Butterflies Live Here
Migratory swifts feed high above the flower insects, their
Arrows of head-point and their body-barbs unzipping
The smear of gnats off the evening sky
Thistledown blows its false fairies high and low here
Across in truth are these, enemies seedy tares ready
To be sown in again as I weed.
Yet I am alone here, desolate of human company
And this means that tho’ I am a patched rag of a self
In bad dress. I serve, give as I can.
So even thistle seedlings do make salad sprouts
When picked young enough in the green, an unprejudiced
Unbudgeted sustenance, a bread not alone.
I blunder, but no weasel word rules here, the mission verse
Is not got up by spin or marketeers, nor does this
Place come about by ideology, or force.
Here a bounty of vegetables and flowers thrives
As the canny nurture of productive land becomes gift
And a heart’s careful grasp on love and sanity.
Four wings drink at sprinklers of my watered garden.
And the unwatered butterfly bush is covered with them;
Varieties hatched of a cloneless metamorphosis.
Butterflies live here(1) - the native Browns come
To the purple nectar of the buddleia tree flowers like
Moths to the honey of the sunlight
Wayne David Knoll, Mortlake, Vic. 17 February 2013
(1) NOTE: 1. “Only I never saw another butterfly. Butterflies don’t live here, in the ghetto.” —Pavel Friedmann. -
2. At Terezin chidren’s Concentration camp, Ann Kortova writes: ‘Of course, there were other animals there – mainly lice, bedbugs and fleas... But I did not see a single butterfly in Terezin during the three years I spent there. - There were 98 of us – 98 Czech children out of 15000 - who returned.
Sunday, February 17, 2013
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
These Amputations
After the finger de-gloving…
the kerbside trailer accident, and surgery…
the Centralian Aboriginal boys
clamboured me around, asking
“Hey mister! Where’s your finger?’
And glib answers, such as:
‘Gone!’ or ‘Ripped Off!’
were by no means any satisfaction
for what they needed know.
And I realized that Our Mind, gripped by
the Hard-Replying Fact of the hospital incinerator
was going to horrify them as much as any after Hitler
tale of tattoed digits at Auschwitz...
Sounding, to Indigenous ears - which value each
bit of being as if Soul is in the digit of every detail -
[Even while living lives self-destructing off the emptiness
of a lost bodily integrity] as sacrilegious somehow…
too much less than sacred in this very real Matter
needing proper grief.
So, I took a step on a mutual foot-road of comprehension
And said: ‘My finger’s gone to God…..
And it’s waiting out there in heaven for
The rest of me to catch up …One Day.’
Satisfied as camp puppies with a pat –
the Aboriginal lads were Convinced.
As if this one I could tell them was the only true story
of me as I am – of things as they are - a story that laid my hard-questing
late finger to its early sublime rest.
But, my fellow worker, who also came with
a disability - in words that came out Amputated
just in the passage of being born –
said: “ Just watch out that God doesn’t
Take the rest of you b-b-bit by b-b-bit.”
But then, of course, after this Laughter …
The Pain …(again!)…
and like a good orchardist pruning
the worth-while trees, he does.
He does. …
and each nail
of wounds keeps us
Smarting in that direction.
Wayne David Knoll
22 August 2008
the kerbside trailer accident, and surgery…
the Centralian Aboriginal boys
clamboured me around, asking
“Hey mister! Where’s your finger?’
And glib answers, such as:
‘Gone!’ or ‘Ripped Off!’
were by no means any satisfaction
for what they needed know.
And I realized that Our Mind, gripped by
the Hard-Replying Fact of the hospital incinerator
was going to horrify them as much as any after Hitler
tale of tattoed digits at Auschwitz...
Sounding, to Indigenous ears - which value each
bit of being as if Soul is in the digit of every detail -
[Even while living lives self-destructing off the emptiness
of a lost bodily integrity] as sacrilegious somehow…
too much less than sacred in this very real Matter
needing proper grief.
So, I took a step on a mutual foot-road of comprehension
And said: ‘My finger’s gone to God…..
And it’s waiting out there in heaven for
The rest of me to catch up …One Day.’
Satisfied as camp puppies with a pat –
the Aboriginal lads were Convinced.
As if this one I could tell them was the only true story
of me as I am – of things as they are - a story that laid my hard-questing
late finger to its early sublime rest.
But, my fellow worker, who also came with
a disability - in words that came out Amputated
just in the passage of being born –
said: “ Just watch out that God doesn’t
Take the rest of you b-b-bit by b-b-bit.”
But then, of course, after this Laughter …
The Pain …(again!)…
and like a good orchardist pruning
the worth-while trees, he does.
He does. …
and each nail
of wounds keeps us
Smarting in that direction.
