Lost Friends
In youth I moved from place to place
And left my friends at each behind,
And when I think of each lost face,
My thoughts to distant parts retrace,
Where, if I went, I know I'd find,
Each face would now with age be lined.
And when I think of those lost friends,
To me they are all fixed in time,
My mind, for them does time suspend,
No ravages of time offend;
They still to me are in their prime;
That hill of age they've yet to climb.
And if sometimes these friends so few
Do think of me in parts far flung;
If they still see me as they knew
Me when we said that last adieu;
This memory to which they've clung,
In this at least, I'm ever young.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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The Dig Tree
How could this be, that after months of hell,
Of blasting heat and sands of deserts crossed,
That now but this blazed coolibah to tell
The wretched men, for them all hope is lost.
There on its trunk the message cut so clear
That but nine hours before their comrades left,
And they now weak, can sense the end is near
As Burke regrets the folly that had cleft
His party all those months before, when he
Had dashed with King and Gray and Wills
To reach the gulf, now but this wounded tree
To mark where buried store, such bitter pills
That at the end of this great quest delay
The deaths of brave men, starved and weak,
Abandoned on this melancholy day
By Bullah Bullah on the Cooper Creek.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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Costa Concordia
Now hear the misanthropes cry out with joy,
The mighty giant lies crippled on her side.
Rejoicing o'er the hated crippled toy,
The jackals celebrate her loss of pride.
Of fate's sad triumph over man's great dreams;
No mention made of all the ships that sail
So safe - it's tragedy preferred it seems,
So blame the ship, when one man's judgement fails.
The pessimists in comfort rant and rage
Of Nature's power and follies of mankind;
They take the benefits of this great age;
Of how they came about the fools are blind.
But those who reason are not turned by lies,
‘Tis but a hurdle - progress on will race.
Perhaps Concordia will never rise,
But other ships will sail to take her place.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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Arab Spring
There's much ado about the Arab Spring;
It has about it such a pleasant ring.
We in the West can really feel exalted
By how the Arab countries have revolted.
But lately I must say I've been observing
Developments that really are disturbing
For Muslim fundamentalists are grinning
As at the ballot boxes they are winning.
Now revolutionaries are depressed;
They fear the rights they've won will be suppressed,
For victory over tyrants quickly pales
When women have to hide behind their veils;
And from the past we know the lessons clear;
That those who don't conform will live in fear,
For there at fundamentalism's core
Among the shadows hides - Sharia Law.
The end result's too early yet too call
But let us hope the Spring is not the Fall.
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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Quarks
They're fundamental particles
Described in complex articles.
They have six flavors which is strange;
They form a hadron when arranged.
The ups and downs are very light,
But stable and a common sight
Could we observe them, for we're blind
To quarks, which are, colour confined.
The others are the strange and charmed,
(in writing this no quarks were harmed)
And top and bottom are the last
With these four changing very fast
To ups and downs by their decays,
For they were made by cosmic rays.
They have two charges, mass and spin,
And there is broad agreement in
Each published scientific source
That every quark feels every force;
And for each quark an anti mate,
So if they meet what is our fate?
[...] Read more
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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Parallel Universes
There are two worlds I feel:
The perceived and the real.
The TV morning show;
The blaring radio.
They tell what's right and wrong,
In lecture or in song,
Of social attitudes,
With lies and platitudes.
Of how we all should think;
They don't admit a chink
Of light upon their views,
Or what they call 'The News'.
The information age
Has locked us in a cage,
And we are daily fed
Our fill of mouldy bread.
[...] Read more
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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The Fence
I built the fence on a cold grey hill
With bar and shovel and axe and maul
And quite a measure of toil and will,
For I needed a paddock to clear and till,
So I dug the holes by the bloodwoods tall
And I felled the ones that grew on the line
And cut them into a handy length
That would serve the purpose of my design,
For each a link in the fence's spine,
And each would add to the fence its strength.
Each post I barked, and I sapped and stood
In a line as straight as a rifle shot,
And the sap ran red from the honest wood
Of the native gum that was sound and good
And with age would harden and never rot,
Then the wire, I strung, and I strained it tight,
And each post I fixed to the jagged wire,
So my fence was finished by fall of night
When my gaze was drawn to a distant light
[...] Read more
poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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River City
The tall trees that once clothed the banks
Beneath which clear, the waters streamed,
Where parrots bright in colours screamed
From mangroves by its sandy flanks,
And rocky bars by pools that gleamed
With flashing schools of swimming fish
Like silver clouds of weaving light;
Here none, in truth, could ever wish
For better than this peaceful sight
As simple men with nets and spears
Would gather all that Nature gave
O'er centuries of wondrous years
'Til each lay resting in his grave.
These thoughts I ponder as I stroll
Through this great city in the night
Beneath the towering buildings bright
And watch the spreading waves that roll
From ferry boats that burn with light,
And wonder has this place a soul
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poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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The Course
Just as a ship sets sail and leaves her berth,
Her goal a port across the sea,
A new life starts a voyage from its birth,
No knowledge of its fate to be.
Smooth sailing rarely is the course of life,
For storm and tempest all will see;
The course of men's lives mixed of joy and strife,
In different measures though they be.
The chart of life a voyage by time drawn,
It inches on as days they pass.
The waves that break upon the reef at dawn,
The wary see with eye to glass.
There shoals exposed, as waves foam into spray,
And siren's voices tempt one on
To rocks, where wrecks of souls bemoan the day
They ventured close to ground thereon.
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poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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I Am
I've risen from the burning rocks
At birth when earth was forming,
And traveled icy streams to lochs
When spring the snow was warming.
And high above in mist and cloud
I've felt the cool winds blowing.
Saw lightning flash, heard thunder loud,
The land, the heavens sowing.
Far from the light by rock and sand,
By clear streams darkly flowing
Beneath the surface of the land,
To caverns deep there going.
And to the great and briny sea,
There countless times returning;
But restless, to the clouds I flee,
Take flight, while sun is burning.
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poem by Dennis N. O'Brien
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