Entered into McLellan Poetry Prize 2012
RAINMAKING
One, blue-mooned, sees
Through the dullness
Of the roiling mudwater
Sloshing in the gullet
Rare, I know, when
The table top slides
And the pure waters
Gush into the brain
The eyes float upon
A flood of visions
But the mouth is an old
Sloop, a hulk of hollow
Tooth, cleft tongue
Stiff necked & slack jawed
There only to decorate
The surrounding air
After all
There can be no
Real saying so
And so it is, the ketch
Is caught adrift
Spins round and around
While the blue pool
Turns a foul green
A stench rises
From the mulch
The wasted visions
And like the rainmakers of old
We ritualise the drought
With our drinking ceremonies
The toasting of the sky
Numbing our tongues
Wallowing and waiting
For the next lucid deluge
Hankering for a drop
THE HORSE SACRIFICE
They lay out
The horse sacrifice
The done runner
The cost bet, she’d
Broke her own legs
Inarticulated fear
The bloodied back
Heart hammering
Against the broken
Blades of iron rain
The taste of iron
On the wet air
The gold saddle
Fused in the mud
Like yellow bile
Someone coughs
Up phlegm, spits
Onto the green
A little fly spits
Into the black hide
Bearing dinner
The old mare
Meets the pale horse
On it rides no man
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