Loneliness of the long distance leaf blower

Over the brow of the bypass the leaf blower came walking
Led by the drone of his machine
Towards a distant land
Far from verges, gutters and driveways
Where leaf litter runs free
And no one can see where you’ve been.
Sing my pretty
Lift your drone into a hymn of guttural whining
To send the galahs into a whirling cloud of disapproval
and empty drink cans scrambling for cover in the weeds.

To the night (Rosebud)

Birds are on the wing
while frogs
croak through a field of hissing rushes
the moon breaks cover
boom gates raise their arms
greeting tired cars at the end of their journeys
Night time prayers for everyone
Bow down
That time is here again
Do as you’ve done before
Give in
Surrender to the night.

Sanderson linen
(or, the eastern suburbs give up their dead)

Oh Sanderson linen
your charms were seductive
all floriate skin
and upholstered poise
Now dumped on the kerbside
With a pile of smashed flat packs
surrounded by noise
and the rain coming in
the rain
the rain
the rain
coming in.

John Neylon is an Adelaide-based writer, artist and author of several books on South Australian artists, including Robert Hannaford, Hans Heysen, Aldo Iacobelli and Greg Johns. He is one of Australia’s longest-serving media art writers, having been art critic for ‘The Advertiser’, then inaugural art writer for ‘The Adelaide Review’ until its closure in 2019. He is a regular contributor of reviews and articles to ‘InReview’. In Year 7 at school, he received an Excellence Certificate for a short story involving a bird and a horse.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.