Bill Collis - Two Poems

Memory

the blank page at 2 am
suffers indignity and love
scratches of memory
marks of memoir
making false starts
but the ink flows
still

being
impatient to know
it is so exhausting
but thinking each morning
of your later writing
I wanted it
deep down
your whole body
where I was
such an amazing story



Ghosts and Dreams

things are not the same
I toss and turn
deep in a life that is drifting
redundant
across the summer night
neon signs are blinking
this way not that

I glimpse dark sentinels at my door
ghosts are watching and waiting
when sleep comes
a hand on my brow
seraphic
and soft as moonlight
disturbs my dream
in this dream I was handed a box
I murmur
‘well what is in the box’
I hear a whisper
‘anything you want it to be’

what do I want from the box?
what do I want from this life?

anything you want it to be



Bill Collis has lived in the Blue Mountains, outside Sydney, Australia since 2003. His poems have appeared in several Australian journals. He published a small poetry magazine, spindrift, in the 1990s.