Section: «Poems»

Verse (ancient Greek ὁ στίχος — row, structure), a term in versification used in several meanings: artistic speech organized by division into rhythmically commensurate segments; poetry in the narrow sense; in particular, it implies the properties of versification of a particular tradition ("antique verse", "Akhmatova's verse", etc.); a line of poetic text organized according to a certain rhythmic pattern ("My uncle of the most honest rules").

I wrote a little haiku

I wrote a little haikutitled ‘The Springfields'Lead drips out ofa burning farm rail.Their Civil War.Critics didn't like it,said it was obscure -The..

© Les Murray

The farm terraces

Beautiful merciless workaround the slopes of earthterraces cut by curt hoeat the orders of hungeror a pointing lord.Levels eyed up to rhymecopied..

© Les Murray

The Holy Show

I was a toddler, wet-combedwith my pants buttoned to my shirtand there were pink and green lights, prettyin the day, a Christmas-tree partyup the..

© Les Murray

Ripe In The Arbours Of The Nose

Even rippled with sunthe greens of a citrus grove darkenlike ocean deepening from shore.Each tree is full of shade.A shadowy fast spiral throughand a..

© Les Murray

Science Fiction

I can travelfaster than lightso can youthe speed of thoughtthe only troubleis at destinationsour thought balloonsare coated invisibleno one there..

© Les Murray

Water-gardening in an Old Farm Dam

Blueing the blackened waterthat I'm widening with my spadeas I lever up water tussocksand chuck them ashore like sopping cometsis a sun-point..

© Les Murray

Ernest Hemingway and the Latest Quake

In fact the Earth never stops moving.Northbound in our millimetric shovingwe heap rainy Papua ahead of uswith tremor and fumarole and shearbut: no..

© Les Murray

Quintets for Robert Morley

Is it possible that hyper-ventilating up ParnassusI have neglected to pay tributeto the Stone Age aristocracy?I refer to the fat.We were probably the..

© Les Murray

Spermaceti

I sound my sight, and flexing skeletons eddyin our common wall. With a sonic bolt from the fragrantchamber of my head, I burst the lives of someand..

© Les Murray

The Broad Bean Sermon

Beanstalks, in any breeze, are a slack church paradewithout belief, saying trespass against us in unison,recruits in mint Air Force dacron, with..

© Les Murray

Panic Attack

The body had a nightmare.Awake. No need of the movie.No need of light, to keep hipsand shoulders rotating in bedon the gimbals of wet eyes.Pounding..

© Les Murray

The Moon man

Shadowy kangaroos moved offas we drove into the top paddockcoming home from a weddingunder a midnightish curd skythen his full face cleared:Moon man..

© Les Murray

The New Hieroglyphics

In the World language, sometimes calledAirport Road, a thinks balloon with a gondolaunder it is a symbol for speculation.Thumbs down to ear and..

© Les Murray

Towards The Imminent Days (Section 4)

In my aunt's house, the milk jug's beaded crochet covertickles the ear. We've eaten boiled things with butter.Pie spiced like islands, dissolving in..

© Les Murray

The Quality Of Sprawl

Sprawl is the qualityof the man who cut down his Rolls-Royceinto a farm utility truck, and sprawlis what the company lacked when it made repeated..

© Les Murray

Travels With John Hunter

We who travel between worldslose our muscle and bone.I was wheeling a barrow of earthwhen agony bayoneted me.I could not sit, or lie down,or stand..

© Les Murray

The Instrument

Who reads poetry? Not our intellectuals;they want to control it. Not lovers, not the combative,not examinees. They too skim it for bouquetsand magic..

© Les Murray

The Sleepout

Childhood sleeps in a verandah roomin an iron bed close to the wallwhere the winter over the railingswelled the blind on its timber boomand splinters..

© Les Murray

The Mowed Hollow

When yellow leaves the skythey pipe it to the housesto go on making redand warm and floral and brownbut gradually people tire of it,return it inside..

© Les Murray

High-Speed Bird

At full tilt, air gleamed -and a window-struck kingfisher,snatched up, lay on my palmstill beating faintly.Slowly, a tinctureof whatever..

© Les Murray

The Harleys

Blats booted to blatantdubbing the avenue direwith rubbings of Sveinn Forkbeardleading a black squall of Harleyswith Moe Snow-Whitebeard andPossum..

© Les Murray

Amanda's Painting

In the painting, I'm seated in a shield,coming home in it up a shadowy river.It is a small metal boat lined in eggshelland my hands grip the gunwale..

© Les Murray

On The Borders

We're driving across tablelandsomewhere in the world;it is almost bare of trees.Upland near void of featuresalways moves me, but not to thought;it..

© Les Murray

Cockspur Bush

I am lived. I am died.I was two-leafed three times, and grazed,but then I was stemmed and multiplied,sharp-thorned and caned, nested and..

© Les Murray

The Images Alone

Scarlet as the cloth draped over a sword,white as steaming rice, blue as leschenaultia,old curried towns, the frog in its green human skin;a..

© Les Murray