Patrick White Poems

And I don’t know if I succeed myself
in every moment, a hereditary dynasty;
are ashes the continuum of fire, sorrow
the natural legator of joy, one thought
...

Suddenly the nightwind comes
and scatters me like dust, leaves, stars, birds,
flakes of blood and paint from a dried rose
and I am nowhere again among the extracted windows
...

in memoriam: Steve Forster

Death has nothing to do with skulls or bones
seeping into the earth like widows
...

I’ve stopped mistaking my life
for evidence I exist.
I’ve stopped watering
palm-trees in a mirage.
...

I keep returning to this line in my childhood
I once stood in one dreaded day
every month with my mother
to prove I was loyal and reliable,
...

I see the sadness in the world, the malevolent madness
of the dogs of pain snarling at the moon in the tree of life,
the way people cut and claw and desecrate each other
and walk away as if there were a victory in the slaughter, a hero in the butchery
...

The pale months discharge their attributes of green
in the gripe of small, bitter apples
and the white blossoms
have got their laundry done like nursing caps
...

The stars will not devise a way out of your life
that they haven’t already offered you
and the sprawl of green fountains
that hallows you now, the victorious trees,
...

for Steve Forster

Watching the sky turn blue
in the last hours of the night.
...

Come to me in rags of blue fire, you, muse, you,
the gardenia face on the other side of the black gate
whose ancient spears are tipped with the taste
of wounded moons and iron roses; do not be swayed
...