New Poetry by James Walton

DNA

there’s a madman in the square
people are closing their windows
he’s crying out he’s found the code

of how the house smelled of oranges
when we made the almond flour cake
and the scent rained through every room

stirring in a wing flap heart beat
not the dull flat bottom skiff of ducks
slumbering off the scoria embankment

but the savage embrace of a hurtling beak
I stalled face on in mid air unafraid
as the rushing gust pierced and passed

the skins fall away in pulsing forensics
my nose is buried in the aromatic aftermath
of how the house smelled of oranges


- James Walton 2015


James Walton lives in South Gippsland. His collection, "The Leviathan's Apprentice" has just been released through Strzelecki's Lover Press.