Wayne David Knoll
22 August 2008
Monday, October 26, 2009
First Night On the Western Front
First Night On the Western Front
- After Charles Yale Harrison
Out of no-man’s land,
through jags of barbwire
as shaken down as earth’s geology,
in that hell-dark of second watch,
some thing leapt at my face
and I nerved back, probing
the inkblack to gradually begin
to make out a rat - large as a tomcat,
but only slowly discern it so fat,
and then to realize why.
Around Anzac Day 2009 © Wayne David Knoll
- After Charles Yale Harrison
Out of no-man’s land,
through jags of barbwire
as shaken down as earth’s geology,
in that hell-dark of second watch,
some thing leapt at my face
and I nerved back, probing
the inkblack to gradually begin
to make out a rat - large as a tomcat,
but only slowly discern it so fat,
and then to realize why.
Around Anzac Day 2009 © Wayne David Knoll
Thursday, March 27, 2008
An Australian Peace
The Land Islands of Wannackladdin
Ephemeral see, daily vapor veils the cross-hatched old reedbeds
Layoring this striated imagine-ocean up measures of dream. Old names
Come in the mist, Ballaymarang and Garem Gam, Eumemmering
Is neighbouring, near to Gin Gin Been and Panty Gurn Gurn. And
West of Toomah by Torbin Urruck is Carrum Carrup, where
the lost land islands of Wannackladdin lie, and then lay down.
Behind all mediated waddings of curtain pasts, chinks to a seeing
reveal a pristine land, an ageless, longed-for welcome home
comes, where sleep goes. There the islands of Wannackladdin
Rise as the lost havens for our longing in this our own land.
Submerged under suburban from Mordialloc to Frankston, as
Gold leaf fallen from our crown in the autumn of our bloom,
Those lost beauties where our younger skin was shed.
The old maps show the early names, like an orphan’s father’s
Attention and trustworthiness, an orphan’s mother’s embrace.
Our shores rise out of these drained lands of hard despond…
Fences of impenetrable thickets morass up a veneer of streets
Where even the young grow leery with shame and cynicism
Like stranded people old before their time, in no place here,
Not now, or then, even lost from the islands of themselves.
There are no land islands anymore! And how is land at sea?
Land islands are a stupid idea to the rationalised dice of spun fact
And compromise! The land is for the subdivision, the lot! Cast
Your spirit from your life! Your soul is asked for in return for
Comfort and a living here, in the streets where that old map
Shows that the Land Islands of Wannackladden went down
Like first losers in the Anti-Olympian games.
© Wayne David Knoll Jan/Feb 2008
Ephemeral see, daily vapor veils the cross-hatched old reedbeds
Layoring this striated imagine-ocean up measures of dream. Old names
Come in the mist, Ballaymarang and Garem Gam, Eumemmering
Is neighbouring, near to Gin Gin Been and Panty Gurn Gurn. And
West of Toomah by Torbin Urruck is Carrum Carrup, where
the lost land islands of Wannackladdin lie, and then lay down.
Behind all mediated waddings of curtain pasts, chinks to a seeing
reveal a pristine land, an ageless, longed-for welcome home
comes, where sleep goes. There the islands of Wannackladdin
Rise as the lost havens for our longing in this our own land.
Submerged under suburban from Mordialloc to Frankston, as
Gold leaf fallen from our crown in the autumn of our bloom,
Those lost beauties where our younger skin was shed.
The old maps show the early names, like an orphan’s father’s
Attention and trustworthiness, an orphan’s mother’s embrace.
Our shores rise out of these drained lands of hard despond…
Fences of impenetrable thickets morass up a veneer of streets
Where even the young grow leery with shame and cynicism
Like stranded people old before their time, in no place here,
Not now, or then, even lost from the islands of themselves.
There are no land islands anymore! And how is land at sea?
Land islands are a stupid idea to the rationalised dice of spun fact
And compromise! The land is for the subdivision, the lot! Cast
Your spirit from your life! Your soul is asked for in return for
Comfort and a living here, in the streets where that old map
Shows that the Land Islands of Wannackladden went down
Like first losers in the Anti-Olympian games.
© Wayne David Knoll Jan/Feb 2008
Wednesday, June 13, 2007
95 THESES - the Peace Sequence
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter. In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther (1517)
Thesis 92-95
92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!
93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!
94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;
95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace
Out of love for the truth and the desire to bring it to light, the following propositions will be discussed at Wittenberg, under the presidency of the Reverend Father Martin Luther, Master of Arts and of Sacred Theology, and Lecturer in Ordinary on the same at that place. Wherefore he requests that those who are unable to be present and debate orally with us, may do so by letter. In the Name our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
Disputation of Doctor Martin Luther on the Power and Efficacy of Indulgences by Dr. Martin Luther (1517)
Thesis 92-95
92. Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!
93. Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!
