Patrick White Poems

Begin anywhere.
Topple fall jump stumble plunge
into the eyeless abyss
into the roadless homelessness
...

The earth hides nothing from you
when its time comes to be revealed.
Not the bones of the dead, not the green wind
blowing on the young leaves of the maple
...

Someone lingers in your absence like an icon, a gate
to an open field where the white horse
that stood in the tall grass, grazing on its solitude
like a phase of the moon come to earth
...

I remember the bees
moving like heavy slow notes
among the sunflower microphones
two octaves lower than the fireflies
...

In the eye of the hurricane rose
all is as calm as a bee
as my world is shed around me
like eyelids.
...

The leaves tremble at the tips
of their half-denuded branches
against a flat grey sky,
the ruination of yellow and green
...

If you had any compassion for yourself,
others wouldn't have to suffer for you
and the world wouldn't show you
such a sad, woeful, wounded face.
...

Over and over and over again
you return to me each time
made more beautiful by the pain
I embrace you with
...

The rain tonight
a gentle carillon of afterthought
pensively lingering like eyes in the window.
The town unusually quiet
...

A tryst with the muse at an ungodly hour.
The past creatively adapts to the moment
as readily as the future does. The bronze age flames
of your auburn hair, withered petals
...