Frank Bana Poems

She rose, interrupting her 3am sleep,
To place a rough stone on the pavement
In the long queue of stones, marking her mother’s place
In the morning line for government bread
...

There are some on this earth who write so fast
that the world spins before them, the real world shaken
by the strength of their fiction, the elements disturbed
by the power of their creations and the churning of their talent.
...

A crib, a growing plant, a madonna’s rocking chair,
Moving images of shooting stars and moons:
What must be prepared for her arrival?
What should properly adorn the world she finds?
...

The underfed lions in the Emperor’s palace
Pace behind iron gates on the Hill of Spring -
The pachyderms die unwatered on the banks of the Zaire
River Zoo as generations of war machines parade -
...

I’ve seen lands sunken by sun
In yellow and the pools of saltbush
Change to pavements swept in restless
And magic powders of snow
...

Way up on the rainbow aisle
Where the many colours sing and the children smile
I saw you cast a silver net
Onto the wet seabed with the winterfog overhead
...

You find yourself loved
As seen by other eyes
It may be an acceptable surprise
A discovery of life
...

The child that from the corpse-heap rose
Nursed by the light of faces in horror
From the stumbling-on of devil’s ditch;
Dredged of swamp and covered in ash
...

Viewed as a glass half empty, not as a well half full
It is a small disturbance to the mind
To manage all these desert hours, with consideration
Of inheritance and legacy. And I’ll perhaps be glad
...

Like pouring whiskey down a sink
Spilling coffee beans or ink
So do I drink my deeper life away
...