The log-house is like most others, elongated
And meant for rustic living.
Waup, whose ancestors stretch 15 generations,
Busily skillets flat corn-bread
Half mixed with maple syrup and mustard-ginger:
The rest will accompany chilli pinto.
Beneath stern-eyed tin plated portraits newspapers
Sub-title ‘Noble Savages’ -
Habitual Clan Mothers gather and discuss
A county’s war profiteering.
The day rolls over into antiquity. Vigorously,
Survival re-invents itself.
First published in ‘Symphony for Heart & Stone’
Cochon-Golden Hill 2009. Now out-of-print
TOTEMS
The Hereditary Chief, an ordinary man,
Knows no reason to sing
His own swan song
In the beige frost
Of dawn’s solace.
Instead, a fax machine whirrs
Direct officiates as
Ethno-historical studies
Glean consolidation from
The Netherlands,
To Leningrad, to Paris...
Objectively, he turns his back
On the technological plateau
And shuffles out
To greet the small world
... Gustoweha crowned *
Headed towards the Wolf
Making his rounds.
(Gustoweha – Paugussett Head-dress)
First published in ‘Symphony for Heart & Stone’
Cochon-Golden Hill 2009. Now out-of-print
LIBERTY for Wilma
She lives on the fault-line
South-East of
The City of Angels
And could
Even as we speak
Out-snooker
Any rival...
At ninety-three (come Fall)
She’ll tell
How leaving the future behind
Is a vocation -
Like
Blackjack with
The chips
Duly scattered.
However, the ‘soothsayer’
Admits
There’s
One regret:
Passing-white was
An occupational
Hazard.
First published in ‘Symphony for Heart & Stone’
Cochon-Golden Hill 2009. Now out-of-print
Stefanie Bennett has published eighteen books of poetry and a
novel. Of mixed
ancestry [Italian/Irish/Paugussett-
Australia in 1945. Stefanie’s latest poetry title ‘The Vanishing’
is due at
year’s end. Publisher; Walleah Press.
No comments:
Post a Comment