(from gaols, asylums) Not many poems come from the suburbs.A garden's space no longer seems to cramp Those lives patrolled by fences, blinds and curbs, Grown dull and unreflective in the damp. In prisons yes, between the words and blows, Some muse on wings of freedom comes and goes, While in asylums where souls so quietly bend And break in fragments, as therapy to mend The men of forest paranoias, paper comes And books and pencils too, so hands all thumbs Cry out the pain of wall and nights and daze, And death and laughter through a chloral haze. Suburban walls are low yet few there sing. Oiled waters end the bird, they stop the wing. Sydney Morning Herald, December 1978 |
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