poetry since 2003

Unpublished Poetry written since 2003

Dedication Service
Dresden
Eastertide Rabaul 2007

DEDICATION SERVICE
AUSTRALIAN WAR MEMORIAL, LONDON
11th November 2003

Blood of my blood, living here still,
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill.

Cold the morning, grey the sky,
Sun muffled up in cloud
Missing.

We stand in rows
Circling the world.
Dead men around us,
Patiently wait
For the word.

Faces are fading
Back into photos
Seen as a child.
Well known strangers
Now cluster in.

This reading of names,
year after year,                                                                       Memorial Wall
This seeking some thing                                       Hyde Park Corner, London
Began long ago.

Why are we here?
Who was alive
When the first battle started.
Why shuffle and sigh
When banners unfurl?

Do we remember,
To show how we care
Just like to wave,
Want to be noticed.
Have guilt assuaged?

Or perhaps, we are shrouds
Drawn out by hands
From the grave.

Young men are boating
Strolling the Strand.
Nearby they pass
Under this arch
Bright eyes delighting.

And then?
Into death went soul
Body left behind
Somewhere in the mud,                                    Photo Anne took of her father at
Damp the air, chilled the bone                         Villers-Bretonneaux
Trees drift from fog,                                          Military Cemetery, France,
Limbs cut.                                                           September, 1967

A march of memories
Gathers about me.
Carried by destruction
Here, to this place
Where MY youth was tested.

Here where I knew
Love not a thing desired
Contained in features, flesh,
But Spirit using mind,
Regardless of corruption.

A whirl of smoke, beyond the crowd,
Scapegoated,
Silently searching
Dissolves upwards.
Yet
Essence of Man's glory,
Being through another
Graced me.

All those young men dying,
Did they find
There,
In war
Light beside them.

A Presence, radiating                                Close up of Memorial Wall, in which
Energetic calm                                             are carved names of some of the
Ingathered to itself                                     places where Australians fought, and
Within and yet apart                                  the towns from which they came.
From all the slaughter.

Did friend and foe,
Share in despair
Holiness of Being.
Greet the Son
With bloodied cloak.

The last leaf falls, fingers curl,
Wandering free
A sketch of skeletons

My father walked round here
Stood there,
Over there,
Looking up at gunners
One of the 'fellowship'.

Old man
Remembering
His youth amongst the guns.
He moves towards a space
Curved into stone.

There now he reads, carefully,
Where he fought
And his best mates fell.

My life
Formed by war, two wars,
Has become
Scenes
Snapped today
.
The film runs back
And forward.
Finite death
Opens out to Love
Infinite and always.

White the gull, wings outstretched.
Earth is crossed
In sting of innocence.

For a while
I am
Where my nation is.
Dual life contained
Crafted out by granite.

A little more of London
Is claimed now by its own
To be its own.
Anthem echoes anthem
In united prayer.

A-wallow in matter, fashioned to kill,
Might an age wait,
Wait for miracles.

Is this the purpose?
Can hope come from dead men
Who, caring to be human
Gave Love in spite of Satan
Clawing at creation.

Far away youth pauses,
Perhaps its sacrifice
Will not be in vain.
All may yet understand
God's breath is everywhere.

Red the petal, black the core
Generations pass
Through a wreath of flowers.

Blood of my blood, living here still
Matilda comes waltzing up Constitution Hill
Circles and stops. A figure sits down
Content in the flame of a People's Will
To rest for awhile on hallowed ground

Photographs © Anne McCosker

Return to contents list

Posted on web 30th October 2005, in celebration of the ringing of the
Dresden Frauenkirche bells for the first time since their destruction in 1945

DRESDEN

Though night the dead leaves fall
One upon one,
Cobbles have become a bloody coloured carpet

Statues stand aloof
Hollow eyed,
Black flacks of fury cut into each heart.

A thousand candles etch
Face after face,
The 'balcony of Europe' blazes with elegance.

Overhead searchlights
Sweep westward,
Awful fingers flick remembrance from the pall.

Beams circle, pause, pass on
Gargoyles watch,
The sky is empty - now.

Darkness though lets grief
Choke throats,
Centuries have melted down to nothingness.

