Origin

These carefully arranged letters were not spewed
from a bland machine of beige.
Nor stamped by the spindly hammers
of a much cherished typewriter.

I would like to think their existence began in bright red wax,
at the curled fist of an infant as he wrote his name
for the first time, on the back of a used brown envelope
his mother gave him.

Later, his gangly, noodle glyphs took off into the world.
To see if they could stand on their own, make ends meet
and reach full cursive maturity.

Some took to the trees, hanging upside down
by their looped descenders.
Swinging in the breeze like bats.

A few began community service,
attached themselves to road signs
and spent their days shouting their warnings.

Others paired up or grouped down.
Finding that together they could make strange and beautiful sounds,
they resided in the flared bells of brass instruments,
propellers and high voltage wires.
Buzzing, humming and whirring away the hours.

The more adventurous adhered themselves
to the tail fins of airplanes heading for Egypt,
They paid their respects to their ancient ancestral roots
that are forever fossilised on the walls and chambers
of the Pharaohs’ tombs.

Some of like-mind sensed a higher destiny.
Finding strength and power in unity.
With limitless creativity and possibility
they organised themselves into phrases, sentences.

Today, these marks of meaning fulfilled their life’s purpose.
The rest remain stacked and squashed into the cartridges
and refills of our pens,
waiting to throw themselves at the mercy of the great silver ball
that will press them onto our pages,
with a permanence we will never know.

Dead Arm

The uninvited guests and intruders
that call in the night and rudely pluck us
from the body of sleep are legion.

The neighbours making-up inside,
their cats making war outside,
are but a few of the guest stars and plot lines
in the nocturnal soap opera
which we, the audience, are obliged to endure.

But to be woken in the night besides a disembodied arm,
some dismembered upper limb
is an alarm call which never fails to amuse.

A corpse remains, but its essence, its armness,
its ethereal mojo, has made off into the night.
Without leaving so much as note
to say where it has gone
or what time to expect it back.

It is deaf to my commands to rise
and shed its shroud of death,
and as I lift it from its steel slab,
and feel its limp cold flesh
I begin to speculate.

What was it that came in the night
and disconnected it cables and wires
from the sockets of the senses?

Or maybe, taking female form, it slipped silently from the bed
and is standing outside under the streetlamp,
its orange half-glow sweetly illuminating the fit of her jeans.
The dizzying altitude of her high-heeled boots.

Like a bird of prey, its return will be slow and silent.
But as assured as the healing onset of spring,
after winter’s bite.

It begins with a gentle scratching at the door.
Then the teeth of a key, lifting the pins
in the hasp of a lock.

Then just as a final piece of a jigsaw
drops satisfyingly into place to complete the picture,
the spectrum of colour and sensation is restored.
He hangs up his coat under the stairs
and casts his shoes into a corner.

Matthew Coombe

The Kids' Pool

A father wrestles with his little boy.
His treasured angel gently grasps his finger in her entire fist.
They are so excited about their morning swim with dad,
that they hardly even notice
when this unimposing, quiet man kisses mum goodbye
and she retires for a rare and precious hour of “me-time”.

After changing, he attentively shepherds them through.
He gives them reminders about not running on the cold, wet tiles.
He check their float aids and adjusts their goggles,
as they hop excitedly from foot to foot.

But it is not this example of paternal care and love
that causes the rest of us to conceal our stunned shock,
as if the water we are in had not just suddenly been electrified.

It is the visibly protruding hand-gun,
its muzzle tucked neatly into the waistband of his shorts,
that gets out attention.

Not to mention the demonic jester, complete with tri-belled hat,
that screams “Excessive!” at us from his upper arm.
With its venomous serpentine tongue striking, jabbing at us

Between his shoulder blades, squats a piratanical skeleton,
complete with eye-patch and rotting, brown leather boots.
It shrieks with laughter, as it sends a pair of bloodied craps die
tumbling our way.

The unfinished phrase “Love is…” spirals across his chest
in an ancient, yet ornate, cursive script.

And as dad playfully sprays his children
with water from a toy rubber whale,
they laugh and leap him from the edge.
Meanwhile, we all exchange glances,
not wishing to appear judgemental or snobbish
as we drift by, trying to get a better view.

Late Night Rain on Windows

I like being out in wild, wet weather,
when it dribbles into my hair, my eyes.
When getting soaked through ceases to matter.
When it is impossible anyway
to become any wetter than I am.

But at night someone turns up the volume.
Maybe it is the act of lying down
that lifts and recharges the hearing sense.

The immense tonnage of my head, heavy.
Now an immovable granite rock fall,
resting on the cool beach of my pillow.

The gusting rain spattering on the glass
fires me dead straight into some wild west town.
I lie still in my darkened shelter.

I can find no rhythm to its beating.
But the drummers madly lead the marching
through the night to the silence of the day.

The Jumper

No, not the hunched figure,
standing, with stooping shoulders on a motorway flyover,
above the fumes of speeding traffic
on some grey and dismal afternoon.

Neither is this the hand-knitted variety,
that you received each Christmas
from an old aunty
(who was actually a friendly neighbour of your grandmother’s)

Out Jumper cuts a Messianic figure,
save for the T-shirt and combats.
His arms are outstretched, feet planted firmly
in a tumbled outcrop of rocks.

He stares out across the gaping black abyss.
A blind, prehistoric eye-socket
in the mantle of the earth.
The bottom line lying somewhere deep and unfathomable.

In what must be the ultimate leap of faith
he ascends a moment into the thermal breezes
then descends into the oceanic void
and is gone...

A striped plume of brilliant colour unfurls,
beginning a slow and whirlpooling downward spiral.
Down to a concealed and unchartered zone.

Da Vinci, Vrancic and Lenormand look on smiling
as they decide between them just who should deliver
the acceptance speech.