(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