Kevin O'S Poetry—My Gallery

  Watching Hunched forward, he sits on a wooden bench newly placed when they widened the road an old white sun hat on his head cricket style and long sleeves against the sun In front he clasps his walking stick in both hands  like a standard or a sword to lean upon In his eyes is the light of eighty summers and eighty winters And what does he think? Maybe nothing Maybe he knows  that all the thoughts have been thought and all the feelings felt and what remains is the ocean relentlessly rising and falling a power that no one controls and the sand that churns and grinds the perpetual motion of the waves Driving to Laurieton, April 2026

  Who needs Netflix? Three ibises fly in formation over the mass of eucalypts and conifers gliding circling barely moving their wings the tips only fluttering like a gentlewoman’s fingers Up close they are ugly no question but in the air they are majestic untouchable a glory of nature A little squadron of rainbow lorikeets  patrol the gums around the golf course. They flit in and out dodge and weave and look for titbits Rarest of all a whistling kite that seems to pause on the current His wingspan is the height of my daughter Ella who stands at five feet two He is serene, as one can be at the top of the food chain Further out, beyond the second green a mob of white cockatoos  have chosen for their perch in the morning sun a spreading ghost gum hanging like snowy baubles on a Christmas tree Call in the magpie larks rosellas and galahs the kookaburras who cannot be ignored the humble ducks and drakes This stream of entertainment neve...

  A Small Greek Village If I lived in a small Greek village I would sit on a wooden chair with a cream-coloured raffia seat under an awning. Someone would bring me olives and tomatoes  and bread and oil and salt and a glass of home-made wine for the dusty heat. But I don’t Instead I get up and go to work and fill in forms and confirm my identity and verify my password with a one-time PIN to enjoy a seamless interface. I cannot decline invitations  to tick boxes, accept conditions If I do, I am cast out to everlasting disconnection No home-made wine in cyberspace. OMG LOL WTF What are we doing? When did simplifying things become so complicated — and so rude? June 2026

Concealed The wide streets of country towns  look like they’ll let you breathe Sometimes they don’t Sometimes they choke The fence-less gardens and the open spaces the sporting ovals and the beaches where I am known expose too much Oh, for the anonymity of the city! For places to hide and sin To try and to fail without  the eyes of an auntie or a priest who mean well and meaning well intrude Where no one knows me no one cares that I wear this or that that I braid or shave my hair  that I am he or she if I feel the need to be The eyes of others  are a burden to the searcher Give me concealment for a while I’d like to screw things up  in peace and quiet For BM

  Castles Today I saw fantastical castles mountain fortresses and citadels piled on rocky outcrops In the valleys there may be knights  and armies with chargers richly caparisoned (a princely word — caparisoned ) Mesmerised my eyes created peaks and ridges  ranges marching to the East And somewhere there were peasants scattered at their duties in the fields or making merry after harvest I do not know what others saw maybe a lot of fluffy clouds But for me I saw the vastness of a realm that Cabin crew prepare the cabin for landing could not destroy Looking at cloud formations while flying over Corrabare State Forest in April 2019 — Written June 2026