow that was overcast,
Illumined the ancient altar stone
That covered the Bishop of Cædmon's bones.
The slab that lay on the floor was lipp'd
As it covered the age-old church's crypt,
And there was a crack, an inch around
Through to the crypt there, under the ground.
From where I sat in the old oak pew
I could see the back of the altar, too,
And through a gap where the floor was bare
Were moving shadows that shouldn't be there!
The crypt had been sealed, eight hundred years
Since the Normans had taken the Saxon Reeves,
Imprisoned them down in the crypt for good
Then walled them in - (so I understood!)
And there they suffered and there they died
The Shire Reeves of the countryside,
And no-one had ever been down there since,
Or disturbed their bones... for the merest glimpse.
The Reverend Burr was hellfire bent,
His sermons called to the sinners, 'Repent! '
He ranted and raved of a jealous God,
And asked why nobody reck'd his rod.
The smell of sulphur hung in the air
After a sermon by Reverend Burr,
And brimstone caught in my nostrils so
That I almost gagged at the horror below.
One Sunday, kneeling at evensong
I stared at the ancient altar stone,
And there I saw, and to my surprise,
A glow that appeared to be two red eyes!
They glowed bright red, and they stared at me
As if I were alone in the gallery,
My mind was full of the vicar's gall,
And I felt that a demon had pawned my soul.
The eyes dropped down in the crypt instead
And shadows moved, to my mounting dread,
So after the service I hurried on home,
As far as I could from that altar stone!
A week went by, and I thought of things,
Convinced they must be imaginings,
So off I went to the choir again,
But just to be safe, I whispered, 'Ben! '
'You see the crack in the altar stone,
Just tell me if I'm the only one,
I saw two eyes in that crack last week,
They scared me so much that I couldn't speak! '
The vicar stood by the altar there
With his bulging eyes and his crazy hair
And he roared and he pounded his fist on down
'Til it shook and it rattled the altar stone.
He spoke of torment and endless grief,
For the sin of pride, and the skulking thief,
For the lover of all material things,
The women who covered their hands with rings!
Adulterers were the scourge of God
And would fall in the cracks of the earth, he said,
While those who harboured an impure thought,
Their hopes of heaven were set at naught.
(But all the while it was widely known
That the vicar had been with the widow Rowan,
She'd visited him at the rectory,
And breakfasted in the Refectory) .
His voice rose up and the altar stone
Began to rumble and then to groan,
I felt Ben tense at the side of me
As the eyes rose up, as red as could be!
The eyes rose up and peered from the gloom
Of the crypt, long cursed by a Druid Moon,
The more the vicar harangued and roared,
The more that it rumbled under the floor.
The doors blew open, the wind blew in
Like a storm raised up from the depths of sin,
The people ran for the path outside,
'You've raised the devil, ' the people cried.
And then the floor it had opened up
Where the vicar stood, he had said enough!
Just for a moment we caught a glimpse
Of the thing in the crypt that we've not seen since!
An evil demon with blood-red eyes,
With hands like hooks of a monstrous size,
And teeth that grinned in the fading gloom,
The vicar fell into that terrible room.
We heard him scream just once down there
The sound of a sinner beyond despair,
And then the demon went down with a drone,
Covered the hole with the altar stone!
That church stood empty, unused for years,
They said that it carried a Druid curse,
But who would go down to the crypt alone,
Or think to disturb the altar stone?
29 June 2009
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dust In The Wind
Music : Kerry Livgren
Lyrics: Kerry Livgren
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Now, Don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the earth and sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
song performed by by Scorpions
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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100 Miles
(kirke)
Hey little girl, I love you so
Id walk a hundred miles to let you know
Hey little baby, your eyes sure shine
When your hand reaches out and touches mine
cos youre my baby, youre my baby, my little girl
Hey little girl, let me kiss your lips
Let me feel you thrill to my fingertips
Hey little baby, let me take your hand
Let me lead you to the promised land
cos youre my baby, youre my baby, my little girl
Hey little girl, I love you so
Id walk a hundred miles to let you know
Hey little girl, I love you so
Id walk a hundred miles to let you know
song performed by by Bad Company
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The King's Pilgrimage
Our King went forth on pilgrimage
His prayers and vows to pay
To them that saved our heritage
And cast their own away.
