Monday, April 04, 2016

MEMORIES poem / 1st draft

On this warm autumn day
I remember my father, in
winter in the Fifties, driving
his shiny black V8 Pilot through
the overflowing Swan River
lapping over the Esplanade's
parameter road
and us kids - still
in shorts - riding barefoot on
the running boards. We were
having fun, such carefree fun
with our fun-loving father
at the wheel and our worried
mother beside him.

*

In the sailor's space of
my brother's VJ yacht

on blocks in our backyard
rain water gathered and

big leaves swam, life
rich with decay. I leant

over the edge, homework
done, parents absent, and dangled

a podgy hand into the shadows
in the waters, hoping, daring,

piranhas and leeches to
take my being away.


- Andrew Burke

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