Janine Fraser’s book Portraits in a Glasshouse was published by Five Islands Press, Series 10 New Poets.  She has also written numerous books for children, including the Sarindi series published by HarperCollins.  She lives in Riddells Creek, Victoria.
 

 

 

Red Tulips (1)

 

Tight brown

Fists shoved in dark

Earth pockets

 

Latent with

The rage of life’s

Short round

 

Put up their

Leather-red dooks

And deliver

 

A knock-out

Pummel of punches

In Spring.

 

 

 

Red Tulips (2)

Cut
They continue
To grow in glass

Adding
To themselves
About an inch a day

As reputation
Growing on decease.
Outrage

In the mouth
Of the water jug
They pour out

The peculiars
Of their common
Trouble

Voluble in
Their predicament    
As Plath––the ink-

Blot of
Their throats a dark
Puddled jotting

Last fevered
Poem got out on
A gasp

The flame
Going out in them
Putrefying water

Petal drop
Shocking as blood
On the hearth.

 

Remembering Stonehenge

 

Mid April, there is this fractal of a second

     Hand sweeping the clocks bland face,

          Through a day whirling with wind gust

 

Swirling the parchments of elm

     Into a mushroom circle dotting the grass

          Beneath the slow grind and twirl of

 

The clothes hoist hung with a rainbow

     Line of briefs, line of socks you peg in pairs,

          Stripe of shirts cuffing your cheek.

 

You know a mushrooms natural history––

     Science of spores dropped from the hem

          Of the circular skirt, the minute

 

Mycelium rippling out in the eternal

     Pattern of water disturbed by a smooth

          White stone––know the rings expansion

 

Is nothing more than the law

     Of urban sprawl, the vociferous animal

          Eating out its patch.  All the same,

 

This mythic round of pithy plinths

     Pushing up on stolid columns, is as magical

          As muttered lore of faery,

 

Mysterious as Stonehenge.  There

     Last year in a fine mist of the weather,

          You circled the great hewn rocks

 

Along the gravel path, the guide in your ear

     Making a monument of date and data,

          Dismantling the mystic.  The sky

 

Gave up its clouds.  Huddled under

     Your black umbrella, you surrendered

          Your ear-plugs and let the grey stones

 

Speak for themselves––of the ground

     They’re rooted in, the light they melt into,

          The trembling spaces between.