New poems by Susan Adams

Susan Adams is a Sydney poet who has been published in anthologies,  E-zines, and hard copy journals both in Australia and internationally. She has been read on ABC Radio National ‘Poetica’.

Yolked Vows

Sun Shine demands Still.
Earths edges in a halo.
We are silent shadows following
the breeze as it moves about our secrets.

Paths are littered with tarsealed honour,
easily given, now
stuck to all the tomorrows
with gravity of promise.

Minds need feeding.

A plane flew over touching my head.
Jet of light crisp as bread, crust crackles hunger.
You stroke the hair in the fold of my arm
hear silver on faraway wind;
the pages turning air.

When it’s over we pleat each other into envelopes and
mail to unknown places.

Sliding Colours

The latticed gaps of predawn
forests chatter the trees,

cold light on black filigree
turns grey & then to steel,

the hummering of breeze
makes everything sway

bright gives silver
leaves shivering their shapes

and green limps its definition
as colour and bird squall

take their place
in the fillings of the day,

each lorikeet flitting breakfast
is a miniature of daybreak.

Distant peaks drop shadows
into water as gold

rises from the other side;
from wet to wonder.

Drink

I stare at my cup of lukewarm tea
cradle the bowl and hold you

as I would your head against me.

Loosed light on tremor rippled surface
your face reflects.

I bend my head to the rim
and you
and suck you drop by lick by lick
into my mouth, closing my eyes
so I can’t see you disappear
as I trickle you into me like boiled sweet residues.
Your warmth leaches through in subtleties
like the many times I sucked the warm subtleties of you,
but the hand put up in protest
at my drawn out gulp of you
sticks in my throat and is turning me
inside out.

On your angry departure road where you don’t let me go
but trail me along behind to absorb the excess of you
the huffed heat and puffed hurt
a star burning out in flashing Morse code,
the pulsing flare of you that lit our way long into the eroded night
until your ignition imploded.
And there you left me on the scorched road of your indignity.

I need to lose the sense and injustice of you
devour your plausibility permanently
to swallow you in amputated parts
to be rid of you and the loss of you.

I replace the emptied cup where my parallel tears snow plough
down the curved inside and bury themselves
in the remnant debris of you

while your memory sets camp in every cell of me!

Human Error Never

Puddle pop paddles
in the estuaries of the begin
pools
that eddy the perimeters of possible.
Both tides on the turn
we each keep our eyes
on the shore
both know how to swim
paddle the distance
tread water
when out of depth
sensibility must be accounted
you say.

Puddles become waves
Hello and Goodnight.

So Humpt me Dumpt me
don’t let us fall
horses of kings and hearts of knaves
can’t fix this faint
of love.

Cyclists

A Twister swirl of streamers
advances down hill,
monsoonal rain confetti
carves into curdles of colour –
a raft of cyclists,
jostling for position
peddling liquorice
lines on highway.

I hear the hiss on tar of
black rubber tyres,
see spider leg hydraulics
pumping power,
sprays of flicked sweat and
spilt water from bottles, caught
in the licking of sun on air
between ducking shadows
as this snake in Joseph’s coat
turns heads as fast as a rally
at Wimbledon.
They pass through
and once again
are sprinkles
at a kids’ party.

© Susan Adams