Respite – Peter Langston
Truth is patient.
Darkness is eternal,
God’s Genesis management moment
curation not cessation.
In the eons since
we seek our own immortality
feigning deity by lit devices
exposing truth as a masthead
to better lives
controlled lives
of safety, prosperity, righteousness.
Joni’s lies, just-ice and the (insert your own nationality) way
of flawed Supermen
whose torches would banish shadows.
Truth is patient.
Revealed in partiality
at the uncertain transition
created by a burning lamp,
Truth lies,
told in darkness
its unformed shape
becoming the feared monster
we all know.
No one lurks there in the absence,
just maleficent versions of us,
the shadows we dare not see,
the truths.
So we burn the oil,
match the candle,
diminishing their resource
to build our own.
Their flickering existence
providing more of time’s respite
than the illusion of space suffused by light.
Each wave reflects in uneven crests,
washing us in relief
while mocking us from behind
in another, starker relief.
Our silhouettes laughing
from the walls we thought were safe.
Truth is patient.
In the City of Light
the midday sun still shines
in midnight pools beside the Peel,
confusing moths relying on the moon,
revealing Lindsay’s snapshot
of a lover’s misplaced word
or hand
or misread invitation,
as she flees from his regret
like strobed scenes
snatched from a longer story.
Scenes played before a variety of flames
of increasing reliability,
their lamp lighters required only once
to illuminate Scott Rd
with a battery of captured sunlight,
a resource we cannot rape
or have denied
from an otherwise dirty, empty cupboard
of previous lithiums.
Lovers’ still run breathlessly
from their desires.
The Empty still supplicate
in Dickensonian moments of wanting more.
Light is still an illusion,
an insecure pool in the darkness.
Truth is patient.
Copyright – Peter Langston (2024)
May not be used in part or whole without the poet’s written permission.
Light Respite Poet’s Notes
Tamworth based poet Peter Langston was born in Cronulla, ten years into the post WWII baby boom, spending twenty years growing in the clean air and sterilised politics of an optimistic middle Australia and beginning his cricket osmosis. However, it was the move to Armidale in the late 1970’s which shaped his socialist viewpoint, nearly dying twice in car accidents, learning about learning, falling in love and graduating in drinking. Only one of these was fatal. In Armidale, he began to write.
Peter was a teacher for twenty years, including eight years back in Armidale from 1984.
He has published five collections of poetry, the most recent being Poems at a Social Distance (2022). In 2017, Tamworth Dramatic Society bought his play Geoffrey to the stage. In November 2011, the poem Self-Portrait of a Difficult Pleasure was part the 1000 Words exhibition at NERAM and in January 2012 When Dougie Did The Double was selected for the 100 Years of Tests exhibition at the Sydney Cricket Ground. The poem 300 Feet was part of the Arts North West exhibition Art, Word, Place in 2019.
During 2014-17 Peter was a mental health advocate and presenter for the Black Dog Institute and in 2014 he was a guest on Conversations with Richard Fidler, on ABC Radio.
He no longer plays cricket but still hits a ball on a string and sends his hat size and phone number to Cricket Australia every September, just in case. Such optimism is evident in his poetry.
www.peterlangstonpoet.com | www.facebook.com/peterlangstonpoet
Image credits:
Muriel Cornish, Still life (detail), 1945, oil on board. Gift of Howard Hinton 1940. Howard Hinton Collection.
Oil lamp (detail), Roman world (possible fake), ceramic. MA1978.34.1
