Two Poems
Andrew Leggett
Who Gives A Crap
In those halcyon pandemic days, shoppers made a run on toilet tissue, depleting stocks of supermarket chains. Trade in paper daisies waned for want of raw materials. Health workers fallen in the field were given harps to play and sing in heavenly choirs with cherubim and seraphim.
Depleting stocks of supermarket chains, trade in paper daisies waned and waxed again, just as the dead, on judgement day, will rise and fly away on paper wings. Sanitation engineers turned in their trowels for harps to play and sing in heavenly choirs with cherubim and seraphim.
For want of raw materials, health workers fallen in the field were given test kits, with sticks to scrape their nostrils, and surgical masks, allowed entry rights to supermarket early hours, along with elder candidates for harps to play and sing in heavenly choirs with cherubim and seraphim.
Hastings
My desire runs away like a mouse scurrying behind a curtain,
taking fright at its own being. Acknowledgement is dangerous.
What drives it into the unknown, beyond the veil? Will it fly,
like a legless horse, earth tested by fire, into air, crossing water?
Taking fright at its own being, acknowledgement is dangerous.
It burns, where the doctor masked the pain, but pale memory
of the scalpel hides behind a cloud. The rider gallops, lanced
like a legless horse, earth tested by fire, into air, crossing water.
What drives it into the unknown, beyond the veil? Will it fly
like an arrow, penetrate the eye of a vanquished king who fell
on a battlefield so close to my ancestral shores? I will run there
like a legless horse, earth tested by fire, into air, crossing water.
Andrew Leggett is an Australian author and editor of poetry, fiction, interdisciplinary academic papers, reviews and songs. His latest poetry collection, Losing Touch, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. He is an Associate Professor with the James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry. Andrew Leggett at ē·rā/tiō.