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  • Is it Thursday?

    By Michael Reid

    25th April 2024

    A reflection by the ocean in Tasmania.

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    Is it Thursday?

     

    I’m sitting by the ocean
    With a fire burning warmly
    And a moon only one day past the full.
     
    The ocean is so calming
    As the waves are gently rumbling 
    On a beach of white sandy preamble.
     
    My wife is warming inside
    I’m sitting by the fireside 
    A bottle of white wine to keep me pure.
     
    And I’m dreaming of another day 
    When I owned beachfront property
    And I realise I’m better off today.
     
    It’s a quiet revelation
    It’s a major goal sensation
    That my life could not be better than this way.
     
    So I linger by the fire
    I abandon my desires
    As I won’t let this contentment fade away.
     
    Now listen to my harmony 
    As I beseech you to believe 
    That life is all about the here and now.
     
    Just love the person near to you
    And honour those who’re dear to you 
    And you will reap all that you will allow.
     
     
    ©️Michael Reid 2024, all rights reserved.
     
  • A Reflection

    By Michael Reid

    30th May 2023

    Written for the funeral service of my darling mother Elaine in 2023.

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    A Reflection 

     
    An elegant woman of simple dreams
    To be loving wife and mother of four
    Her heart at risk of tearing at the seams
    From all the love she carried in her core
     
    Her four boys lived a charmed and easy youth
    We knew we were the blessed boys of mum
    We floated happily in her sweet truth
    That we indeed were brighter than the sun
     
    As reality slowly came to bear
    Revealing all our frailties and scars
    Mum’s unwavering conviction stood clear
    We always would remain her brightest stars
     
    For Mum, life’s pressures pressed too hard upon
    She struggled to fulfil this lonely role
    Floundering in helpless desperation
    As life extracted a life-changing toll
     
    Yet through it all our gentle champion emerged
    Bloodied and bruised, yet still so full of love
    She harnessed her great passionate reserves
    And with a fresh resolve, she rose above
     
    So here we stand, in wonderment today
    That this good kindly font of motherhood
    Survived and thrived in unambitious ways
    And taught us how the worst can be withstood
     
    This lesson bests what formal teaching might
    And Mum was not an educated soul
    Yet she taught us that love could win the fight
    And thus she played the perfect mother’s role.
     
    Michael Reid
    May 2023

     
    ©️ Michael Reid 2023, all rights reserved
     
  • The Crackenback Wind..

    By Michael Reid

    8th April 2019

    This poem was written during a wild and sleepless night at Lake Crackenback in New South Wales.

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    The Crackenback Winds


    It’s roaring outside now at forty-two knots
    Like a thousand beasts on a rampage
    We’re bunkering down in an effort to sleep
    But I know that the battle is lost.

    The ending of this I can’t fathom or gauge
    With windows and walls being battered
    While the neighbouring trees sway, scream, crack and fall
    Their valorous roots yielding to rage.

    Another sound beats all to test our fettle
    As the wind swings the chimney cap round
    The poorly-set copper is grinding its teeth
    An incessant screeching of metal.

    I’m thinking of creatures in fear in the wild
    And hoping that none come to grief
    It’s likely this onslaught will take something’s child
    Before this night’s madness should cease.
     
    April 2019
    Lake Crackenback, NSW Australia
     
     
    © Michael Reid 2019, all rights reserved
     
  • Ode to Pete

    By Michael Reid

    11th April 2014

    On the passing of my brother in 2014, for his Memorial Service

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    Ode to Pete


    Come, bid me farewell as I head out to sea
    I’m off to another reunion
    The horizon beyond is calling to me
    The ocean my perfect seclusion.

    Well here we are, it’s the time we all feared
    I’m sorry I’m not up to greet you
    But I realised there’s somewhere else I need to be.
    Yes, it’s fitting we share a few mem’ries and tears
    But I swear that my time here was plenty for two
    So there’s no need to pine over me.

    I built skateboards, caravans, and billy carts
    And we’d steer them down Kings Road Vaucluse
    We’d cycle to swim down in Alf Vockler’s baths
    And we’d sail Manly Juniors there too.

    We chased Mr Whippy for Gluggs and ice-cream
    Got banned from St Peters and the Cubs
    Not much study was done at old Grammar School
    Banned from Alf’s as well, had no worries it seemed
    Perisher, Palmy, and Vaucluse Yacht Club
    Life flourished with very few rules.

    Our home in Woollahra, where we became men
    And many a party was held there
    These years were defined by a new regimen
    South West Rocks formed the means to repair.

