James Phillip McAuley Poems

Hit Title Date Added
1.
Magpie

The magpie's mood is never surly
every morning, wakening early,
he gargles music in his throat,
...

2.
Marginal Note

A ray of light, to an oblique observer,
Remains invisible in pure dry air;
But shone into a turbid element
It throws distracting side-gleams everywhere
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3.
Winter Morning

Spring stars glitter in the freezing sky,
Trees on watch are armoured with frost.
In the dark tarn of a mirror a face appears.
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4.
Durer: Innsbruck, 1495

I had often, cowled in the slumbrous heavy air,
Closed my inanimate lids to find it real,
As I knew it would be, the colourful spires
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5.
Because

My father and my mother never quarrelled.
They were united in a kind of love
As daily as the Sydney Morning Herald,
Rather than like the eagle or the dove.
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6.
Pieta

A year ago you came
Early into the light.
You lived a day and night,
Then died; no one to blame.
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7.
Credo

That each thing is a word
Requiring us to speak it;
From the ant to the quasar,
From clouds to ocean floor-
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8.
Iris

Not how you would be thought of, your color
Being grey, silky, like a second skin, your hair
Flecked with it. Now, hearing your way of saying
Iridescent while I read your poem, three years
...

9.
At A Child's Grave

A sky contused and rifted like a wound:
Red-amber gum exudes from the dark tree;
A long day’s dying. Small anatomy
Locked in this nameless grave’s neglected mound,
...

10.
A Poem In Place Of A Lecture

This morning, friends, the blackboard will be black
Behind my skull: your eyelids will be slack,
And I could wearily cajole from you, or you,
Slow answers to dull questions; or grow annoyed
...

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