Recently, I joined the Southern Highlands branch of the Fellowship of Australian Writers. It's been wonderfully inspiring, I have to say. Each month, some writing topics are given as a kind of non-compulsory "homework". This month, I actually tackled one! The topic for poetry was "New Times". Here's my effort:
New
Times
She sags against the pier her filthy robe
A mockery.
Too blear and dull to clean or wash or
dress
Matted hair in lousy, rank disharmony
Her blackened fingers rhythmically harass
The stench fouled air.
She stinks of piss.
Pedestrians avert their eyes and skirt
Uneasily.
Discard a glance of pity or disgust
The city gleams with commerce, shines with
industry
In this showcase of the prosperous, there’s
no place
For such as her.
They’ll move her on.
Along the foreshore lights begin to glimmer,
Beckoning
The leisured and the young to come and play
Lover’s murmured voices drifting promises
To the twilight, not for them the close of
day
Their universe
A world of hope.
Between the pylons, wakened to the darkness
Muttering
Her every sharpened sense alert and bared
She battles them again; again remembering.
With all her strength, defends, she sees
them clear
Those torments past
That shroud her still.
Kerry Miller
Incidentally (or perhaps not so incidentally...) I was searching for an image for this post online, and found an Australian charity that provides sleeping swags for homeless people. The image above is from their site. If you are interested, find it at:
http://www.swags.org.au/index.html
