New Poetry by James Walton

Shirt from a Parachute/ a Paratrooper declines

have you seen jelly fish falling from the sky
in a drumming to send the ocean up in the banging
of children turned to flour bags crashing
by a mess spilled off the back of an atlas
where families are scattered like blown out candles
of a roaring to broken ears as blindness seethes
tossed by fire left gas for oxygen
liberated now given the freedom to gasp

coming in behind all the suites of arguments
the remains of what used to be loudly persist
like stomped puff balls the houses below
spidery handwriting that became running people
in unnatural twilight this mushroom fantasy
blew where it could sometimes reddened
as the sunset of diving boots ricocheted
around the twirling batons of stationary lives

silk from a grandfather’s parachute
buttons made from the unforgetfulness of ivory
stains for the concerto’s keys opened in ribbing ornaments
gardener’s hands struggle on the release
of looped holes where eyelets string years to moments
blurs stepping stones flaps horizon wings
flattens the contours in the navigator’s handbook
laid out the terrain of death has no foreign descents


- James Walton 2018


James Walton is a Gippsland poet.