Category Archives: Poetry

Nourlangie Rock (part 17 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite)

Poetry, , , , ,

Hidden gallery of art
Its artists long deserted
From the rock dwelling place
Nestled in its protective shade.
Stick spirit people,
Hunting red kangaroos.
While white kangaroo waits.
Flower art, outline of hands
Spirit people painting ancient signs
Of the lands true fruits
Its survival ways
Known to initiated, no other may go
To touch, to read these pictures.
A twisted vine,
Leafless in the scorching midday sun
Waits for times that are better
The cooling touch of rain
The cold desert night air
The silence of this gallery, lost in time.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Simsons Gap (part 10 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , ,

Chalk white boulder announces our presence
To the rich red walls rising high above.
At the end of the valley, we glance through v-shaped opening
Toward the desert glimpsed through trees
Leafed in green, alive again after the rains.
In the dry sand of the riverbed, a ghost gum awaits
The next outpouring from the sky.
While stagnant pool tells subtle tale
That the wait may not be soon.
Through dry heat shimmer we raise our gaze
High above us to the red walled heights.
A single tree, stature small but strong
Struggles against the elements to survive
Alone.
The hushed quiet broken only by birdcall.
Time stands still here, as it always has.
Nature takes her time, there is no hurry here.
Alone.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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A New World Order

Poetry,

Everything is different today
The world has turned and changed.

It is not the innocent place of my youth
Nor the time-worn one
My parents once called home.

It is not a tame world
Nor frightening in its ways
It’s just that what is here today
Is different from yesterday.

Powers greater than those who rule
And higher than those who pray
See this world as a lonely place
And yet, when I woke this day
To sunshine, wind and rain
A lorikeet tapping at my window pane
I felt that this world of today
Is a world that can be mine.

Tim Alderman
Copyright ©2001

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Mataranka Springs (part 14 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , ,

Towering palm trees soar way overhead
An oasis in the dessert
None thought they would see
One of natures oddities
Something that should not be here.
We swim and laze
In waters warmed by the earth
And walking along planked ways
Admire a spider web
Intricate in its weave
That lies across the entrance
Of an unused pool.
We visit Elsey Replica
A reminder of our Never Never days
When the ancients bowed down to man
Instead of staying married to the land
And we feel a shame, a humbling
That we took the people from this great land
A tried to turn them to slaves.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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With or Without You

Poetry, , ,

You created a space
When youth still clung to me
Created a space
That lived on either side
You did not touch
You did not feel
You did not love
And yet I move on
With or without you.

The choice was yours
To live a life divorced from mine
To know not the ways
Of my hands or my heart.
Yet I succeed
Still I flourish
And I did it
With or without you.

The pain you hold is yours alone
I gave you a chance to share
A way to see my myriad talents
A way to share my life
Yet you chose instead solitude
A cutting of the cord
And left to stagger alone
With or without you.

There are now things you will never know
And I, likewise
Live uninformed.
If you pass, I know not
Life goes on
With or without uou

Tim Alderman
(C) 2010

Standley Chasm (part 9 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, ,

Steamy, humid heat
Unrelenting sun.
The walls, sheer height above us
Contrasted, as always
In the deserts beauteous array
Of reds, of white, of blues.
Neverending, or so it seems,
The chasm’s endless trail.
Ghost gums, dried from lack of rain
Lean their branches inward
Attempts to bar our way.
Palms and cycads contrast
With the ancient gums,
Providing relief to the eye along the chasm floor.
The flies, the flies,
The cursed flies
Try to carry us away
Veiled fight our weapon
Against their endless onslaught.
We travel on.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Armageddon Skies (26/12/2001)

Poetry, , ,

The 2001 Boxing Day fires in Sydney were truly frightening, and I din’t think I have ever seen fires get so close to the city. I was at my Mother-In-law’s home in Chester Hill when the burning leaf that inspired this landed in the yard. The skies were a red colour in daylight the likes of which I had never seen before. It was, indeed, like Armageddon come!.

Black leaf floats free
Through Armageddon sky,
Grey, cast in shadow, forlorn,
Then gently down, down,
It rests on ground
Far from its home.
Life cast out in fire, smoke,
Flame of destruction.
Now sitting, judged in time.
Is it still living, now dead?
Is it now dead, still living?

Fire tongues shoot high

To Armageddon sky,
Destroying all in its path.
No animal safe here,
No plant untouched,
No house left standing,
All life cut off,
All memories gone.
Black ash against grey haze,
Green brush against black ground,
Orange sun in misty air,
Red moon in daylight sky.

Surreal light in Armageddon sky,
Day becomes night, all life gone.
A frantic scurry, frightened haste,
Small shape in fiery rush,
Safe at last – screech of tires.

Everything left to time
Only sorrow lives here now
While overhead floats a lackened leaf

Into an Armageddon sky

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Yellow Waters – Kakadu (part 18 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , ,

The Yellow Waters tour of the flood plains of Kakadu National Park is essential for any top end visitors.

Wetland, flood plain,
Waters as old as the dessert that surrounds.
Flood lines in trees, natures litter
Far above our heads.
Floating eye of crocodile drifts quietly by
As birds, unafraid of their awaiting fate
Call to one another, and fly about us.
Giant water lilies crawl along the shores
Flowering in unexpected colour
In the humid air.
We float gently along, low tide of seasons
Keeping us to our path.
Along a gentle flowing billabong
Caused only by the absence of rain
Takes us to places bountiful still,
Feeding generations of natives
Who ventured here to fill
Food baskets, empty stomachs.
We leave a watery horizen behind.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Curtin Springs (part 7 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , ,

As time locked as the ancient land
This 60’s outpost confronts our senses.
Iron spears of gate supports, steel boomerang
Announces to all this place.
White painted tires hold rugged desert plants.
Hands held to mouths cover snickers and smiles.
The old building of stone and brick
People within hidden in the old times.
We read the papers on the walls
And wonder how, in a century new begun
Such unpoetic humour can tickle us still
Its brazen bad taste a shock for the new.
A place not of this land
And yet part of a time now gone.
We drive away
And wonder will it last
Or sink into the sands
And become part of another time.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Sunset #2 (part 20 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , , ,

Rock in ancient sacred land
Ubirr by name
Lost in endless time.
One side, seasonal floodplain
Other grasslands green.
A golden disc sinks slowly
Toward the distant horizon line
Reflected by water
Coloured by clouds
That float like distant shores.
We sink down on knees
Adoration of natures might
Quiet surrounds us as we watch
The sunset become the dark
The dark that is night.
The stars appear from the disappearing rays
We turn quietly for home
A silence most profound
The sun is gone

Tim Alderman
(C)2001

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