ARTS AND CULTURE

My Baghdad dreams

John Falzon
02 February 2016

1 Comment

My dreams take speed

Be simple just
Say what you see to whom you choose to say

So is my desk then altar or alterity?

I bite on life
The bitterness will daunt but not defeat me

And I hear you
I can never give you voice

My dreams take speed
My Baghdad dreams take speed
My rest my head against the pillow of the west
My dare not close
My eyes my sail on
Baleful

Exclamation bombs my Baghdad
I slow witted all my dreaming lovely disinherited
My magic near the edge
I love the edge
I love its line by line disdain

You don't
Have long to live
Sweet parliament
And worse
Declaratory vat behind the archive
You have never had a heaven to go on to

Heaven knows.

The smoke the boxing ring

The gypsy ash of
Seven homely hills

Your table cloth still knows
The knowing burns
The smiling scars

For here is one who lives
And takes
And kills

Go quickly
Corner him and shred
His punch-drunk dreams
Between the stars.

Birth poem

Lucha
You are poetry
In social and surprise

My comrade strenuous
And straining

And
Our daughter
Simply opening
And searching with
Her eyes.

Dr John Falzon is Chief Executive of the St Vincent de Paul Society National Council.

Topic tags: John Falzon, modern Australian poetry, Baghdad

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