The Poem of the Month for March 2023, selected by 2023 Anthology Editors, Maria Vouis and Rob Ferris, is willy-willy by David Cookson. The commended poems for March are I Come From by Helen Hutton, At the Zoo with a Bush Poet by Jill Wherry and Chatting with Confidence by Michele Slatter.
willy-willy
David Cookson
Hawker, SA
no overture
far out aloof
on the blue-bush motley
a dervish of dust
dead leaves
dancing only for itself
a fleeting sketch
to drift through memory
in wakeful hours
as an oud years back
pensive
in that Cairo side street
and a blink ago
scent of desert
in your hair
I Come From Here
Helen Hutton
after I Am From by George Ella Lyon
I come from a suburb flexing its muscles
waiting to be heard,
from chook sheds, bent Hills Hoists, ice chests,
the milkman on Monday,
and the smell of bread and the baker’s horse.
I come from picket fences and neatly trimmed
couch grass lawns, lemon trees,
veggie patches and outside toilets
where spiders watched and insects crawled.
I come from seen but not heard, manners,
say please and thank you, and children are starving
in Africa so finish your food,
homemade honeycomb and the markets
on Tuesdays—Dad’s weekly treat.
I come from inkwells and tuckshops,
college for girls, gym shoes on Wednesday,
stockings and suspenders, hems on the knee,
from not believing in Jesus
after being followed home from Sunday school.
I come from ghosts in my bedroom
and getting burnt at the beach,
crushed aspirin in honey, my aunt’s fox fur shawl,
from nights with my grandma
and days spent alone,
from silence and sadness
and 78 records on an old gramophone.
I come from faded photos of faces
their names written in ink;
from old memories, lost moments—
a thread pulled from the fabric of my family tapestry.
At the Zoo with a Bush Poet
Jill Wherry
I studied the Fringe program contemplating what to see.
A Bush Poet is performing and best of all he’s free.
Although you won’t believe me, I assure you that it’s true,
This great Bush Poet could be found residing at the zoo.
Now does he live in cave or cage? I can only wonda,
Until I find his habitat is in the zoo’s rotunda.
I say, ‘G’day, is Jim your name; are you a poet too?
‘Why yes,’ he says with modest smile. ‘Now tell me who are you?’
This Jim, a tad mature, like me, intrigues me with his charm.
I flirt with him a little, and I think well, what’s the harm?
I ask him all about his act, he had performed before.
‘My audience are pelicans and precious little more.’
‘Once twenty people came to hear, but some days only two.
It will be such an honour Jill reciting just for you.’
This Jim was such a charming bloke, a man with winning ways
So, I sip my cappuccino in somewhat of a daze.
Then Jim unpacks his prize guitar and microphone as well.
I’ll hear romantic words, of course, a girl can always tell.
But just as Jim is poised to start, alas his eyes leave mine.
A dark- haired beauty meets his gaze and I am left to pine.
Both cards and e-mails, they exchange; it really isn’t fair,
While I talk to the pelicans and Jim just doesn’t care.
Jim plays the song of Clancy and the group soon swells to four.
With Banjo’s Snowy River, he attracts a couple more.
In a poem he mentions Ruby, the great love of his life.
Thank God she is his Labrador and not a doting wife.
The dark- haired beauty claps and then, announcing she can sing.
She races to the microphone and grabs the bloody thing.
The pair of them sing Danny Boy, I am so excited.
I long to join them but alas, I am not invited.
‘Come Jill, it’s your turn now,’ says Jim. ‘You flatter me,’ I gush.
‘The microphone’s all yours,’ he adds. ‘I’ll do my best,’ I blush.
I can’t believe I stood there, in the middle of the zoo,
Reciting lines about a bra to ape and kangaroo?
Chatting with Confidence
Michele Slatter
At first, I rushed to draft an Ode,
all thanks and admiration, when
your name was mentioned but I slowed
down, paused, and then
I remembered how you toyed with me
in Hide and Seek.
You: smugly Hiding, lurking, teasing.
Me: deserted,
despondently Seeking,
desperately beating myself up
for letting you disappear. Again.
First dates; First Nights;
first times; interviews; exams;
‘Unaccustomed as I am…’:
whenever the gauntlet was down you skulked and sulked,
self-indulgent, refractory, unpredictable,
as I quaked.
You almost failed me. Every time.
And I remembered tending your neediness.
Boosting you. Building you up.
Wearing red.
Playing Vivaldi and the Grateful Dead for you, loudly.
Advancing slowly, so that you could keep in step.
Bringing trophies, hoarding scraps of praise.
Bolstering you. Frequently.
And I remembered how I slowly learned
to cloak myself in calm and conjure you
with tricks and charms and spells,
pure magic, from those deepest wells of Psyche
where you hid.
Then, I could bid, request or order you
to work with me. Constructively.
So, we have built a working partnership,
mostly in sync.
Sometimes you still desert me, thinking
to underline that I’m the Junior Partner.
But we are bound together in so many ways,
for better or worse, richer or poorer
that, if one quits forever, there will be two graves.