Les Murray Poems

The paddocks shave black
with a foam of smoke that stays,
welling out of red-black wounds.
...

Mid-9th century

Good-looking young man
in your Crimean shirt
...

The lemon sunlight poured out far between things
inhabits a coolness. Mosquitoes have subsided,
flies are for later heat.
Every tree's an auburn giant with a dazzled face
...

All the air conditioners now slacken
their hummed carrier wave. Once again
we've served our three months with remissions
in the steam and dry iron of this seaboard.
...

That slim creek out of the sky
the dried-blood western gum tree
is all stir in its high reaches:
...

I starred that night, I shone:
I was footwork and firework in one,

a rocket that wriggled up and shot
...

Uphill in Melbourne on a beautiful day
a woman is walking ahead of her hair.
Like teak oiled soft to fracture and sway
it hung to her heels and seconded her
...

The stars are filtering through a tree
outside in the moon's silent era.

Reality is moving layer over layer
...

The smallest girl
in the wild kid's gang
submitted her finger
to his tomahawk idea -
...

From the metal poppy
this good blast of trance
arriving as shock, private cloudburst blazing down,
worst in a boarding-house greased tub, or a barrack with competitions,
...