And there was little show of pride,
Or prows of belted steel,
For the clean-swept oceans every side
Lay free to every keel.
And the first land he found, it was shoal and banky ground -
Where the broader seas begin,
And a pale tide grieving at the broken harbour-mouth
Where they worked the death-ships in.
And there was neither gull on the wing,
Nor wave that could not tell
Of the bodies that were buckled in the life-buoy's ring
That slid from swell to swell.
All that they had they gave - they gave; and they shall not return,
For these are those that have no grave where any heart may mourn.
And the next land he found, it was low and hollow ground -
Where once the cities stood,
But the man-high thistle had been master of it all,
Or the bulrush by the flood.
And there was neither blade of grass,
Nor lone star in the sky
But shook to see some spirit pass
And took its agony.
And the next land be found, it was bare and hilly round -
Where once the bread-corn grew,
But the fields were cankered and the water was defiled,
And the trees were riven through.
And there was neither paved highway,
Nor secret path in the wood,
But had borne its weight of the broken clay
And darkened 'neath the blood.
Father and mother they put aside, and the nearer love also -
An hundred thousand men who died whose graves shall no man
know.
And the last land he found, it was fair and level ground
About a carven stone,
And a stark Sword brooding on the bosom of the Cross
Where high and low are one.
And there was grass and the living trees,
And the flowers of the spring,
And there lay gentlemen from out of all the seas
That ever called him King.
'Twixt Nieuport sands and the eastward lands where the Four Red Rivers spring,
Five hundred thousand gentlemen of those that served their King.
All that they had they gave - they gave -
In sure and single faith.
There can no knowledge reach the grave
To make them grudge their death
Save only if they understood
That, after all was done,
We they redeemed denied their blood
And mocked the gains it won.
poem by Rudyard Kipling
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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A Storm Is Coming
An angry grey comes from the deepening storm
Caressing the wings of petrels, gulls and a
Lone storm riding albatross
Greens curling twisting into grey corners
Black edges spitting razor rain
Wind driven craziness
Smiling predatory hunters gather on the front line
Storms bring nervous food sources
That have lost caution
Thrown it to the wind so easy
This wind that whips up salty froth
The rain rains
Big fish eat
Little fish die
There is a symphony of sound
That no one hears
Storms assume that the world is deaf
There is a hundred colours here
Mixing on this easel of nature
Out here on the sea of bluster
This way and that way
The wind and the waters
The wind and the waves
The wind and the wild
Wanton storm song
That no one else can sing
And the birds wheel and cry
Turn and fly away just before they cant
The beasts of the deep grey green
do the same
Only I cannot turn and fly away
Only I remain and scream at the sight
sound and might.
poem by Geoffrey Fafard
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Wind Stopper
When the wind blows I have failed
So upon my head it shall hail
For I don't deserve such a title
If I can't stop something so vital.
My name is the Wind Stopper
and Wind I must stop
I have saved a town once or twice
but I have failed when a girl flew her kite.
You may not think that wind is bad
But you haven't seen the tings I have
A vicious storm can take a life
Is it worth living without your wife?
I once had a wife
but she was taken from me
A huge wind storm had taken her life
So I stop wind, now you see.
poem by Austin Alfano
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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To Hannah
Spirit girl to whom 'twas given
To revisit scenes of pain,
From the hell I thought was Heaven
You have lifted me again;
Through the world that I inherit,
Where I loved her ere she died,
I am walking with the spirit
Of a dead girl by my side.
Through my old possessions only
For a very little while,
And they say that I am lonely,
And they pity, but I smile:
For the brighter side has won me
By the calmness that it brings,
And the peace that is upon me
Does not come of earthly things.