A sound above jerks features up
Red wine spurts,
Heads twist to sight from alleyway and attic.

Tongues flare the furnace
Satanic sanity,
Makes all men mad.

Time destroys itself
Spaced pain
Can understand the grave

As round the Frauenkirche
Flesh terrified,
Turns into soul.

With day the sun will give
Reflection,
Beauty burnt to ashes a-quiver in the light.

The Frauenkirche is rising,
Art remains,
Dancers play with fire about the palaces

And canna flames along the Elbe,
Lantana flowers,
Image of mine, my own home town.

There I heard an angry cry
My mother's,
For the 'enemy' - in Dresden.

I am a stranger here
In peace, apart,
The people are beyond me,

Yet a first memory
My mother horrified,
Gives her to me - in Dresden.

Frauenkirche, 2004

Dresden with
Frauenkirche
from the Elbe, 2004

Photographs © Martin Craxton 2005, posted with his permission

Return to contents list

EASTERTIDE RABAUL 2007

PALM SUNDAY Roads around Rabaul

Above me, beside me,
High in the sky
Low on the ground
Planted in rows
Placed by the road,
Palms everywhere.
Shell necklace round
Blue merie blouse
Hibiscus in hair
Smart shorts, lap lap,
Best clothes being worn
To honour our Lord.
All the way lined
Ribboned with fronds,
Long fingers weaving
Green into grace
Arch about grass
Craft from my past.
A shout from the crowd
Giggles, loud laughter,
Children cry out
Greet us with grins
Sing as we pass,
Palms everywhere.
Each corner a-shimmer
Of leaf swaying light
People with faith
Let earth decorate.
I too celebrate
A journey remembered,

Palms everywhere.

MAUNDY THURSDAY Namanula Hospital Gardens

I am back where I began¹
This life in Time,
Standing by a tree
Rooted amongst rubble
As mango leaves
Curl into concrete.
This man made block
Almost covered now
With shrubby undergrowth
And beak torn seed;
What has it been?
Did it serve some purpose.

Lawned gardens gone.
No hospital verandah
Where the cross became
One with ease from pain
And women wore starched aprons
To help a population
Through childbirth, malnutrition.
Here tropical diseases
Were skillfully recorded
Lik Lik doctors trained,
Then qualified, were able
To help on far plantations.

Feet and faces washed
Bodies cleanly bandaged
Food and drink provided
Hands touching Everyman,
Darkness put aside
As spirits came to see
Flesh healed.
In this community,
Individuals
Patterned by Christ
Within His charity,
Worked for humanity.

Down there today,
In Rabaul
People are aware
And in the churches
There is preparation.
Bread made
Table laid
Cup ready.
No war, earthquake, eruption
Has taken it away
That sense of something good
Built on this hill.

And so I stand²
Above a town
On my birth ground.
Across Blanche Bay
Along the shore
Waves filter light
Through my inheritance
As sails are seen
Moving silently
From a hot horizon
Over heavy seas
Towards the inner harbour.

I turn to watch the sun³
Set over Namanula.
From shadow forms appear
Soldiers jostle near
A kiss, confusion.
One figure walks
Beyond the crowd
Past spiteful spears
And restless shrouds
Down through a garden4
Where ashed names lie
To find His people praying.

1 The poet was born in Namanula Hospital.

2. There is a magnificent view from the Namanula ridge over the town, across Blanche Bay, out to islands and inland mountains.

3. From Namanula Ridge, 22rd January 1942, Nobby Clark, chief civilian warden, hurried from his Lookout Post to warn many civilians waiting in the town trenches that the Japanese invasion was imminent – and that the military garrison had abandoned Rabaul. Most of these civilians including Clark were to die as POW. Rabaul was totally destroyed during WWII, rebuilt, and then destroyed mainly by volcanic ash after the volcano ‘Turvurvu’ erupted in 1994. It has not been rebuilt.

4. Pre WWI, Botanical Gardens were created by the German administration along the lower slopes of the Namanula ridge. A track from the ridge went down through the gardens to the town.

GOOD FRIDAY St. George’s Church

‘Cross Mango Avenue
To St. George’s;
My parents married here,

The best man
At that wedding
Murdered by Japanese.

