John Karl Stokes
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The bearded midwife

(manuscript collection). 
It is the middle of the drought. A man anticipates the birth of a child: 
 

Guerrilla Bay

Salt on the rock
A single drum
Stung mouth of the waters


and rain on the strata
Who wins. Who loses
Who pays the ignorant boatman?

The sea will use its fingers
to claw at the opening
dark veins
 
the bay’s rubbed language:
swell and knock
swell and knock
 
This the sea’s language:
the urgent hope of the lover
the entry into the dark arch

The fingers break 
out of the sea
parting the strata
 
Swell and knock
The fickling  stars
disappear in the night

A coin-hard wailing:
the boatman’s naked wife
calling in the tide.
                                    


Picture

The  Leaving of Australia

                     
A Jiggle



 Fine limbs and a following sea
 Her hair shining above water
 See, he of the life-shaft gleaming
she of the welcoming in
slipping toward a first dark victory

 It’s a coming up into a new  country
 East of the coppered arboreta
 azaleas kissing the home accents
 dribbling in vibrating eyes
 the red against clean, clean stone
 
It’s a coupling; a couple conceiving
in triumph against the marble
an arched back, a cry
filling the room with mouth
and a long, long river
 
These things were knifed, stolen:
Australians abroad and drunk
with the thick danger of hotels
half-night stands under
sweet purse-strings and a tight entry

Under the cover of a policeman’s
I imagined her innocent
I imagined him vigorous
I imagined her innocent
We imagine doing French in the city
 
Kicking my heels in the lavender
Somewhere West of Asia
we penetrate the world.
Picture
Picture

A twice remembered country

 For Marion

Yes,
take them:-
the money for books
the brave and ridiculous life of Generals
the raw youths

shouting at us in the street 
Take them all with us
on our slow tango
to oblivion

That slow dance
in a black night’s flesh
the pressure of  water
on wings

These are the things
that travel with us:
loss still to be felt
the songs of the voiceless…

We slide into our coats
for the crossing
A new night’s indigo
in a twice-remembered  country.

Four sequins sewn on a rock.

1. Spare me the glittered speeches
made of spiders
 
the bodies crushed
out of earshot
 
the nervy hands
inviting the invaders.

The world her body teeters
on what is spoken
 
what’s whispered behind ears
what’s muffled up

dragged out
reverently disposed of

No-one, everyone
feels the pain

after the deluge of lightning:
all that vanishing
 
those cutting noises heard 
above the music.


2. Roadside fire 
 
That morning
there was one wreath  of
wild poppies.
 
Going home
by the night road:
fields of saffron.
 
Sing for those 
who can’t hear
dance for those
 
who can’t see
do for the 
day’s hands grasped.


3. Song for the absent

Driven into eucalypt country:
a rock on Gillamatong’s weeping
her cut giving up its moisture.

The absent are elsewhere:
grasped in the whisperers’ throats
behind a black window.

Shakuhachi breathing
parchment limb snowfalling
onto a pillow in an eye-corner.

East of a Braidwood moon
I travel, now, an older country:
the light in the seeing

a fresh on water
long fingers playing
sunlight on ice-river…

I imagine I sing them
I imagine I keep them, these absents
alive by my singing.  
 

  4. Sunset on pure snow


I plunge
my hands
in pure snow; a red

     star dies, hot
      against cold.


 
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