Spirit girl, the good is in me,
But the flesh you know is weak,
And with no pure soul to win me
I might miss the path I seek;
Lead me by the love you bore me
When you trod the earth with me,
Till the light is clear before me
And my spirit too is free.
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Dust In The Wind
I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Flash before my eyes of curiosity
Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind
Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Now
Don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
song performed by by Kansas
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Deposition
Dust storm, we thought, a brown swarm
plugging the lungs, or a locust-cloud,
but this was a collapse, a slow sinking
to deeper brown, and deeper still, like the sky
seen from inside a well as we are lowered down,
and the air twisting and tearing at itself.
But it was done. And the body hung there
like a butchered thing, naked and alone
in a sudden hush among the ravaged air.
The ankles first—slender, blood-caked,
pale in the sullen dark, legs broken
below the knees, blue bruises smoldering
to black. And the spikes. We tugged iron
from human flesh that dangled like limbs
not fully hacked from trees, nudged
the cross beam from side to side until
the sign that mocked him broke loose.
It took all three of us. We shouldered the body
to the ground, yanked nails from wrists
more delicate, it seemed, than a young girl’s
but now swollen, gnarled, black as burnt twigs.
The body, so heavy for such a small man,
was a knot of muscle, a batch of cuts
and scratches from the scourging, and down
the right side a clotted line of blood,
the sour posca clogging his ragged beard,
the eyes exploded to a stare that shot
through all of us and still speaks in my dreams:
I know who you are.
So, we began to wash
the body, wrenching the arms, now stiff
and twisted, to his sides, unbending
the ruined legs and sponging off the dirt
of the city, sweat, urine, shit—all the body
gives—from the body, laying it out straight
on a sheet of linen rank with perfumes
so that we could cradle it, haul it
to the tomb. The wind shouted.
The foul air thickened. I reached over
to close the eyes. I know who you are.
poem by B.H. Fairchild
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Rain that Came to Stay
‘How much longer this drought, ' he said,
‘The creeks are running dry,
There's not a lot in the reservoir
And not a cloud in the sky,
The farmers, shooting the cattle that
Have nothing out there to drink,
How much longer this drought, ' he cried
In the pub at Innaminck!
The soil had turned to a fine bulldust,
The drought had cracked the clay,
There wasn't a green shoot anywhere
To be seen by the light of day,
The crops had failed, were ploughed back in
In hopes that the rain would come,
But the skies were clear for the rest of the year
From there to Jerusalem!
A tinker called in a beat-up car
And staggered in with his bag,
‘I'm Mickey Malone from County Down
With a thirst that could choke a shag! '
The barman served him a schooner, with
One gulp, he put it away,
But emptied his empty pockets when
The barman asked him to pay.
The tinker started his blarney then,
‘I'll sharpen your knives for free!
Just give me another schooner, chum
And we'll see what we will see!
I'll cut your keys, and I'll wash a dish,
Or I'll give you a hundred pegs.'
The barman reached and he grabbed his throat,
And lifted him off his legs!
‘You'll have to do better than that, my man,
Don't drink my beer for free!
I'm taking the wheels of your beat-up car
‘Til you play it straight with me! '
‘Hang on, hang on, just what do you want,
Whatever will pay my due! '
‘We could do with a shower of rain, my man,
But that's all I'd want from you! '
The tinker nodded, ‘No sooner said!
I'll make it tomorrow noon,
You'll have to give me a room to rent
And I'll whip it up in the gloom.'
The barman sneered, ‘You're having me on,
No way can you make it rain! '
‘You'll see, tomorrow, ' the tinker said,
‘Though you might think I'm insane! '
The barman locked him and his bag in a room,
And took a wheel off his car,
He knew if the tinker tried to escape
He wouldn't be going far,
But come the dawn, was a distant cloud
Spread out, and up from the south,
It tumbled and turned in the atmosphere
And looked like a dragon's mouth.
