A newborn enters the world
all smiles
powdered skin
and snuggles
Toes aflex and spread-fingered giggles
A window
Free
From the smudges of experience
A parent guides this free, radical being,
Gently. Clumsily. Deftly. Poorly.
Inevitable fingerprints smear the glass.
Hoping not to obscure the horizon.
Forgive me child. I know not what I do.
Bryson Thomas
Was it a childhood?
Or just a sepia dream,
With daily bottled milk and bread,
Cookie-dough and cream.
Were the seasons four-by-four?
With frogs in all the creeks,
Miles of ice on polar caps,
And snow on all the peaks.
Were the sporting teams all stocked
With men who never cussed?
Was the country ever run
By people you could trust?
Did appliances leave the plants
Designed to last for years?
As people danced through streets at night,
And spared no thought for fears.
My mind tells me I ran and played
With worries, not a one.
And everything was as approved,
By a smiling sun.
That everyone else was happy too,
Society was kinder.
And the biggest challenge facing me
Was love, and where to find her.
But has memory washed things black and white?
And scraped the rest away,
Substituting certainty,
For any shade of grey.
There seems to be a disconnect,
With the modern plight.
Nothing that we sit with now,
Just happened overnight.
The present is at dissonance,
With tropes that mask as truth.
Clearly we can ill afford
The certainty of youth.
And still I sit, with past in hand,
Paying it a visit.
My heart still labels history grand,
My head says – well now, is it?
Bryson Thomas
For Melissa
I heard your voice in the other room tonight.
Laughing, as always.
Made me smile, even over the music.
I pushed through the bodies, spilling my drink and splashing a few hellos,
But you were already gone.
That’s OK.
It was a great party.
Bryson Thomas
Today I’ll be a teacher – at recess,
Kids are laughing.
Or perhaps I’ll be a farmer – in Spring,
Cows are calfing.
Tomorrow? Trading books at a London bazaar,
With loads of friends – a stately car.
Next I’ll guide a ferry ‘neath the Sydney Harbour Bridge,
And draft life as an architect, a plate-glass mansion,
On a ridge.
Then piano and guitar and me singing, centre stage,
And crowds amazed at football skills,
The best of any age.
And now, I am pilot, with a rocket as my seat,
And here, a master chef where every spoon’s a treat.
And there, a philologist, who knows
The origin of ‘tuffet’,
An investor who lends wisdom,
To lesser men, like Buffett.
But today, I have my family, my home, my loves,
Some pets.
The sorts of things we dreamt of young, but now
An older brain forgets.
So today, I’m not a yogi, with a foot behind my head.
Today I am myself,
Which is well enough, instead.
Bryson Thomas
Roland was an artist who recorded albums of absolute silence.
“Turn them up ,”he’d say.
“Drown out all the noise.”
Roland also washed dishes at a small family-focused Italian style restaurant.
Bryson Thomas
Love is a soft blue wall behind the headboard,
Leaf-addled sunlight playing on a thigh,
The cool innocence of fresh-laundered sheets,
A languid Sunday.
Love is a crossword shared,
A soft-poached egg, espresso, sourdough morning,
Bamboo wind-chimes and dragonflies,
Adirondack chairs arm to arm.
Love is a hand on the knee,
Brunette DNA tousled about a finger,
Fresh squeezed, delivered daily,
The lyric to a gentle duet.
Bryson Thomas
The figure lanks from air to floor. A black rug hung for dusting.
A step. A stick. A step. A stick. Its shadow bastes the locked, oaken door.
A sharp rap admonishes the silence within.
The chaos of keys. A scrape of a latch. Hoarse hinges breaking rusted slumber. A desiccated waft of quit-witted souls regain the light.
No mind. There are always more.
The entrance confronts it, black-hole mouth thirsty with eternal gravity.
Stick. Step. Stick. Step. Stick. Step.
The figure is gone. It never was.
Bryson Thomas
They’re bringing back the Thylacine.
Tassie Tiger, if you will.
Extinct since 1936.
Wouldn’t that be brill’!?
Some DNA from Aussie jars,
Some RNA from Sweden,
Mix ’em in a dish – Voila!
First addition in New Eden.
But what if it turns and buggers off,
This focus of affection?
Doesn’t want to play a part
In its resurrection?
Does it even have a den
Once it leaves the lab?
A place to paint and decorate
Beyond the hunter’s nab?
Perhaps the bush will be too hot
Or missing tasty snacks
And all its favourite beaches full
Of tourists on their backs.
Will it be appropriate
To re-present a history?
Or is it better leaving us
A little bit of mystery?
What does it mean to all the earth
To blow its beasts away
Thinking we’ll just bring them back
On another day?
Tigers may not change the lines
That fashion their regalia,
But one wonders if to bring them back
May well be human failure.
Bryson Thomas
Restrain
Refrain
Insult
Explain,
Stumble and
Mumble and
Bruise and
Fumble,
Touch and
Tangle and
Creak and
Jangle,
Embalming
Disarming
Disgusting
Alarming,
Exhausting and
Taxing
Tensing
Relaxing,
Restoring
Exploring
Imploring
Assuring,
Adoring.
Bryson Thomas
Grief is such a timeless, impervious agony.
But we grow around it,
Surrounding it as a pearl embraces a painful intrusion.
Every so often, I find the pearl that holds you,
And I grasp it in my hand.
Then I put it back with the others.
Bryson Thomas
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