Lost

He lost the land of his birth’s winter snow,
lost heart-throbbed life fragments morphed into dreams,
lost his family that day long ago,
a desertion scarring his self-esteem,
stony heart cracked, future free as the sky.
He lost chance opportunities, too few,
cherished keepsakes, old friendships torn awry,
lost his roadster in a carpark’s chromed queue,
a character in an absurdist play,
sped off, denim jacket slammed on the roof,
further loss as, waving, it flew away.
His pillared past bared, no longer blame-proof,
he aches for things he shall not see again,
knows ego’s reckless largesse caused this bane.

Molly’s Audition

Raising his spirits and his cockstand,
Joyce composes letters to Trieste.
Nora responds, ghosting that book, banned,
raising his spirits and his cockstand,
kinky, inky. From her artless hand:
moist orgies. His lewd woman possessed,
raising his spirits and his cockstand,
Joyce composes letters to Trieste.

Juvenile Invention

Aware that city lights blink on, off, on
while bubbling boredom, longing, blurs our days,
we work the teeming dorms, a kind of con
reaping weed from boys who believe crime pays.
In this chapel of corruption, Dickie,
First Nations tent boxer, plays the tribesman,
my role his circus box office, tricky
ringmaster minus the stretch caravan.
Script rehearsed, stage props: needle, pure white thread,
Dickie, eyelashes fluttering, growls chants,
racehorse names back to front to pump our cred.
Vultures’ cruel committee judges his trance.
From inside his mouth he pierces his cheek,
silver, red, burst bright, white, red, black skin sleek.

Ian C Smith’s work has been published in Antipodes, BBC Radio 4 Sounds,The Dalhousie Review, Griffith Review, San Pedro River Review, Southword, The Stony Thursday Book, & Two Thirds North. His seventh book, wonder sadness madness joy, is published by Ginninderra (Port Adelaide).  He writes in the Gippsland Lakes area of Victoria, and on Flinders Island.

You can find more of Ian’s work here on Ink Pantry.