Joe Massingham, AU

 

 

Free Verse   Swan Song   From my breakfast spot I look out over the terrace down the terra cotta path beneath two green and white smothered arches and over a gravelly strand where a plaster swan has stood patiently twenty years or more, staring expectantly, waiting for a pond to appear so that she might slip in and have a swim. I’d like her patience to be rewarded but, sadly, I ‘m pretty sure it never will, not in my lifetime, anyway.     The Swan   In that soft dark just before dawn the swan glides, motionless, upon the slatey waters of sleep. Head turned, she makes no ripple on the lake. I hold my breath, yet, somehow, a zephyr breeze escapes and whispers in the lash fine feathers, bidding her awake. She stirs, and in that instant, vanishes.     About Joe Massingham, AU   Joe Massingham was born in the UK but has lived the second half of his life in Australia .His major employment has been as a Navy officer, university student from first degree to PhD, tutor, lecturer and Master of Wright college, University of New England, NSW. He has run his own writing and editing business but retired early because of cancer and heart problems and now spends time waiting to see medical practitioners, writing poetry and prose and smelling the roses. He has had work published in Australia , UK, USA and NZ. This is Joe Massingham's first appearance in Sketchbook.