Category Tanka

two thousand yearsborne on the broken columnsof Ephesus –my feet at the grand theatrein the footsteps of St Paul Ephesus Archaeological Site, Turkey in the cornerof the white-walled rooma sad ficus…bright slices of outsideplay across the slow clock Specialist’s waiting…

Tidal Enigma a tanka string hour after hour breakers rise and surge ever forward tumbling out of the blue a brilliant white foam invariably on channel markers and mooring posts a seagull, a pelican claim the latest news swaying palms…

ficus trees stand watch in the old asylum grounds the lunatics have left colonial buildings crumbling in the summer rain Callan Park, Sydney flannel flowers are points of light amongst banksia scrub fire-blackened and sodden with rain Garangal – North…

a marker where the tallest tree once stood . . . too late to do more than regret McDonald’s Track, Thorpdale VIC Australia’s fabled inland sea… my illusions so determinedly held onto great emu clouds of dark matter outlined in…

wind-battered window – all week long a snail on the rattling pane while every train passes without you bent forward a boy and his father take off the electric guitar plate soldering-iron to the blue sky what is this the…

a scritching sound wakes me from deep sleep – a grey possum with large yellow eyes staring through the window night sky satellites track across stars filming earth below my solo retreat deprived of true solitude spring sunset – dotted…

Wollondilly sequence a tanka string another spring rain dandelions vibrating between kikuyu and clover — the jerry can sits empty my teacup full on the counter A kitchen, Picton, NSW purple topped thistle beside a crushed gravel path in late…

inlaid shells and stained glass saints embracing the light – a mission bell rings above souls at rest in hallowed ground St Barnabas Chapel, Norfolk Island

daybreak service weak light on heavy shoulders fading bugle notes raindrops inside collars – an uneasy shiver rear-vision mirror – eucalypts and scrabbly greens peripheral to the swirling dust storms of encroaching bulldozers strung on wire fences wind-whipped plastics Australia’s…

they bow their heads weighed down by raindrops as nature’s cups – roses bearing the burden if only to blush brighter dreaming of vistas whose breezes dance on my neck as seen before with sillage sensed – memories adrift at…