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peter langston
Monet’s Garden
Monet was in my garden last night,
left brush strokes everywhere
and like the honeyeaters and bees
I’m feasting this morning.
Two Silvereyes dart past
but stop to agree with me
at red bottlebrush elevenses.
Wide spread grapevine leaves
splatter me with shade
that a voracious passionfruit missed.
Kangaroos Paws hop with the breeze.
Blackbirds go cleaning among weeded soil.
A Fairy Wren couple take youngsters shopping,
showing what,
showing where,
showing how.
A Friarbird chuckles among the pollen
and Sparrows gossip on the lawn.
Colours everywhere:
reds, yellows, pinks, whites
and greens in all.
If I squint through my cataract eye
a little footbridge shimmers dimly,
a stream idles by,
as I paint my words
in Monet’s garden.
Missing Joni Mitchell
I’m lost in your churning jaws,
grinding and flapping
like line-hung tea-towels
abused by the wind:
denying a future
to the sugar free passenger
ducking from your molars.
"Can I help ya?"
eyes wide
below a single, raised painted eyebrow,
black glossed lip
jagged upward on an invisible hook.
The vast experience of 19 years
now at my disposal.
"I have an appointment"
I eventually divulge,
still caught in her chewing gum headlight.
She sits behind the chest high counter,
her wide screen twitterbooking,
gives me an identity
and I retreat.
Here in the echoes of an Anglican manse,
where bishops conjured theology,
I wait for my psychiatrist.
His last line of defence
from crazies in waiting,
has too much gum, too much skin
and not enough years or neckline.
Around me,
other madmen wait.
Monet,
Lautrec,
Lawson
and even Vincent,
mock me in words and brush strokes.
We all behave,
trapped here in turbulent indigo.
No one’s pissing in fireplaces today.
Peter Langston
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