FIFE SONG 2: J.S. Manifold      [Stefanie Bennett]

... Memoirs do their own

Inane conjurings.

Hearing your voice

These many years past,

John Streeter...

The persistent oratory,

The burlesque

Playback – ‘you could tell     [1/.]

He was styled

As a poet – he wore

Those abominable

                             Inter-

Changeable hats!’

This ambiguous land’s still the Godhead

Ghosts get fostered in.

I listened to

A fife being played

Along Sydney Street. Familiar notes.

Yours. Furbished

Long before

The days

Of rendezvous with

The Albert Hall

And the bitter embattlement

Of Crete.

Stepping sideways to avoid

The foot-traffic

Metropolis

You’d not recognise...

The non-ideas

Of a “new world”

                           Lionised

In the unmaking

                          I say

- You took your leave just in time!

Thought engineers

Sell us

Too posthumously,

Too cheap –.

So, where land-bridge meets

Both sea wall

And shore – stretching

All the way out

To ‘the heads’

                      - I wonder

How much ash

Is you

         Deferring?

Ah –. Whistle deep, now. Bass

Booming... !

A sonnet wings

Then sweeps

To the storm bird’s soaring.

[John Streeter Manifold 1915-1985 was known

as ‘the partisan for peace’ poet. b. Australia.

1/. quote: Anon].

THE VELVET SEPARATION ‘93      [Stefanie Bennett]

And I can no longer tell

The victor from

The vanquished –,

But I know a raven when

I see one heavy

With the weight

Of terrestrial star systems

On each

Wing tip

Come land amid

The mysterious

Reign

Of sunflowers – and

Vangelis’

Abraham’s Theme

Whistling free...