This is your opportunity to read and listen to poetry at your leisure and at no cost. The writer, Tony London, who lives on the south coast of Western Australia, has been writing and publishing poetry for more than fifty years.
His poetry includes a wide range of subjects. Some of the writing is based around the southern coast of the large land mass of WA. Some is focussed on the activities in the more populated areas of the world, where human activity never ceases to surprise, and more lately, as he has aged, the poetry reflects on life and on becoming an older more reflective person.
Some of the poems have been categorised. Sometimes the poems are aggregated into the year in which they were published. Each poem has a reading attached below, simply open by pressing the arrow.
You can take in the poetry at your own pace and in whatever order you choose.
Confronting the door with its familiarity, faded red paint where the summer sun reached bleached with insistent persistence, a touch of softened paint where fingers trailed as they absentmindedly drew the door close,
vague signs of habitation, to enter is as ever,
habitual, uneventful, as when you lived here, but to return after so long requires knocking or some symbol of invitation seeking, after all time has passed and change is a given, taking things for granted might not, will not work, the smell of death and unsorted clothing, effects, papers private and other, you who were not here for the mourning, funeral, committing of ashes, abrogation some would say if asked, are they impressions of where he sat on that seat near the fireplace where he flicked his butts, threw his buts and maybes at requests, and when love and support and softness were hinted at, could not be requested, seeking was a sign of weakness letting down the team, persona non grata, an unwelcome guest interloper. He made you seek forgiveness absolution just to darken the doorway, and now you arrive the place is empty of heart and soul not even the idle bumping of vital organs, even the refrigerator is empty of relevant victuals, kept alive by a pulse from a sleeping power provider, is the fridge talking,
the spider webs extinct during her reign,
have now darkened corners, made grey the shadows not cast since she parted, leaving him bitter as cud, until he too relaxed his tight grip on what was left, what had never been, now all just
a Havisham memory, better to leave the door ajar, still in need of oil, his way of knowing you were arriving even though he could smell diffidence that had replaced fear, maybe a dropped match might smoke out his lingering presence and all the stuff that attends departure, a sign to neighbours as in smoke signal, that leave-taking was finally manifest on this bleak landscape breakaway, rocks bared, barren bland grimace of country, stolen from people who had only ever known this place of bad spirits as to be avoided with its evil karma, spoken in their words ways of knowing sensing.
Once upon a time there was a jester who jumped into the busy court of Camelot, who surprised all as he presented himself with his shoes ringing a tune, bells entrancing those gathered to be both entertained and harangued, as the sharp sword was swung from great heights, as he bade the bird tweeting on his shoulder to carry out his messages, the court messenger pigeons all baked in a pie, until only a few feathers were left, reminding those gathered in awe, how quickly the world can be turned and how easily suborned those courtiers could be, hanging on every word of those who strode the shiny flagstones, cleaned of sweat and blood over successive dynasties.
A jester morphed from a king in another court where subjects were hired and fired in the fawning crowd that was a place of vicarious life and death, a king who became a clown for sale, to entertain any court in the land, brought with him a bag of tricks never seen before, stories beyond belief, a bird that never slept, tweeted into the dawn and spoke to the world at large, just to avoid confusion.
Camelot was his new destination, where he could impose as imposter, to see if the court could find his guise, as he paraded as jester, not a king in new clothes invisible to mere mortals, as he wove narratives and displayed tricks never seen before by those in awe, obesience like crowds who attended in the presence of Stalin’s Kremlin where a blink was disrespectful, rewarded with total disappearance.
Shame was heaped on this clown king jester, as he stumbled but no-one saw, too polite to say, knowing that they too were disposable at a word from the bird that never slept, but the bird droppings, usually a sign of good luck, heaped up on his shoulders, his coiffure, and the smell was in the air, even when the court was empty.
Eventually the shiny flagstones were vacated, the jester had
run out of tricks, of crowds, it was going to be a game of
patience but the pack was thinning, and he could no longer read the cards in his blindness, ears drowned and empty from the screams that once used to keep him awake. Oh how the mighty and the flighty are fallen. The jester morphed again, a little boy, his toys taken and his hissy fits ignored.
readithearit 