    As a teenager, I took to the surf
    Saving lives became my summer sport
    Fantastic for picking up girls I might add
    So Palm Beach became my default summer turf
    I relished these times, such a fabulous rort
    Yet much more joy was still to be had.

    From that skinny kid at the Vaucluse Yacht Club
    To Cavalier and African Queen
    We’ve come quite a way from the old Grammar tubs
    Please take good care of What Boat? for me.
     
    Bid me farewell as I polish my last car
    And I fear for my tools with some dread
    The new garage cupboards are well above par 
    I finally finished the pool shed.

    I’ve eaten fine food and I’ve drunk fine wine
    And I’ve dined dressed in suits and bow ties
    Yet my treasured meals were with family and friends
    On a bright sunny day, at their house or mine
    With cold sausages, rum & coke, and meat pies
    Cheering “here’s to good health” without end.
     
    The greatest days of my life, what double thrill
    To have watched the birth of my daughters 
    And all I ask so that my life is fullfilled 
    That they be each other’s supporter.

    I hope that my actions defined the man
    I wasn’t accepting of rumour
    More the loving and loyal son, brother, friend,
    Loving and devoted husband and Dad
    Some say a wicked and sharp sense of humour
    And a Billy Thorpe fan to the end.
     

    Come, bid me farewell as I head out to sea
    I’m off to another reunion
    The horizon beyond is calling to me
    The ocean my perfect illusion.

    Push me away from the shore one last time
    Cheer and laugh with me as I set course
    I’m feeling the breeze and I’m trimming the sails
    The forecast is clear and the weather sublime
    I’m living the dream with no sense of remorse
    Just a library of jokes and great tales.

    Don’t pity me for the winds I was tossed
    Don’t grieve for the pain of my leaving
    While I agree the lost battle was tragic
    There’s always a lesson to come from a cost
    Your life is a tapestry ripe for weaving
    And my life is part of your fabric.

    So bid me farewell as I head out to sea
    My bow points to an unchartered realm
    The horizon beyond is calling to me
    And I’m back in command of the helm.


    Michael Reid, April 2014

    ©️  Michael Reid 2014, all rights reserved

  • Leave Nothing on the..

    By Michael Reid

    20th March 2014

    ‘“Oh that’s good, Sammy’s here, Mick’ll be okay.”

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    Leave Nothing on the Table


    Tonight I watched my best man
    Writhing in a hospital bed
    They couldn’t get the morphine in fast enough
    I wish I was here in his stead.

    Watching my sweet brother die
    Saying goodbye so slowly, so long
    All I can say to my friends
    Is cherish the time lest it’s gone.

    Hold on to this minute my friend
    It might be the last one you know
    Hold on to this minute my friend
    You might be the last one to go.

    Make love to your wife while you can
    Spend time with your loved ones, and grow
    Hold on to this minute my friend
    It might be the last one you know.

    Leave nothing on the table
    Leave nothing more to say
    Leave nothing on the table
    Leave no more cards to play.
     

    March 2014
     
     
    ©️ Michael Reid 2014, all rights reserved
     
  • In Our Time

    By Michael Reid

    1st July 1992

    A poetic, cynical analysis of politics, unfortunately timeless….

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    In Our Time


    Old people asleep under yesterday's news
    A freezing denial of Capital views
    Wrapped from the winter in hopeless desertion
    While oil heaters soothe our leader inertia
    The Ministers gag until Parliament stands
    No solvent like recess for washing the hands.

    Carousel fever, polepidemic
    Power the plague, and glory symptonic
    Good men and true have succumbed to the curse
    Humanity's syphillis dressed as nurse
    More power prescribed as cure for the ill 
    Sinecure sanctity, smoothest of pills.

    Ignorant rhetoric will always appease
    A ravenous thirst for mass marketing sleaze
    Confidence, colour and loads of compassion
    Offering silk from pork auricle rations 
    Bidding for destiny's role of Messiah 
    A flourishing specie, Earnest Pariah.

    Barely beneath this posturing swagger
    Is hidden a sheathed amorphous dagger
    Policies hacked from pre-polling-booth crass
    Poverty, pestilence, pain for the mass 
    Tear-streaked appeals or national fervour 
    Fail to dissuade the starving from murder.

    Enter the honest man seeking endorsement
    Shouting the truth from podium and pavement
    But truth lacks conviction and wreaks of decline
    So parasites push for the cosy sublime
    Exit the honest man broken and bloody
    Onward the bureaucrat smiling and ruddy.

