Dreaming Cannons
Little German trench mortar
squats in the geraniums
of the Deloraine RSL, Tasmania.
A century since you burped a shell.
This long snooze suits you well,
snuggled keepsake, greyly dozing
amongst generations of flaming flowers,
keeping company a wee obelisk
of the district’s dear dead dairy farmers.
In Berry lies another of your kind,
under palms in a park, sleeping the seasons
by a cheap-made wall of mossed up names
that won’t keep open their eyes.
And I think of all the dreaming cannons
in all the parks in all the towns
in all the world, all the 25 pounders
and Ack-Acks, clambered on by kids,
dripping sweet pigeon shit and icecream.
- Tug Dumbly 2019
Tug Dumbly is a Sydney poet with a long performance history. His first book of poems, Son Songs, has just come out through Flying Island Books.
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