Past the tower
Through the door,
Everything the same?

About the font
Brown faces
Welcome memory.

The church is full
Life gathers up
The grave.

‘When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of Glory died’.

An ancient rite
Worded by grace
Begins.

Familiar tongues
Echo
My childhood.

Men imagined
In my blood
Enter the pews.

Kneeling
I shiver,
Do spirits pray.

‘Did e’er such love and sorrow meet
Or thorns compose so rich a crown.’

My parents’ friends
Sit by me
Turning pages.

Feet shuffle
In a line
Stir earth.

‘We can not know, we cannot tell
What pains He had to bear’.

One voice is heard
‘Get out, go away,
We are betrayed’.

Down the hill
Nobby goes,
Some one must warn them.

His friends, old men,
In the trenches
Waiting.

The congregation rises,
Slowly we walk
To the garden.

‘Go the dark Gethsemane
Ye that feel the Tempter’s power’.

Trees mark
Stages of the Cross.
Who believed?

The warden hurries
Hurries,
Death skips.

We sing of sacrifice
In this humidity,
Nobby is very near.

‘May we thirst Thy love to know
Lead us worn with sin and woe’.

Another tree, another hymn
Figures press,
Sweat oozing.

Little cover given
By this fragrant branch
Of frangipani flower.

Was that a shot?
I lift my head,
The sun beats down.

Desperate lips
Seek salvation
Murmur ‘Father’.

‘Thou, O my Jesus, Thou does me
Upon the Cross embrace’.

A man
Collapses
Body broken.

‘For me did bear the nails and spear
And manifest disgrace.’

Nobby hurries
Hurries.
‘Get away’.

Shepherd of His flock,
It is hard
To forgive.

Fingers touch
The flesh of God
Fall over.

Faithful servants
Of this church
Human life entombed.

‘Silent through those three dread hours
Wrestling with the evil powers’.

Did even those
Who scoffed
Find Jesus at the end.

The last hymn,
Are dead men
Singing?

‘It is finished hear Him cry
And learn from Jesus how to die’.

I wipe my brow,
God made today -
Good Friday!

He, knowing all,
Seized dying
Led the way.

Such Love
Could manifest itself
Into every one

Move through terror
Re-creating Man,
Word Resurrection.

HOLY SATURDAY Commonwealth War Graves Cemetery Bita Paka

By water’s edge and tall palm threads we go to
Bita Paka.

Glimpse of thatch, green mango,
White wooden tower
With cross above
Tolai women waving.

Spittled betel nut
Blood red on the road
Curving by a tunnel
Its entrance overgrown.

Scraps of metal scattered
Through cacao bushes
Cover old mat mats
Beneath a rainbow mould.

We turn a corner, see ahead, the gates of Bita Paka.

When a child, my parents
Spoke about this place
Where many of their friends
Lie buried or recorded
‘In memoriam’.
Surviving two world wars;
Scarred though by both,
I grew within their pain.

Beside great trees, beneath a cross
Whose arms are reaching, stretching
Above me to embrace
Every name destroyed,
I rest, remember, wonder
For this is Eastertide.
Once, Christ, this day
Walked calmly through the grave.

And I am, now, today, here at Bita Paka.

Here Captain Grey is buried.
After much torture,
Still living;
The Japanese cut out his heart.

The enemy desired
To find the captain’s Colonel¹.
Grey kept his silence.
Christ alive!

What manner of this man
Who found the Will
To know flesh crucified,
Keep faith.

I bend my head and pray, today, at Bita Paka.

Before the cross I stand
Glad of the shade
Seeing Jesus be
Life without flesh,
Breathe without bone
Spirit giving sight,
Energy surviving
Jab and stab of steel.

Carefully He gathered
Souls for eons trapped,
Corpses ever staring.
Christ, Creator, worked
Methodically through hell,
In His passion freeing
All who comprehended
His encelling Light.

On this day, this second day,
God, the Alchemist
Out witted satan.
After application,
His universe re-structed
He became the Son
Turned terror
Into One.

And I am here, today, here at Bita Paka

I read another name²....
This middle aged First Aider
Wanting to ease pain
Wore Red Cross on calico.