     

    Michael Reid
    July 1992

     

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1992, all rights reserved

     

  • Inner Sanctum

    By Michael Reid

    1st May 1992

    A pre-election musing.

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    Inner Sanctum
     

    As Autumn recalls the Capital's beauty

    (Wasted foliage dying in style)

    Government Ministers head to their duty

    To gather a case of denial

     

    The Cabinet meets in the plush furnished room

    Having pranced for reporters outside

    They're all looking splendid in mid-career bloom

    Where their egos and ethics collide

     

    "Agenda" begins the paper before them

    Yet below it the page is quite bare

    Members methodically ponder this portent

    With well practised omniscient stares

     

    The P.M. appears looking cool and robust

    His suit of the best foreign label

    Then speaks in a manner designed to disgust

    The roughest of men at the table

     

    "Some backbencher mentioned the dole queues to me

    And the Balance of Payments, and stress

    Well let me explain so we all can agree

    The real issue which we must address

     

    "There's only one cause in Australia today

    That is truly worth fighting about

    And that's whether we'll still be drawing our pay

    When the '93 voters are out

     

    "Real issues and cold facts are not to be seen

    From this moment and until the poll

    The object of course is a giant smokescreen

    To make Hewson and Fightback! look droll

     

    "This week we shall force a debate on the flag

    And next week we'll sing a new anthem

    And if any democrat vetos a gag

    We'll hold his fat pension for ransom

     

    "We're the battler's friend and the nation's elite

    And we care for our comrades, amen

    But how can we help if we're out on the street

    Where we'd be useless scum-bags like them

     

    "We must keep our efforts directed and clear

    Away from these pointless distractions

    And if any Member should cry like a steer

    I'll castrate his whole bloody faction

     

    "Well Gentlemen let us return to our task

    To carry us through the election

    And if we survive you might venture to ask

    Was Keating the new resurrection.

     

     

    Michael Reid

    May 1992

     

     

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1992, all rights reserved

     

     

  • Ode to Failure

    By Michael Reid

    11th October 1990

    A reflection following one of many times I’ve been defrauded. Sucker for punishment…

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    Ode to Failure

     
     
    Oh Night, my pleasure and my fear
    I draw you close like death to me
    For you in your deep earnest cloth
    Are close to death as I might hope to be.
     
    I loved once life and friends and dreams
    And courted pleasure, moment's sweet allure,
    When fancy futures were light games to play
    Today the only time I dared assure.

    And now I choke McCartney's yester words
    With flames so near and all I love in pain
    With little air, so many wounds to heal
    And never in this life to blot the stain.
     
    Confusion wracks my analysing mind
    As now I lust for vengeance and reprieve
    Or self-indulgent passive paranoia -
    No, now I cry for peace and time to grieve.
     
    Through this war my precious family strained
    We two were one have stood for long apart,
    Yet strength of love seems winning this crusade
    The quest itself a victim of the heart.
     
    I love my family all, and all my friends
    In truth I strove for all to win the world.
    How can I now confess my innocence -
    The world I knew was never there at all.
     
     
    Michael Reid
    11 October 1990
     
    ©️Michael Geoffrey Reid 1990, all rights reserved.
     
  • My Lady

    By Michael Reid

    1st May 1979

    In good times….

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    My Lady


    My lady, suffer not this fool who present holds your favour,
    For he is but a pleasant toy and everwhile the knaver;
    You see this love as one which, given time, shall fairly blossom,
    Yet you are but the apple tree and I am but your possum.

    By nature’s course we have been met, and mated by our wishes,
    And here at heaven’s inn we cull our grapes from golden dishes;
    However words once left must now be flourished in the open,
    For parted dreams in joinéd hearts need not see both hearts broken.

    I have no quarrel now betimes but that which you beseech me,
    Indeed I search as children might so you would further teach me -
    Forgive me, mistress, such duress as I have wrought upon you,
    It is my heart and not my mind which you do e’er belong to.

    We have a movement to the day not common ‘twixt the people,
    And this is harnessed with an arméd line taught by the steeple;
    We are withal, as one may say, one nut and bolt together,
    (Though such a coupling publicized would paint us in the heather).

    So thus we have a space for selves kept secret from the masses,
    While meantime you ignore the boys and I shall miss the lasses;
    And if such miracle occurs as we retain this union,
    The world will see the gods and we have plotted in collusion.
     
    Michael Reid
    May 1979 (as amended)

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1979-2011, all rights reserved.
     
  • Two Poems - Of Reali..

    By Michael Reid

    1st April 1979

    Clearly life is not all beer and skittles….