At noon the cloud was over their heads,
All black, and threatening rain,
A whirly blew up a dust storm there
And swirled at each window pane,
They locked the door of the pub up tight
And waited, tense as a rag,
The rain came down, ‘Aha, ' he said,
And the tinker patted his bag!
The patter of rain was heard on the roof,
The gutters began to fill,
The windows washed of their dust and silt
Right down to the window-sill,
The dust was settled, the ground was wet,
The cattle lowed in the field,
And everyone danced in the yard out there
The tide of their fortunes sealed.
The rain grew heavier by the hour,
The creeks had started to flow,
And even the reservoir burst its banks,
With nowhere else to go,
The water flooded across the plain
They waded up to their knees,
‘Enough, enough! ' But Malone replied:
‘Begorra, you're hard to please! '
It rained all night, and the following day,
It rained and rained for a week,
The pub was flooded from wall to wall
The water burst from the creek,
‘You've got to stop it, ' the barman cried,
But the tinker stood and frowned,
‘If the water rises much higher than this,
I think that we'll all be drowned! '
‘You said you wanted the rain, all right,
I gave it, now for my pay,
I can't go on in these tattered clothes
And my car's a give-away.
I'll need the van that you've parked out front
And a hundred cans of beer,
Not much to ask for your water, chum,
At the drought time of the year! '
The barman collared and kicked him out
With his bag and all beside,
The tinker lay in the water there,
His bag had sunk in the tide,
‘Will you stop it now, ' the barman said,
‘Or you'll wish you'd never been born! '
I can't! ' The tinker sat and he cried,
‘You've drowned my Leprechaun! '
It rains and rains at Innaminck,
It rains both day and night,
The pub sank under the water there
In a lake that's ten miles wide,
The farmers had to desert the land
To leave their sunken homes,
But put out a ‘Wanted', Nation wide
For a tinker, called Malone!
David Lewis Paget
poem by David Lewis Paget
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Daddy's Lil Girl No More
look at me and tell me who you see
is it the girl i am
or the girl i used to be
you say i'm still your lil girl
well can't you see
i'm no longer her
i havent been
and can never be again
the girl i once was
she disappeared
faded away at such a young age
the lil girl she was
it all ended so soon
forcing her to grow up
faster than she should have
can't you see
the lil girl i used to be
she died the night this never ending war began
the war of a daughter and a father
you started this all
when i was just a lil girl
you cannot see her anymore
but here you are
still believing i'm the same
daddy's lil girl
you cannot see the pain you caused
the tears you made shed
you cannot see your lil girl
fore she is dead
you left me as this girl i am now
hurt and scared
rough around the edge
now look at me and tell me who you see
is it the girl i am
or the one i used to be
poem by Heather Huff
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Who's the Girl?
Who's the girl in the mirror?
Who's the girl in the frame?
Who's the girl with the smile that has faded off her face?
Who's the girl with the tears slowly rolling off her cheeks?
Who's the girl that cared about you?
Who's the girl that gave up everything?
Who's the girl that can't smile?
Who's the girl that's in denial?
Who's the girl that hit the ground, thinking that you'd catch her now?
Who's the girl that was betrayed?
Who's the girl that's in pain?
Who's the girl in the shadows?
Who's the girl in the shade?
Who's the girl whose light can't shine?
Who's the girl that's been left behind?
Who's the girl in that world that's been left? , There's no doubt.... she's not there.
Who's the girl that was once deep inside your heart?
Who's the girl that has cried and slowly died inside her mind?
Who's the girl you've forgotten?
Who's the girl you have hurt?
Who's the girl that has left?
Who's the girl?
Who is she?
You've forgotten her....
poem by Evelyn Castillo
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Weeps And Shudders
the hands on the clock
crawl from need to despair,
from despair to the edge,
from the edge to the fall...
they call it flight!
the gift of the body
to the spirit,
of the spirit to the night.
i call it nails,
the to and fro saw,
dust on the floor,
and dust becomes dust!
the river names itself,
when it breaks through the rocks.
the rocks shout with joy,
the night weeps and shudders!
