A poem about jealousy and depression by David Tombale: Nobody

Jealousy takes many forms some of which turn more to depression than rage and it is this depression that Nobody addresses.

Nobody

There is no worry like the worry I feel

watching his arms settle around you,

and he holds you to him tightly as if

trying to mesh woman into man in

an ecstasy of being that makes a mockery

of my feelings as if you’re leaving.

Going once round the dance floor with

your eyes closed, happy with another man

and that spears me, a hundred yards out and it

impales me on the ruin of our love where

the black crows of nights of missing you

perch around the wall in droves, cawing

mournfully before a rising sun that I wish

never more to see.

This is the charity of despair that weighs me

down and wraps me round in old films like Casablanca

and Love Story and I need you now playing on

the radio but who cares? I care and I hope

nobody knows.

A poem about love and death by David Tombale: Separated

Death at times has been the only thing to separate some couples but the idea of love living on after death intrigues me and inspired me to write Separated in attempt to try to explore that concept.

Separated

Every evening passes in the careless whisper

of a departing train, my head laid against

the cold glazed glass and I find that my mornings

are dreaming of you, some faint remain of

love sleeps on inside me, slumbering like a

mindless kitten lost to the sounds of winter,

the crackling of falling ice and snow,

I have travelled too far without you,

even now I linger on the sights that flap like sails

behind me and I will not find you, yet dare I try?

Dare I seek you out amongst the crowds?

My wisdom has failed to let me know but some years from now

when I am one with wind and cloud perhaps we shall join

together, one with you and one with all and never

again be separated.

A poem about heartache and memories by David Tombale: My pillow

Memories and longing can make us into insomniacs some nights and that frustration is what has inspired My pillow.

My pillow

Most nights thoughts of you still keep

me guessing, what patch of light falls

across your face, what doorway is made

dark by the breath of your passing?

Midnight passes like this, with worrying

and tracking the ticking sound of the

hallway clock that is not you, that does

not sound like your heel clicks across

our marble floors or the heavy sigh that

strains your chest with fury or some mad

frustration you shall never voice.

Every evening I wait for sight of you like a

lonely comet streaking across the distant sky,

I’m needing you constantly and you need me

temporarily like a postman or a milkman,

some stranger to void the silence until you

leave him, with only tears to mark your

presence and the hollowed shape of your

body still pressed against my pillow.

A poem about memories and heartache by David Tombale: Everglades

The environments we encounter in our lives can make up the background of our memories and our experiences and a poem like Everglades embodies that idea.

Everglades

The trees cast their shadows over me

and beneath their massive bulk scurry

mice and vole and in their passage I’m

reminded I’m alone, on a lonely pilgrimage

to the single elm hidden in the centre

scarred with a heart and our names and

a history not of its own, a past as full as the

waters of the Everglades, the current stirring

with the passage of a gator, in my mind that

scaly prince stalks the quiet world of my solitude,

creeps across the disarray of feelings that reflect my memories

and when he clamps down on my throat it will

be more than heartache that eats me whole.

A poem about travelling and love by David Tombale: Landscapes

Leaving home is a journey into the unknown and that suspense of learning what lies over the horizon is what Landscapes is all about, that and sharing those discoveries with someone you care about.

Landscapes

The hum of the engine is the only sound that

stretches between us, in the pale glow of moonlight

your face hovers like a passing cloud across this

windscreen as the night owls screech in the distance

and we leave the city behind us, it’s lights flickering

on and off like a little flashlight sending out a

message in morse-code, love me, love me says

this code as the whole expanse of the city lies there

like a map seen from the window of a passing plane,

and somewhere above us it flies crossing oceans and

foreign lands we dream off in between our bites of

filling station pies, and cups of luke warm coffee we

sip as dawn warms our freezing hands pointing west

ever west, beckoning our flagging spirits and laying a

promise like a fragile egg in the nest of the landscapes

we’ve yet to see.

A poem about love and change by David Tombale: Gravity

Love doesn’t just make you blind, it changes the way you see the world around you and that effect is what Gravity tries to describe.

Gravity

There are days when even sunsets are more

beautiful than the string of pearls that rest

against your chest, when the sunlight turns

golden brown and the loud hails of taxi horns

recede into the background of forest sounds,

the call of barn owls and the baying of hunting

hounds,

There are evenings when you toss the unruly

strands of your black hair and I wish to crush them

between my fingers and take the scent of you deep

into my lungs like air that clears this poison that invades

my pores and fills me out until small explosions

blind my eyes,

they tore you from me once when I prayed you’d hear me out,

listen now, there is no gravity to hold me down,

no calls to summon me,

the entire world has ceased to turn and there amidst all that silence

is the heavy thump of our beating hearts.

A poem about youth and ambition by David Tombale: The mowana tree

The mowana tree is about the ambitions we have as children and how our initial drive can stall as we grow up.

The mowana tree

Down below the mowana tree lying

prone and silent among the grass

the shadows spread out from my past,

flickered thoughts and memories

spinning like a top, golden bright yet oddly

sad when measured against my dad,

I have grown to slay no giants nor

travel oceans wide and vast, no instead

I’ve filled my desk with piles of books

and promises, tired lines and maps,

I’ve grown old but sown no oats and

wrote no poems that have filled these

eyes with tears but have no fear

because these doors lay open and all

those poets who came before me

have enshrined a dream of fame and

fortune that has me hooked, and

moving forward no bruised eye or

quickly spoken lie will change my course

or lead me off into the darkness of the bush.