The Japanese ripped off
That symbol of Christ’s Love
Seen on his shoulder,
Stabbed Kennedy.

When war was over
My father brought the body,
The body of his mate
Back to Bita Paka.

And I, today, am standing, here at Bita Paka.

All those other men
How did they die.
Those rows of silent tongues
Hide what agony.
Was any human there
To even witness death?
I do not know and yet
God experienced it.

Stir as the Gardener moves
About each dying face
And through flame goes
To seize again
Life from corruption,
Give in this sacrifice
Christ’s mystery
Christ’s grace.
.

1. Colonel Scanlon, Officer in Command, Rabaul garrison, the man the Japanese wanted to find, surrounded a few days after Captain Grey was tortured to death. He survived the war in relative calm as POW in Japan.

2. Bob Kennedy, best man at Stan and Marjorie McCoskers’ wedding, had been a medical officer in Rabaul for over 20 years when he was murdered.

EASTER DAY St George’s Church

‘Christ is risen’.
‘He is risen indeed’.

Voices shout
Faces smile
St. George’s Church, Rabaul!

Green palms along the aisle
Fringe rainbow coloured crotons
And frangipanni flowers,
Blue streamers sway
Over red hibiscus
Purple bougainvillea
Woven baskets, cloth,
And on the altar table
White petals, wooden Cross.

With women standing near,
The meries of my birth,
I sing the well loved hymns
Join in celebration.
Christ is here and busy
Actively engaged,
So much death around us
Hunting silently,
Is unmasked today.

In this ancient service
So holy is its rite
That all the pain surrounding
Burdening this town,
Lessens through ‘Amen.’
Knowledge blended with belief
Lets each grave be seen,
Accepted in its awfulness
Through His supremacy.

Breathe, from the Centre,
Moving self from matter
Dances Being out
Beyond humanity.
In a flash of passion
Power is touched by chance
For love with understanding
Lets the intellect
Live in its radiance.

Light swings its strength
Over river, sea,
Into every pebble
And coral pumiced beach.
Forest, jungle, garden
Catch each beat between
Leaves lined out of sunset
Stark in shadowed fire
And butterflies on wing.

I will take the Saviour’s wine
Feel the bread that is
Clear Presence in remembrance
Spirit beyond flesh
Alive in every action
By prayer of consecration,
Giving in this place
Hard peace of faithfulness
And sense of threefold grace.

Voices shout
Faces smile
St; George’s Church, Rabaul!

‘Dance, dance, where ever you may be
I am Lord of the Dance said he’.

EASTER MONDAY Matala Journey

We leave Rabaul, pass Kokopo,
Going to – Matala.
A southern road before us
Level with the coast
No mountain range to climb.
This route,
Witness to so much
Follows tribal tracks.
It should not take so very long
To reach the Warangoi,
And then I’ll soon be home,
Home at – Matala.

Bita Paka passed.
Beyond it bungalows
Once stood in planted acres.
How high the kunai grass,
It presses in towards us
Does no one ever cut it.
Was that Wat Wat?
Should I have stopped
It looked so different.
Where are all the women
With woven baskets
Ladened.

Surely over there, yes, there
Three figures walk.

Lawyer vines have crushed
Bright cacao bushes,
And climbing over trunks
Killed palms.
Have I missed Londip,
A historical plantation.
Hard to see ‘turn offs’
All the way is tangled.
Dead stumps, decaying matter
Choke sight.
Where are all the gardens,
The native, natural gardens.

How many people now
Travel on this road?
There were many THEN¹.
Old men moving slowly
Airmen packed in trucks;
No planes left.
Sailors without ships
Young soldiers leaderless,
Villagers ‘going bush’.
My father was amongst them
In his second war,
Walking for survival.

Did I see three figures
Move by the palm back there.

Our driver is unhappy,
I fidget with my hat
Look behind, about me
The way is disappearing,
It should not be like this.
Settlements and gardens,
Wealth producing land
Of coconut and copra
Cocoa, fruit trees, kau,
Were passed as travellers went
Safely on this track
Years, decades, ago.

I came this way
Soon after birth
Going home -
To Matala.
Then, my parents went
With children, Meries, baggage
Along a well known route,
Often done before.
And here I glimpsed
Luxurious earth
(While still remembering)
Found a rhythmed world.

