white liars

sulphur-crested cockatoo: cacatua galerita white liars are gathering overhead to shout their stories white liars are so crooked they can’t fly straight a zig and a zag beneath the open sky is the fastest way to get between two points if you’ve got a story fit to tell don’t keep it to yourself we want …

the drafter

he draws words like paint shaped on canvas tiny brush strokes of language stories spun from flax stories spun out of gold an alphabet hued in colour like the leaf green then yellow to wine then to earth onto earth into earth there is a word call it drafting a journey-tool of lettered precision he …

Roses

I am in my bed. Will you bring roses when you come, to drop their petals on my sheets, and fill my air with perfume? Will you bring me roses? © Frank Prem, 2001

what is, if it won’t

what is time if it will not last for me what a waste in the end If I can't hold it what is time to me if it is so fleeting if I take a moment only to find it is gone what is time without a little body it is a spectre that holds …

Mizzle Down

the clouds have broken, mizzle down soft on my hand, a tattoo fall from the sky, to touch me cold in an erratic beat for as long as I can stand the chill and the bite of a wind that doesn't care if I am standing here around me is an easy path for the …

what day is this

https://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/Small-Blue-RGB-National-Poetry-Month-Logo.jpg the day is not long but my boredom makes it longer impatient I with the this and the that of my lot I cannot bear to bother and time drags on me the day is not short but my excitement makes the minutes heighten and before I know hours have flown the day is …

waiting westerly

the wind raises its intensity before a change that's full of weather I am lying in the darkness waiting for the rain the stars I watch through a window are swallowed by slow cloud and leave nothing but the restlessness of leaves like me they are waiting the weather westerly © Frank Prem, 2017 April 2017 Poem …

the blackberry

blackberries sprawl further every night from green leaf to tendril to bramble rambling briar blackberries bite like the avid blade of a cross tooth saw they grip then they tear bastard fruit © Frank Prem, 2015

why is the magpie

https://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/Small-Blue-RGB-National-Poetry-Month-Logo.jpg the magpie was quietly wardle-ing speaking his thoughts out aloud his theme was the song his ordle to himself focused on why I wardle because … that’s just the way that I am I wardle for the love in my heart that is song and I wardle when I’m alone I wardle when I …

turn my coffee

https://www.poets.org/sites/default/files/Small-Blue-RGB-National-Poetry-Month-Logo.jpg if I want my coffee to love me if I want my coffee to hold me my coffee to please me to make my life be easy I’ve got to turn my coffee on ~ I don’t want my coffee bitter, Joe I don’t want my coffee too black no (oh no no) my …