Three Poems
Andrew Leggett
YOUR BROKEN GARDEN ROOM
for Michael Zavros
It’s in this room that the heavyweights work out,
the movers and shakers. I quake in this place
where the gods commission heroes to compete
at discus, playing with the weapons grade plutonium
exchange on Wall Street. Champions of the nations
draw the order of their lots, then spin up to the plate
to hurl. Beyond each broken window of the cupola
lies a pleasant garden ruined by astral projectiles.
With views like these, why would any god rise
from a seat to take a turn to sweat on the bench,
pressing weights, when there is no need for
such exertion in a world teeming with fools
who not only wait to do their bidding, but rise
to demand weight be placed across their chests?
DESIDERIUM
Time, what have you done with my old friend,
the one who found me moping on the steps
of learning’s sandstone shrine? He brought me
to the cinema to watch Live Rust, with creatures’
red eyes radiant from voids beneath dark hoods.
When Neil Young’s voice brought sugar down
the mountain that we never climbed, we vowed
we wouldn’t shave. His image on the internet
testifies that blade has never touched his face.
We both grew beards to signal we were men
and must be brave. When I reach to reconnect,
my Facebook friend request remains unmet.
Has he forgotten the harmonica broke my soul,
such that I have never since ceased weeping?
COULD IT BE
Could it be that I still entertain the guilt
of that first bite of meat pie on Good Friday,
oblivious to the beast that died to feed me,
carcass linked to Christ as dripping on
the bread my mother took from time when
resale of her dolls in Grandpa’s store might
feed some dark desire or gain an interest
in an opal mine beyond the fence of stolen
goods or hanging on the butcher’s hook?
Could that sacrilegious bite have caused
the burn that seared my arm when it brought
that jug of boiling water down? Could I be
the one whose body must break when yeast
in her wholemeal loaf failed to give it rise?
Andrew Leggett is an Australian author and editor of poetry, fiction, interdisciplinary academic papers and songs. His latest collection of poetry, Losing Touch, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2022. He is an Adjunct Associate Professor with the James Cook University College of Medicine and Dentistry.