James Walton is published in many anthologies, journals, and newspapers. He is the author of five widely acclaimed collections of poetry. The Leviathan’s Apprentice, Walking Through Fences, Unstill Mosaics, Abandoned Soliloquies, and Snail Mail Cursive. He has been shortlisted for the ACU National Poetry Prize, the MPU International Poetry Prize, The James Tate Prize, and the Ada Cambridge Prize and is a winner of the Raw Art Review Chapbook prize. He was nominated for ‘The Best of the Net’ 2019, and again for 25/26/27, and is a Pushcart Prize 2021/22/23/24/26/27 nominee. He was a librarian, a cattle breeder, and mostly a public sector union official. He began writing creatively as an older person at the age of 60. He is also the author of short stories and flash fiction published in Meanjin, Overland, Westerly, and many international journals.
Wake of trust
out of this flimsy unbright morning
the sea and highway traffic combine
I am trying my fingers on slowly
to catch a sound of words between
the break of ocean and mechanics
one click for me and one for waking
my shoulders alive from vaccination
a north wind calls down the alps
brings a chill beyond remonstrance
the library fire is meekly alight
a disdain of cat awaits impatient
the shelves page into day blinking
each author stirs again by surname
do they watch for the warm of hope
the gentle alphabet of ease to flame
contained to glassy generations so
we stretch out to catch this comfort
fondled as it is by nuanced arrival
each species drawn to silence for now
a pause beneath each breath of company
Second Sight
that feather of life sticks
and the cough brings you back
to breathe the chill air
your throat now evacuated
of all but a dandelion head
this not so fairy floss
unsweet salt on caramel
watch them go unhindered
a beguine glamour to sight
you took in a universe
owned an expiate of birth
theory thin as your days
falls across the second coat
primed now for a chance of seed
breaking into the last stack
a memory of wood about to expire
the skink drops an unnecessary escape
for I am a distraction of tales
the splitter out in the rain
wet thumb on red gum parallels
life recounts by fissure
each of us pauses there
clouds call from the background
our heads angle for nod
seeking the array of signal
that whistle tribal between us
carries the weight in choices
we hear it and are leaning
into our shared rusty secret
These maturities
This might be our age less ness delivered
as the trout chases upstream the fallow,
crawl as it may towards a jade bridge below
before you raise the questions to be sequested -
come to the place we call ours alone to tread
I’ll remind you of the fire which sheds a tawny glow
now lit infrequently once a turmoiled bellow.
Still, we cast to wild shadows once abed
days are now our unbridled night
we trawl each other without consequence
our needs secure as a want of hunger feeds,
remain unbroken to the once scarecrow light
now made vivid without any penitence
we never did fear the bounty of our needs.
A not so recalcitrant reader returns to Pride and Prejudice
Jane, I remain Yours, &c.
My dear Lizzy if I may still be so bold
after 51 years of absence from Longbourn
exactitude being a virtue amongst friends,
as it is to be precise as it is to be worthy
can I speak of that struggle so contained
by society’s rigours of want for decorum?
Be assured I delight in the fortunes
of the other Miss Bennetts outright
(thinking on a theme not so preordained),
as lapsing before your father’s library fire
Lady Catherine’s prying critiques indignant
her privilege speaks of my lucky entailment.
Fifteen years in the cast from First Impressions
two sets of heroine and hero misaligned
here the rub against class- station- honour,
appraised in reproach by gentle humour
its perspicacious truth has no slake of hold
although of this you may find slight amusement,
Darcy rising Adonis from Pemberley lake
(I wonder though did you imagine)!
such common faults in modern rumour.
Light here recedes from examination Elizabeth
I will take my leave as I must and allow
the family to reoccupy these pages of rooms,
your dauntless rummage over paddocks
has left me a little exhausted in contemplation
bested in each life’s cautionary intermission.
Words mark and weigh up our journeys
the author’s recant in search of that self
untrammelled the byways into Derbyshire.
Tsundoku
(the condition of acquiring reading
materials but letting them pile up
in one’s home without reading them)
They are laid out for this Sunday
stations between lockdown dates
and if an ear is pressed to them
words singing out of lethargy
rise out of loose leaf castings
from waiting rooms across the city
a fall of sound as another bearer
signals to lounges kitchens hallways
that awakening hope of release
in the chugging unopened language
where skimmed pages delayed
hanging on by the faded light
of patience stretched amongst the piles
convey the railway alphabet
a slower mystery of words
stops to start again ticket less
written as we are by each other
for carriage into other lives
How to bake the best breakfast scones in easy steps
Remove overfed cat from kitchen bench
wipe down (bench) and remove hair
wipe out mixing bowl removing fur
scrub pastry board, unblock sink
place wad of cat (from sink) in compost bucket
from pantry remove flour etc
and furball in entrance, yes that 3am noise was real
find (chewed) packet of yeast
open window and yell I hate fucking cats
console neighbours who think they heard
I know where you shat
stumble over starving animal you fed half an hour before
gently rub shins bruised from coffee table
put on walking shoes (after removing cat)
collect wallet, face mask, shopping list
use special brush to clean off sweater (long orange strands)
avoid speed of light diagonal dash blur
when opening door
at (boutique) bakery buy (just like home) scones
wake on couch six scones butter and jam later
carefully dislodge ‘snoodles’ (cat) from shoulder
trip over (gift of) large rat on floor
avoid speed of light diagonal dash blur
repeat easy steps zero through nil and nine
Covid cancellation
I am supposed to be in Crete
spread out over the yellow writer’s cottage
Cathy told me there is an opera singer next door
loud but not particularly proficient
like the whole world I guess
trying to find the byways of Knossos
rumours of Atlantis riddled to a labyrinth
the curly questions barbed in throat
left to russet on age until blood arrives true
but I believe in the quiet parade
jogging stoic as the rubber erodes
dawn tangible riding the horn toss
over the muscled back of dilemma
astride to see the cyan dancers
wave their upheld fingers in greeting
every day is welcome here, or there