Kunai grass now hides the sky
Beneath ferocious blades
That striking upward into air
Make noon day dark.
Those dawns of yet veiled heat
Fanned by slender fronds
Idling in laughter,
Those rain rich leaves
Beneath a splashed red wing,
That coral glinted sand
Necklaced with shells,
Was it all a dream?

.The dead of Bita Paka
Were they all enthralled
Lost in the wilderness,
My father too?
So short a time,
Intense a time
Before that second war.
And now
How much of it remembered
Acknowledged, understood.
The truck has stalled,
Can it restart?

I wish I could be certain
Of those walking figures.

Confusion in the car.
Too few had know
Where to, or why this road
Went easily, with importance,
By the coast, south west.
And now I’m told
The bridge-----the bridge is down!
Just like ‘before’ times
To reach my home
We must canoe
Through crocodiles.
I lean back and laugh.

It was no dream.
Those abandoned gardens
And shattered bungalows,
Were whole and thriving, once.
Before those tunnelled hills
With their empty tombs,
The country prospered.
Today is Easter Monday
And I,
Proud of my heritage
Am here
To share it.

Alien currents crossed
My family tried to help
Another people.
Pioneers, they faced
Hardship, loneliness,
And celebrated Easter.
Good days then for many
White and black together
Building, educating.
So much to do
Much done,
Men visioned goals.

Those walking figures,
One seemed familiar.

This drive,
A pointless journey.
No truck to meet us
On the Put Put side,
Useless to go on²;
No need to ‘get away’.
The main road now
Inland from here,
Crosses the river
To become
An up and down
Harsh hill track.

A broken branch
Now blocks our path.
It is hard to turn,
To go back.
History means nothing
In a shallow age.
My father and his kind
Surviving the Great War
Made New Guinea flourish.
Conquering death
They willed to work
Victory for lost mates.

Perhaps for them
It does not matter
If soon no one remembers
Such achievement.
Enough to know
They fought, remained
True to their faith
And culture
While helping other races.
Caring, they are able
To be careless
If forgotten.

We push fronds back
Disturb rocked roots,
Foolish not to feel
Ancestral eyes;
They are us.
Can my Art give
Blood back to bone
Re-mould memory,
Free minds entrapped
Within false facts.
The truck moves on
A miraged road.

Have I seen a painting
Of three figures walking?

I watch leaves shape
Light through this land
And shadows move
Silent beside me,
Absorbing energy.
Yesterday was Easter Day
My church was crowded.
Then I sang
And faces round me smiled
For we together felt
Rhythm beat within
Bright burst of sun.

For what has been, still is,
Can be re-structured,
Nothing ever quite destroyed
If good was in it.
Some seed remains
Buried deep
In cells
Waiting for strength
To trigger growth
Uncover lies
And gather truth
Into another Garden.

Those figures walking.
Christ and disciples near Emmaus, gospel for today³.

1. After Rabaul fell to the Japanese 23rd January 1942, hundreds of European men, civilian and military, tried to escape from the enemy along this road. The poet’s father was one of very few men who were successful. See the ‘ Track to Matala ’ by Anne McCosker.

2. The distance from the Warengoi to Matala was too far to walk except in an emergency. Pre WWII any one planning to go south by road could arrange for transport from the Put Put side of the river.

3. In the Book of Common Prayer the gospel for ‘Monday in Easter Week’ is taken from St. Luke, chapter 24.13.

AFTER EASTERTIDE Drive to the airport

Light across dark water
Sketches a town
In slumber,
Each lamp about the harbour
A sway of flame
Outlining installations.
Night wanders round and into cloud
A shadow over ships
That stand
Like shrouds
Anxious for morning.
Stars skip above a crater,
Dip and dance down to the ground
Die in shelled sand
Gathering great oceans.
Rabaul fades
Through moving glass
Blotched up with ash,
The past again.
Soon dawn will come
A fiery sun
Redraw Rabaul, reflect a face
Circled by palm, reefed sea, volcano,
For I, my life,
Has always been
About this place,
This hot limbed land of sharp caress,
Nothing has changed, departure meaningless.

return to contents list

Return to Contents Page