Knowledge

The meeting of mind and man gives dawn to intellect.
Knowing is king of that forest feeding upon vegetables and fungus
And fights other knowledge to cover the mares.

Suspending logic into an easy river she says, 'This is culture built by corruption, for corruption, from corruption and everything here is the son of culture, pure and sacred. Laying quietly in the depression.’

Love is a swimming poem.
Diving in you hunt beneath pebbles across mudflats
between the mangroves pushing boundaries, beyond the marina.
You have better luck on Main Street in the shade of the awnings
and bus shelters and dancing instructions.

Love looks for sperm in a solar system.
The heresies and insults of telephone books, the directions and diagrams
of social diseases and the phone numbers of whom ever.

I too write books declaring pregnancy and peace.
I scratch rusty corrugations on the back of my hand,
bait my hook with my reputation squirming between my fingers.
'The artist' I announce, 'is never original but always open for business.'

She takes me by the member. 'I have a taste for fairy tales
here in the back lanes of your cheap ambition.'
Her silence is bait for my permission, swimming here in mid-stream attracted to the riddle. 'If noise falls to the ground why are vegetables silent?'

I see a body of thought smuggling language into the classroom, it is confident of erosion, maintains the power of will, excites competent commotion, eyeballs tumble, it circles the conversation, squares technique with thought, fires speech with passion, recites balance with meaning.
She is my friend, given to me by everything I don't understand.

In the beginning there was the word but it was the wrong word.
The structure was sound but the landscape was fluid
and only experienced fishermen need apply.

The Water-hole

Older than architecture the parchment of surface water
reflects a crystal clear sky.
To write something here is to pick up stones
fluid toes, nature hurls, the colours won’t last
the etching will expand into rhythm, into music.
We’ll all hear but only some will listen.

Anchored in the shiny moment
a coin is fed into reception
gorgeous birds fill the sky with moisture.
Some are huge as crystal and I sit up in a sweat
some are tiny like star dust glued to dreams
a great spirit blows seed.

I look into the water-hole, buffalo wallow in the puddle.
I search the Tank stream.
It trickles to the sea carrying feelings and needs
as tides come and go.

My father is dead now.
Death by domestication
His mother tongue remains unsaid.
The television speaks instead, it’s an ancient tale
lying in crumbs on the edge of the table.
Best meditate ‘til wilderness fills my heart and head
with landscapes of my own.

Sitting in the food hall... here comes a trickle
and here comes a creek eroding the embankment
and quietly it begins to flow, golden wings attached to my feet.
Clouds gather, lightening, thunder moisture continues to grow.

Raymond Wittenberg, lives in Paddington with other cool people who would like to travel. Raymond likes to win prizes and express himself clearly and would like to understand which comes first. Raymond regularly reads at TAP gallery, Darlinghurst.

E-mail: Raymond Wittenberg