Rob
Walker
rob walker/ Australia
Flood and desert.
for Yahia Al-Samawy *
The country you love is flooded with tyrants who abuse the name of Allah and liberators shouting Justice and Freedom whose faithless bullets and bombs kill just the same.
you said
the tears
you shed
as you
wrote
the poem
would have
filled
a cup
yet
you turn
these tears
to ink
spill it
onto the desert of a page
and oases grow
where once
there was only
grit
to irritate
our eyes.
• Yahia Al-Samawy is a highly respected Iraqi poet who now lives in Woodcroft with his wife and three children. Imprisoned and tortured under Saddam Hussein's regime, Yahia fled and spent years in exile in Saudi Arabia before seeking asylum with his family in Australia.
Jesus, the sequel
reborn in mesopotamia
in a new millennium
to an oblivious world
a diaspora to
the spice islands
and south
He celebrates
His third birthday
in detention
a crown
of razorwire
or crucified on
electrified
cyclone
as retailers
rub hands
at post
xmas sales
Choice Theory.
Outskirts of Delhi, Jan 2005
Strange
that they should choose
to live in homes of mud and sheets of
plastic
Picking over the rubbish mounds
sluicing from trucks
for remnants of food,
plastic shopping bags to
wash, recycle, sell
Strange
that they should choose
to die so young
The bird leaves its cage and enters another
for Juan Garrido-Salgado
1990.
english was in the air.
the air
was english
blowing on a sea breeze at henley or glenelg
one sentence floats near you
but it will not come
into your mouth
tortured barred
in & from your homeland
mute in the newland
your heart bleeds m℮taphors
exiled from your tongue
alien vowels/ consonants
fill your ears
elude your mouth
your heart an injured bird
one wing
plastered to tarmac
an impotent flapping
in spanish
advice to a politician
the fact is
what follows
is inevitably
opinion
the reality is
mine is
different
colin powell addresses the UN
it’s powerpoint of course.
all power. no point.
microsoftware
before the macrohardware
all styl℮ no substance
erect an argument on flawed foundations
holes the size
of bombcraters
a colon
: pregnant pause before a war
lives reduced
not to dot points
but bullet points
Jordy's balloons
after the funeral
outside to inevitable
sun
watching his eight year old mates release purple/
white balloons shrinking into a perfect blue sky
a week’s
grieving
spent
relieved children smiling laughing faces upturned sunflowers seeking
light warmth celebrating his life intent eyes on diminishing orbs
but on
fear-engraved
faces
the aching eyes of every parent on their own
child seeing them disappear in an instant
like balloons.
[from Blur, Friendly Street Reader #29, [ed] Shen & Amelia Walker, 2005.]
Biografia
Rob Walker / Australia
Rob Walker [“Daytime teacher and night-time poet”] was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1953.
His poems have been published widely in poetry journals, anthologies, websites and other media in Australia, NZ, UK, Ireland, Canada and the US, including Best Australian Poems 2005 [ed. Les Murray], ABC radio’s poeticA, poetry and music on Cds and a small collection sparrow in an airport, [Friendly Street NEW POETS TEN.]
In 2005 he co-edited THIRTY, Friendly Street Poets’ Thirtieth annual poetry anthology.
His collection micromacro [Seaview Press] will be released in September.
He also teaches music and drama in a state primary school.
robwalker1@bigpond.com robwalker1@bigpond.com
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