Jeff Guess

Beneath the War Memorial Shrine         earth has been planted out with red salvias.         Now like crimson candles         they swarm...

This is the soft brush        with sky                      and land        where colour        fixes summer        almost as an idyll...

Sour sobs smear         the once green         morning hills.         Warm         yellow         butter thick         by afternoon...

Along this garden path         King Alfreds float         in a cold mist of afternoon-         the only sun.         Each morning        ...

Sunlight the colour of cold straw.         Now rain begins         and has its own strange         calligraphy         on moving windows...

Silver air is crystallized with ice         a numb biting suspension of cold.         The pine at the road-corner         of the paddock...

Upon this paddock         it has rained all morning here         and late into the day and dark         where things without interference...

Out from white bricks         of the church,         at the junction of orange clay         and a neglected         border garden        ...

Now is the time of the crab-apple         small coals of fire         beneath the frost-cracked panes         of winter.         Whoever...

I don’t want to live         outside         of my garden         as I don’t want to live         outside         of paradise        ...