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Having no history
Having no history we are
What we do, not who
We have been—so there is no-one
Who is not with us.
Our time is not filled
With imperatives, but passes as it must—
Each year brings content
Of its own kind for us.
Our towns are each in the centre
Of nowhere, and each is its own.
We cannot feel life as apart,
And our days are belonging.
We do not have your ‘progress’—
But always try for betterment.
Untruth cannot flourish here,
Because what must be is.
We have never thought we can
Be other than this, we do not live
For what should be, can be,
As what is is plain in view.
John Leonard
John Leonard lives in Canberra, Australia.
More poetry on website: www.jleonard.net
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Advertently True
You recognise when someone says
Something so out of turn,
Suddenly, inadvertently true—
But contrary to what they know
And trust, and those listening
Know and trust—and then move on
With no-one but you spotting it.
This is your task, to be advertently true,
But with those same proofs: inconsistency,
Malapropinquity, unobtrusiveness—you will
Succeed if you are less than true
To yourself, almost no-one notices.
John Leonard
John Leonard lives in Canberra, Australia.
More poetry on website: www.jleonard.net
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Leonard, John
Concreted, Unli/oving
They lack in their memories, their being:
Thesmellofasummereveningwalking
downtotheriverwherefishareleaping
&theairisfullofmayfliesandfluff
fromtallreedsalongtheditches
withthesundazzlingingoldenslant;
Thefeeloficywindblastingacross
floodedlevelsbeforedawnwhenstars
aredimmingandtheeastbeginstobrighten
crunchingthroughfrozenpuddlesfeet
sinkingintothesoftnessofthemudbelow;
Thecoloursofbrowningleavesonbranches
alongtheridgeinhighchalkcountry
thevalleyspreadingoutinfront
withitslinesofhedgeautumncopses
&hereandtherehomesteadsincrystallight;
And because of this lack their every action
Brings a world concreted, unli/oving, one
Ending and not to be grasped in loss.
John Leonard
John Leonard lives in Canberra, Australia.
More poetry on website: www.jleonard.net
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Leonard, John
In a dream
In a dream I walked through a forest,
In a great gale, and the wind did not touch
My body, so much as ruffle my hair.
I saw branches, fern fronds hurled past;
I saw a forest giant crash down, its trunk
Shattering, with splinters flying about.
I walked in swirl of dust and yet
My eyes were clear and open.
The wind blew and I did not feel it,
I felt sun and warmth and smelled
A sweet wattle scent. At last I came
To the edge of the scarp, looking down,
And there the wind knocked me, tossing
Me down to be dashed on the rocks
Hundreds of feet below… but for waking
From my dream that was not a dream.
John Leonard
John Leonard lives in Canberra, Australia.
More poetry on website: www.jleonard.net
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Leonard, John
The Enlightenment
‘It happened on July 10, towards dusk,
Right up on that ridge there;
He told me about it himself.
What? Well in Year 1 of course.
To begin with it wasn’t anything
Like you hear now, it was,
He told me, just a confirmation
Of everything he already knew
And trusted. He told me that it felt
As though he had plunged into the current
Of the world and found those familiar things
There.
It was much, much later
That they got the marketing right—
So it isn’t anything like that now,
But it began like that, trust me.’
John Leonard
John Leonard lives in Canberra, Australia.
More poetry on website: www.jleonard.net
fleursdumal.nl magazine
More in: Archive K-L, Leonard, John
What must be said
You cannot believe it possible to say
What must be said—words being
So few and dry, catchwords,
‘Your journey, our worldview’,
So hostile to living intent.
But you find the words without searching,
As at need, and they have a beauty,
As, once in a while, the desert,
At the touch of rain, is starred
Endlessly with small white flowers.
John Leonard
John Leonard Writer’s CV:
1965: Born, Cambridge, UK
1984-87: Read English at Oxford University, UK
1990: Unlove (poems) published in UK
1991: Emigrated to Australia
1991-94: PhD studies at University of Queensland; ‘Lyric and Modernity’ awarded 1995
1997: 100 Elegies for Modernity (poems, Sydney, Hale and Iremonger)
2003: Jesus in Kashmir (poems, Canberra, Proensa)
2003-07: Poetry Editor, Overland (Melbourne)
2009: Poem published in Best Australian Poetry 2009 (Melbourne, Black Inc)
2010: Braided Lands (poems, Ginninderra Press, Adelaide)
2010: The Way of Poetry (criticism linking poetry and Daoism; Three Pines Press, Dunedin, Florida) (see www.threepinespress.com, under ‘Dao Today’ tab)
2014: A Spell, A Charm (poems, Melbourne, Hybrid Publishers
Poetry widely published in quality journals, eg Overland, Meanjin, Island
Poems translated into French, Spanish, Croatian and Chinese and published in those versions, eg When the Moon Is Swimming Naked: Australasian Poetry for the Chinese Youngster, Ed Kit Kelen and Mark Carthew, ASM Poetry, Association of Stories in Macao, 2013 (8 poems), http://poetassigloveintiuno.blogspot.com.au/2012/07/7271-john-leonard.html (5 poems)&c
Poems published in anthologies eg The Best Australian Poems 2009, (Melbourne, Black Inc), The Turnrow Anthology of Contemporary Australian Poetry 2014, Canberra Poets Anthology 2014
Website: www.jleonard.net
february 2017
magazine fleursdumal.nl
More in: Archive K-L, Leonard, John
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