Duncan Richardson
Duncan Richardson is a writer of fiction, poetry, haiku, radio drama and educational texts. He teaches English as a Second Language part time, in Brisbane, Australia.
remember
on that island in the Okavango
how we slept under the bare boughs of night
palm trees and mopane leaves keeping off
the sprinkle of rain and close by
waterbuck ka-doomping through shallows
somewhere near must be crocs, lions, mambas
but waking instead to the scatterings
of pygmy mice chasing each other round
the saucepan left to cool by the campfire
jungle percussion danced by tiny feet
remember how they scattered when we stirred
leaping back to their world of grass as if
always knowing the fun would have to end
so we packed the carved canoes and pushed off
sliding through channels leaving bubbles and
papyrus swirling in our wakes and dreams.
no good boyo
for Dylan Thomas
listen
you can’t stop
the bullet of thought
it ricochets between
the rocky small hours
pinging here
stinging there
probing
finding
wounding
day comes
your heart burns through it
into another night
the churning chatter
of a mind electrifying itself
sparking the world
in the canyon
lighting the waves
stirring
stretching the hours
like an endless starched white
hospital bed
until the drug filters in
pounding the peaks
of the cardiogram
the twitching needle
of the seismograph
silence is not enough
you need white noise
to flood the rotting flesh
of ordinary things
and not even words
can do that
you said your bones
would never grow old
and
smoking a cloud before your eyes
hiding that distance
it wasn’t just
bravado
Sheila-Na-Gig online 