2 Poems from Irene Wilkie

baby boomers

Grateful that the leading paradigm
of existence
steams ahead with no gaps
where someone
is missing at the table
set with two chairs,
marmalade jam,
toasted weeties
afloat in low-fat milk,
our hearts beat
on and on with ease,
not caring
what the finite number is
already clocked
by that metronome in the sky.

We discover talents hitherto
uncovered,
projects needing more time
than scrolls
ahead. Enthused
we drool
cool achievement, paint like
Grandma Moses,
write a shorter Gone With The Wind.
In our residual
span of years, we cavort
tauter than tortoises,
quicker than quicksilver,
sparkle expertise
until the very, very la-a-a-st minute.

© Irene Wilkie

absurd

You lure me into the valley,
territory of snake tongue,
spider foot, dingo eye.

You tell me
our molecules, our cells
share commonality
with marsupial mice,
river gums,
orange-peel fungi.

You tell me
we recycle the same air,
taste the same rain
as the first hunters here,
baiting , trapping
the slow diprotodon.

I wriggle my bones and stroll,
almost accepting oneness,
breathe out shadows,
sit, with you, hearing pebbles
shift and turn,
blue wrens flicker.

A silent leech crawls,
finds my secret skin,
dissolves it in the circle of its mouth.

The rasping lip steals pleasure
without consent, sucks my blood,
like any common Dracula.

You light a match, burn the slimy tail,
not  the  act of  connectedness
but you do it anyway, laughing.

I shudder. The creature drops.
I stop the squirming with my boot,
grind blood into the earth.

I stamp back to the track head
and you, behind me,
follow,
still babbling
your absurdities.

© Irene Wilkie