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Spirit Of The Unborn Babe
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe peered through the window-pane,
Peered through the window-pane that glowed like beacon in the night;
For, oh, the sky was desolate and wild with wind and rain;
And how the little room was crammed with coziness and light!
Except the flirting of the fire there was no sound at all;
The Woman sat beside the hearth, her knitting on her knee;
The shadow of her husband's head was dancing on the wall;
She looked with staring eyes at it, she looked yet did not see.
She only saw a childish face that topped the table rim,
A little wistful ghost that smiled and vanished quick away;
And then because her tender eyes were flooding to the brim,
She lowered her head. . . . "Don't sorrow, dear," she heard him softly say;
"It's over now. We'll try to be as happy as before
(Ah! they who little children have, grant hostages to pain).
We gave Life chance to wound us once, but never, never more. . . ."
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe fled through the night again.
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe went wildered in the dark;
Like termagants the winds tore down and whirled it with the snow.
And then amid the writhing storm it saw a tiny spark,
A window broad, a spacious room all goldenly aglow,
A woman slim and Paris-gowned and exquisitely fair,
Who smiled with rapture as she watched her jewels catch the blaze;
A man in faultless evening dress, young, handsome, debonnaire,
Who smoked his cigarette and looked with frank admiring gaze.
"Oh, we are happy, sweet," said he; "youth, health, and wealth are ours.
What if a thousand toil and sweat that we may live at ease!
What if the hands are worn and torn that strew our path with flowers!
Ah, well! we did not make the world; let us not think of these.
Let's seek the beauty-spots of earth, Dear Heart, just you and I;
Let other women bring forth life with sorrow and with pain.
Above our door we'll hang the sign: `No children need apply. . . .'"
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe sped through the night again.
The Spirit of the Unborn Babe went whirling on and on;
It soared above a city vast, it swept down to a slum;
It saw within a grimy house a light that dimly shone;
It peered in through a window-pane and lo! a voice said: "Come!"
And so a little girl was born amid the dirt and din,
And lived in spite of everything, for life is ordered so;
A child whose eyes first opened wide to swinishness and sin,
A child whose love and innocence met only curse and blow.
And so in due and proper course she took the path of shame,
And gladly died in hospital, quite old at twenty years;
And when God comes to weigh it all, ah! whose shall be the blame
For all her maimed and poisoned life, her torture and her tears?
For oh, it is not what we do, but what we have not done!
And on that day of reckoning, when all is plain and clear,
What if we stand before the Throne, blood-guilty every one? . . .
Maybe the blackest sins of all are Selfishness and Fear.
poem by Robert William Service
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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True Kingdom
The wind storm blew,
The green leaves flew,
Creakingly cracked the trees,
They tumbled with blows of the wind,
The turbans were blown away,
From the heads,
The shawls,
Entangled on the acacias’ thorns,
And the damsels moved mourning.
Ah! The wind storm blew,
All around the dust flew,
Only the kingdom,
Of the wind is the truth,
And all other is falsehood.
poem by Muhammad Shanazar
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Free-Selector's Daughter
I met her on the Lachlan Side --
A darling girl I thought her,
And ere I left I swore I'd win
The free-selector's daughter.
I milked her father's cows a month,
I brought the wood and water,
I mended all the broken fence,
Before I won the daughter.
I listened to her father's yarns,
I did just what I `oughter',
And what you'll have to do to win
A free-selector's daughter.
I broke my pipe and burnt my twist,
And washed my mouth with water;
I had a shave before I kissed
The free-selector's daughter.
Then, rising in the frosty morn,
I brought the cows for Mary,
And when I'd milked a bucketful
I took it to the dairy.
I poured the milk into the dish
While Mary held the strainer,
I summoned heart to speak my wish,
And, oh! her blush grew plainer.
I told her I must leave the place,
I said that I would miss her;
At first she turned away her face,
And then she let me kiss her.
I put the bucket on the ground,
And in my arms I caught her:
I'd give the world to hold again
That free-selector's daughter!
poem by Henry Lawson
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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