Life In A Graduated Cylinder
'Why are our lives so pegged
on tests and calibrations....? '
I wondered one day at lab:
'Are we just numbers and specimens
on some giant petrie dish
calibrated & graduated
like some cylindrical tube....? '
Heaven forbid that we be siphoned-in
and spun around in an autoclave.
'Is the tugging and pulling
a centrifugal force that separates
the real me from impurity? '
And when I come out after experimentation -
my school, my government, my society, declares me
useful or useless in this brave new world...
'Should life then be pegged & reliant
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Galatean Resumé
On a hand-hewn pedestal
imagination coalesced;
on milk-white face alight
eyes sparkled with a liquid flame.
Some build ivory towers,
their hands raw from driven labour,
on scratched cheeks, a stricken eye
ransoms a sculpted orphan dream.
Across time and the Middle Sea
another calloused hand chiselled;
laughter on a pine-white face
resurrected an ailing heart.
Some can only imagine
what others have without trying;
when vicarious journeys fail,
reality's block they will assail.
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Kerry, in memoriam
`
take him home to Ellerston
there to rest, proud heart and soul
sultry rhythm, bushland hearth
beloved sunburnt country
just another day in the bush
life rolls on like a country song
paean to the homeland south
rays bounce off yon coffin sheen
life does go on without you
your neighbor's cattle wander
stray across funeral march
Mackellar's words guide our steps:
'Though earth holds many splendours,
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Arguing
I cry myself to sleep
safely atop my bed
when something terrible
is happening outside.
When did it start, this fight?
It gives me such a fright.
My hands are on my ears;
I try to stop the tears.
I turn back from the light;
It goes on through the night:
The shouting and the cursing
aggravates my shaking.
Please, dear Lord, let them stop,
Please let the issue drop.
Mum's got a lot to say,
Father won't give her way.
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Lights From Within Hallowed Hall
`
There were two lights that shone bright in the fields of green,
the one was bright in ways that it shadowed the other;
that even after the first had snuffed out, its afterglow
shone brilliantly and commandingly that the other cowered.
Both these lights have come from the same source;
both created for great things - illumining a darkening world,
each never intended to outshine the other, but together
bring upon this life a freedom from the lurking shadows.
In the same way always remember,
let your light shine before humanity
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Take Two
`
The weary social consciousness arose,
the adulation reveals
the personification of hope;
What of our communal yesterday?
We, the refugees of our past mistakes,
embodied by a bush that no longer burns,
consumed in the fervent disappointment and disgust.
Our faith is now rewarded -
an olive branch has been offered;
and on one shoulder lay what we only
dare to hope, 'Perhaps, perhaps...'
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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There Are...
`
There are days
that songs are stifled
or the throat hoarse and weary
No more do notes glide softly -
raking leaves strewn across
the littered lawn
their butterfly wings
hung up in the wait
for another sunny day.
There are nights
that stars squander
their luminescence
on unappreciative lovers
roaming listlessly by
a moonlit shore
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Terminal Velocity
`
Drenched in heavy morning rain
Like an arctic soaking to the vein;
I just sat there stunned and wordless,
by the results of endless tests.
Only do I seek the scoffer's sympathy;
my litanies dot the bottom of this timpani.
No restaurant on high street offers...
Whoa! I found where my sanity rests:
A very comforting hand takes mine,
The other hand by her child as well.
I draw dry ice sculptures in my mind,
While a hawk's screech rings overhead.
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Journeying
so beautiful yet imperfect
lofty thoughts crammed
into asphyxiating spaces
with all the bold grace
of a cattle train full
once openly arrayed
each letter corrupts their
purity, dampens their joy
white petals wilting, scorched
thoughts and images divine
now uneasily bourne
by vessels corruptible
cursed with leaking hulls
what frail bearers of light
shadows cast by storm lamps
flickering bare intermittence
or maybe a spark of glory
yet from season to season
souls bare in furious compulsion
feverish quills worn past utility
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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Fusion Refraction
i will not be scorched
by the flame of another
i shall keep my fire
fueled only by the pure
kindling found deep
within the terrain
of my wooded home
the sun shall bring
enough light by day
and a torch well-lit
providing steady
footsteps tredding
the dark by night
[as I search for what
I cannot find or name]
no light save by the moon
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poem by Frederick Kesner
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