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    Of Reality


    Time on morbid hour I dwell alone,
    Captured in my self-denying cell;
    I could see now but for an instant,
    I could hold you still and call you mine -
    But moment soon would flee to minute,
    And you would ring the chastened bell
    And send me sweetly back to hell.
     

    Of Logic


    If words on wishes held smooth repartee
    We soon would be entwined in loving ease,
    And never leave but for a brief refrain
    To reinforce our love of love’s disease -
    But close we sit and dwell a league apart,
    I with you in heaven, you with separate part;
    And still with distant rules we sigh and kiss
    Our hearts as two, our hands in patterned bliss.
    This manner shall not hold my reckless tone,
    I cannot breathe within these walls alone:
    My cell of one heart spread for two
    And not replaced - I will not die for you.
     
    Michael Reid
    April 1979 (as amended)

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1979-2024, all rights reserved.
     
  • Salted Lips of Time

    By Michael Reid

    15th November 1978

    Written at Moruya Heads in 1978 during a road trip with my old school mate Harry. I added the chorus in 2019.

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    Salted Lips of Time (Song)

     

    Reaching from a wind-swept dream, oh yeah
    A silent pleasure-ground
    Of smiling sun
    And dancing seas, eternity above,
    A fire within,
    A fire within.

    Sailing, gliding, sifting promises
    Of love-dried sand through answered cries;
    A seagull diving, I above, unclothed
    And free, licking salted lips of time -
    And life, a fresh-blown memory
    On morning’s eyes.

    Oh the wind-swept dream
    Oh the smiling sun
    Moruya memories
    When the world was one

    Oh the wind-swept dream
    And the smiling sun
    Fading memories
    One by one

    Alive, enchanted, feeling with the sky
    And for a world apart, a past denied
    A dream embraced, my wind-swept dream,
    My sailing, silent carousel of love,
    This freshness draining tears to sighs,
    And pleasure to our Mother’s mastery.

    Oh the wind-swept dream
    Oh the smiling sun
    Moruya memories
    When the world was one

    Oh the wind-swept dream
    And the smiling sun
    Fading memories
    One by one

    Fading memories
    One by one
    Fading memories
    One by one

    Moruya Heads, November 1978 (as amended)

    © Michael G Reid 1978-2019, all rights reserved

  • Salted Lips of Time ..

    By Michael Reid

    10th November 1978

    This was essentially the original version, before it was turned into a song.

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    Salted Lips of Time


    Reaching from a wind-swept dream,
    A silent pleasure-ground of smiling sun
    And dancing seas, eternity above,
    A fire within.

    Sailing, gliding, sifting promises
    Of love-dried sand through answered cries;
    A seagull diving, I above, unclothed
    And free, licking salted lips of time -
    And life, a fresh-blown memory
    On morningʼs eyes.

    Alive, enchanted, feeling with the sky
    And for a world apart, a past denied
    A dream embraced, my wind-swept dream,
    My sailing, silent carousel of love,
    This freshness draining tears to sighs,
    And pleasure to our Motherʼs mastery.
     
    Moruya Heads, November 1978 (as amended)
    ©️ Michael Reid 1978-2011
  • The Aegean Soldier

    By Michael Reid

    1st September 1978

    The lazy epic of a 19 year old…

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    The Aegean Soldier


    A hilltop of green saw the soldier,
    In pain as he cried to the mist;
    For the soldier saw only his father,
    In death to a black morningʼs fist.

    Persephone watched from a rise
    And sighed for the pain at her ʻneath,
    And the father in white watched beside,
    As the young soldier courted the wreath.

    ʻI have but the one life to giveʼ he cried,
    And felt his judgement true,
    And then he wept for truth to wilt
    And faith to drown in dew.

    ʻAs againʼ cried the thoughtless Aegean,
    ʻI have lost only morningʼs attire;
    But the prayer for a tear of remembrance
    Is the wood for the next mourningʼs fire.ʼ

    Sweet Demeterʼs child spake at last
    With a strength for the dying to learn,
    That the voice of the winter be broken
    As the harvests of honour return:

    ʻFor the dew shall once more breed afresh
    And shall plunder fateʼs deepest domain,
    And while man follows peace through the darkness
    He may never wear deathʼs coat in vain.ʼ

    ʻAnd so hold the courage of lightʼ cried his father
    ʻAnd would to the tunnel unseen -
    And feel in the nightʼs dew a warning
    And see, in the morning, the green.ʼ

    Not brooding in the clammy light
    The Aegean took death by the sword,
    And headed in time for the darkness,
    And soldiered the light by his word.

