Kirpal Singh (b. 1949)

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SELECTED POEMS

Australian Landscape

Here where five bells toll south of my days
And where all rivers run, woman to man,
Man to woman, there is power without glory,
An ordinary lunacy for kings in grass castles.

Here the tree of man grows with a monkey grip,
And the merry-go-round in the sea is, well,
Like an orange tree of a late picking.

In the pausing of the hours, the hidden kingdom
Belongs to a woman of the future, a fortunate life
Where loving daughters, singing to the cattle
For love alone will take a long time dying.

The dreaming dragons, listening at night
Carve an absolutely ordinary rainbow,
Earth colours in sunny days of winter.

All beasts are beasts of prey here where you find
All things in their imaginary counterpart

And so I, a visitor, trying to bypass
The year of living dangerously and turtle beach,
Ignoring the cry in the jungle and cherry blossom,
Cling to the floating world, travelling north,
And sing the praise of time and rain.

Perhaps, blood relations will eliminate
The tyranny of distance, convince the slow natives,
Naked under Capricorn all the green year
Of my brilliant career, by crowded solitude.

In visions splendid I see the transit of Venus,
By reef and palm, wild cat falling, bliss,
The harp in the south brings homesickness
And I yearn again for the magic pudding
In the lucky country of an imaginary life.

by Kirpal Singh
from Catwalking and the Games We Play (1998)

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