94. Christians are to be exhorted that they be diligent in following Christ, their Head, through penalties, deaths, and hell;
95. And thus be confident of entering into heaven rather through many tribulations, than through the assurance of peace
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
The Scorching
( Scorching to Warm )
The air roars
over there and here…
not for breathing.
It’s for burning
as the great sucking
fast fire consumes…
It roars its consummation,
Scorching along! Scorching.
And here we live
at the loud gates,
on the very lane-spun
side of trafficking…
in this great fire of us
being the city where
we hope to warm.
8.30 am 17 May 2006 © Wayne David Knoll
near Mountain Highway, Bayswater, Victoria
The air roars
over there and here…
not for breathing.
It’s for burning
as the great sucking
fast fire consumes…
It roars its consummation,
Scorching along! Scorching.
And here we live
at the loud gates,
on the very lane-spun
side of trafficking…
in this great fire of us
being the city where
we hope to warm.
8.30 am 17 May 2006 © Wayne David Knoll
near Mountain Highway, Bayswater, Victoria
Peace is a Town Ready to Burn
( Tasting the ash of our material dance )
A Northerly: flatulent stranger from out
of Melbourne, lets out the untamed secrets
of the ready Elements rage.
Its furnace wind blows hot off the dried-up
Inland, portending Acts of God in thermal force
that pushes at all loose human ways,
all tied hanging at the ends, all made things
grabbing into the deceptively sought human
havens – the peace of an inside world.
Out there, beyond windows, outside this
tooth surgery’s waiting room, already the Electric
Poles are ready, wanting to fire dance
hot consummation. A melt wax of column cypress
trees shows the materially-rigid poles how,
breaking columns of taught straights,
Warmed to an elastic bending of heated force
the licorice-line of the insulated wire softens
to a dripping pipe of flexible tar.
The windmelt gets a grip on wide insulated wires,
now swaying, cross arms of the braced Power pole wriggling,
straining on its bolts, ready to arc materials down.
The starter flickswitch is on ready, sounding
in the wind’s engines; blast jets aloft in wide formation
invisibly blitzing raw summer’s sky.
Houses harboured on the power grid go all at sea,
bobbing on hawsers hanging at air-conditioners wired
in wind flexing thin biceps like spent whips
while a wrought iron cross on Christ Church stands
bravely, unmoved, facing north like a martyr above
the church tower’s roofed pyramid iced
with a lid of roosted steps of dry pigeon shit:
Listen! I hear a cooing: “Calm is guano accreting,"
and: "Peace is a town ready to burn.”
A red music of flames, exciting torch of its quick
relays will soar up, blare out, and run, run, run
when everything material catches.
Our teaming readiness to join the refining waits
a single spark - a match will meet- opening dynamic
doors to a wild-gone city fire, readied to dance
the good oil of our combustibles, off floors of a citied world;
the consuming fire-steps are printed daily in papers
by flash-pointed signatures of coming flame.
21 Jan 2006 © Wayne David Knoll
Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
A Northerly: flatulent stranger from out
of Melbourne, lets out the untamed secrets
of the ready Elements rage.
Its furnace wind blows hot off the dried-up
Inland, portending Acts of God in thermal force
that pushes at all loose human ways,
all tied hanging at the ends, all made things
grabbing into the deceptively sought human
havens – the peace of an inside world.
Out there, beyond windows, outside this
tooth surgery’s waiting room, already the Electric
Poles are ready, wanting to fire dance
hot consummation. A melt wax of column cypress
trees shows the materially-rigid poles how,
breaking columns of taught straights,
Warmed to an elastic bending of heated force
the licorice-line of the insulated wire softens
to a dripping pipe of flexible tar.
The windmelt gets a grip on wide insulated wires,
now swaying, cross arms of the braced Power pole wriggling,
straining on its bolts, ready to arc materials down.
The starter flickswitch is on ready, sounding
in the wind’s engines; blast jets aloft in wide formation
invisibly blitzing raw summer’s sky.
Houses harboured on the power grid go all at sea,
bobbing on hawsers hanging at air-conditioners wired
in wind flexing thin biceps like spent whips
while a wrought iron cross on Christ Church stands
bravely, unmoved, facing north like a martyr above
the church tower’s roofed pyramid iced
with a lid of roosted steps of dry pigeon shit:
Listen! I hear a cooing: “Calm is guano accreting,"
and: "Peace is a town ready to burn.”
A red music of flames, exciting torch of its quick
relays will soar up, blare out, and run, run, run
when everything material catches.
Our teaming readiness to join the refining waits
a single spark - a match will meet- opening dynamic
doors to a wild-gone city fire, readied to dance
the good oil of our combustibles, off floors of a citied world;
the consuming fire-steps are printed daily in papers
by flash-pointed signatures of coming flame.
21 Jan 2006 © Wayne David Knoll
Brunswick, Melbourne, Australia
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