    Michael Reid
    1978 (as amended)

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1978-2011, all rights reserved.
     
  • And In The Morn

    By Michael Reid

    1st June 1978

    Tough times….

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    And In The Morn


    On broken tears, the naked flesh
    Embalméd in a silent misery;
    Twilight dreams surrender to the dark,
    Unflinching in its callous strain
    Of time for time, and now to life,
    And in the new-found morn
    Denies the early past,
    A twilight yes, but not the dark,
    The love but not the love,
    No seepage from the heaven learned,
    For naked flesh in daylight feels undone,
    And cries as convicts for the mother’s womb.
     
    Michael Reid
    June 1978 (as amended)

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1978-2011, all rights reserved
     
  • A World of Gold

    By Michael Reid

    20th December 1977

    Whilst bagging bananas at Coffs Harbour

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    A World of Gold


    In a tireless age, in an infinite dome,
    The breath of morning birds and new-born winds
    Unfolds, in a senseless skin, a beauteous mirth
    And in an unmasked eye a world of gold.
     
    Michael Reid
    December 1977 (as amended)
    Coffs Harbour, NSW

    © Michael Geoffrey Reid 1977-2011, all rights reserved.
     
  • To My Only Tomorrow

    By Michael Reid

    1st March 1977

    Love’s frail assumptions.

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    To My Only Tomorrow


    In dawnʼs first light, in thoughts of purest love,
    I gaze with humble fire upon a sigh
    Mute soft, and tender, ready to be kissed,
    As velvet grass by morningʼs humble mist.

    Let fate depress your charméd lips to mine
    As though sweet destiny was meant for love,
    And memʼry not for then, as for tomorrow -
    Peasant dreams of riches, dressed in sorrow.

    And you will be the oracle to truth
    In measured rays of willow-bending fears;
    And in a bond of beauty, ever-clear,
    All-flowing with each silent tear.
     
    Let memʼryʼs tears self-crucify in love
    And never look again, but in our way
    To kindle fresher dreams, and melt as one
    Into a scented fire, heaven sweet
    With present love.
     
    Michael Reid
    March 1977 (as amended)

    © Michael G Reid 1977-2011, all rights reserved.
     
  • Corridors Lost

    By Michael Reid

    20th February 1977

    I wrote this poem shortly after finishing high school, around the time of my 18th birthday.

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    Corridors Lost

     

    We left the cries to find the heart,
    And headed north to pillars new:
    Then found the place we hoped would be,
    But never thought, could never see.

    We rang the bell and crawled inside
    To lovers high on nightly gin,
    Of skies and breathing honey beds
    In snow of old, yet newly fed.

    The turkish camel coat addressed
    As if to speak, or clear its throat,
    And love returned in dripping burns
    As stifled memories to learn.

    Night shining over wandʼring eyes
    As clever owls fought natureʼs minds -
    Yet silent, fearing grassy tombs
    Of clouds coersed by butter-wombs.

    Together praying into webs
    Of mothball eggs on pillow heads,
    We cried aloud to desert ears
    In barking cracked and willow tears:

    Please let us leap into that mound,
    And be devoured by deathʼs delights,
    By Natureʼs past, where love the song
    As manʼs dry fear, in graves belong.

    The beacon, as a lover, turned to dust,
    Yet spoke in language without sound
    To say, you may return to love or lust,
    But never to your wishes - all was still.

     

    Michael Reid
    February 1977 (as amended)

    © Michael G Reid 1977-2011, all rights reserved

  • A Dream

    By Michael Reid

    1st October 1976

    Written when I should have been studying for my HSC....

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    A Dream

     

    I see the light, I feel the fire,
    Piously burning as the souls of tired
    Adventurers search for the valleyʼs heaven -
    Mystical, avenging, uneventful mode,
    Still fearing callousness of heart yet
    Hoping then, as now, but even fonder
    For the tireless stream of memories to come.

    I cry for time, I know the signs,
    Hindering all mortal, meaningless thought,
    All frigid dying sanctities of mind;
    For those who overthrow shall be divine,
    But not as this, for now they are dry
    As dusty bread, and shall remain only
    To feed the soberly judged, the captive soul.

    I wish to rise, in death of mind,
    To be the hinge on the prophetʼs door,
    And as such to ponder on the wise
    And smile, as a child, at the blind.
    Clarity in death of fostered fears,
    Flowing like a hundred intermingled loves,
    As one, free for life, in beautyʼs web.

     

    Michael Reid
    Woollahra, NSW Australia
    October 1976 (as amended)

    © Michael G Reid 1976-2011, all rights reserved.

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