Poems by Noel Jeffs
Pooja for Christmas
I cull my story so long, to home, mystery. grounded in the life of hospital, and a miracle to be born, a gift, of Noel.
Me a miracle is healing, and standing up again, to carol my song in the verse of wards. nurses and doctors and patients remember me.
A sleek trip to sing of beginnings and becoming, a sign a sign of the times, and perhaps this will be recited in fray. but I am
writing in prayer in this time of the year. namaste. the words of peace, unison and mutuality.
Rainbow lorikeets, fudge a rail with dodgy toes, lyrebirds in forests will spring into a chirping spray. all crest my mind and with the
lavishing fire of bushfires to a landscape. as it is devastation, and it is regeneration or rejuvenation.
which alights on my shoulder on my shoulder, in a myriad of veins. Hello as sojourners here, we are looking in strange ways to Christmas
and its day and it’s eternal cling, and is singularity lost in plenitude and family, O silent and holy night.
as we crave the good food of yours and ours, painkillers, discharge summaries, doctors wishes and visits
a health rail to reality, that pain can be long suffering. Christmas day is flourish and stealth and Advent is the writing waiting gaze with
the practice of ambient joy. the roses are gaining a window vista and have their own efficacy, and reparation has happened
and the roses don’t rampage anymore, they are blessed in this song of silent night. my heart blinks
came a stranger, and made a host, touched friends and was it timely to make my home here
for a short legging of existence. These songs are mine and stronger and stranger songs have lead people to be bedridden
and did you walk to my pool and say get up and walk in a kinder day. where the ocean drops out of the sky and whales are
my friends and death and turtle doves coalesce. strangers no longer, we are together in these days
now covid as Omicron touches the end of of the alphabet and restricts us in some ways, and I don’t watch the news anymore
to avoid the despair and touch my heart in these final days of Advent and sunrise is nigh as Christmas is nigh
and summer heat brings silence, and no cicadas here, but going home to celebrate on my own in a starlight of songs and cricket
touching joy in my heart and it brings relief like the sunrise, and parties are meet and somewhere else
and I have chocolate, and this wreath I lay at your door, and have no incense or gift of fruit, neighbours everywhere.
The playground of charts and nursing rounds and ambulances are many, transitioning to somewhere, and will there be peace on earth,
and more blood pressure tests, you are too high avoid stress, calm down and walk around. touch your heart in delight, always transitioning to
sunrise, the song of silent night. we fall apart and we recreate, in a magpie song.
I need an oyster blade primrose
Shrimplike, the noise of silence
is my flannel flower coming into bloom
; dandelions of my presence
Search me out and know me canny in flowering
Am I a shag in the creek?
Bring me home smiling with the lightness of bearing
Smallness in the lightness of bearing
Sapper green stylus to a face
Small mercies in a large space
Small mind in a larger space and my prothesis
To attain.
20 December 2021.
Collect for Invasion Day/ Survival Day with Propers
The sun beats a shadow on this land
remember Lord with tender mercy and care
those murdered, massacred–
whose lives poured out into a world of mayhem, poisoned,
overwhelmed forgotten and downtrodden
in invasion– in a country of their own–grieving
and living a life not like ours– first nations.
Bring forever blessings of remembrance and reconciliation
to our mourning, and it is time in thanksgiving for a new enculturation.
Give us, which can be ours in the saving of our nation
a search for peace, for justice and truth-telling,
as this mercy is yours.
Amen. Amen.
Manifests itself in rain
what is more? the night sky is back and skylights out there
so silent falls the rain, and you the little aggressor take away friends and easts the bait
I am the sacrificial lamb and not so translucent any more
after walking away from my silent space
to be impugned with a lazy eye so impure and sore
and living was amened and namaste
such is the empirical right of faith and doubt in this mount of faith
and self-esteem; I see you poddy lambs after the aggressor has gone and not the blood of the
winner; to get up from my bed and have a command of attention
the cronies are back and I can go to bed under the stars
and this morning dark as my soul is in this fortitude (of regenerators).
[ when you read this poem think of the rain as truncated silence]
Noel Jeffs SSF