Patrick Dennis

Joy is a way of looking at
you & me & this & that,
and all things that may
oh - heaven knows - cause us grief
...

Down from the trees, a Kookaburra,
tempted by the throwdown of meat, descends,
hops, chuckles and gobbles; and bounces back.
...

My memories are yesterday in the fern place
under the great convent house at Clermont,
going out for the last time from the lash
and curse of nuns. Unrehearsed, you come to me
...

'And there were in the same country shepherds watching and keeping the night watch over their flock.' (Luke 2: 8

On the icy dark, the ghostly shape of shepherds:
and the sheep like clumps of rock on the sea's shore
...

I feel but cannot hear the downward beat
of the owl's wings which seem to move
like a poem on feathered air.
...

I have seen snowcapped mountains and pristine fields
adorned with the blush and hues of Heaven;
but I live here on this arid plain
stretched four ways to infinity.
...

Poems should clang
and pull against
like the tongues of church bells
out of synch with their housing.
...

Fire purges in His fierce ecstasy all things of sap and clay
and takes to Himself - oh! - the refined and raptured brides of Fire.

Charcoal, well dried, longs for the Fire
...

Great grooves round your stiff hide
and clanks of bone mark your last struggle - -
there were many times all you needed extra
was a foal's strength to heave up your great body
...

As we gather, you and I
take up wings and let us fly
to the little town of Bethlehem
and beside the shepherds kneel with them
...

Yesterday the thunder
roared out of the West.
It drew near
to be swallowed on the clear air
...

A gaggle of ragged folk gather around
the Salvo van at the edge of the park.
One catches my eye -
he radiates the agnostic look of the lost.
...

That Korean man yesterday the terrorists beheaded
endured a terrible dread. And I, a being in hindsight,
live it today through the black letter and ask:
How can I help his horror
...

Out of the Egyptian bondage
of metre and rhyme
across the free wilderness
striking and failing for springs
...

Australians distrust words:
words, being mere symbols, are not real.

Australians distrust emotions:
...

If I believe it - and feel it -
and by saying it I believe it
and believe in saying it
I can make it true! - True! - True! - Real!
...

A brown wrapper or a green thread
is a gift when time rises to a purpose.
Only the heart can give
a gift; and only the heart can take -
...

...

You talk in riddles
like oracles of many strange gods;
and we, those strange few who read you,
bow down.
...

1.

It fails me:
somewhere between the setting forth and the night camp
...