Michael J. Leach


Time Travel

Callan Park, Sydney, November 2018

Leaving this manor house’s veranda,
we stroll by a purple jacaranda
to find some native shade
where the modern world fades
to sounds of poetry—sweet memoranda.



Easy

My new friend from Germany
asks me in perfect English
if I know any German.

My response comes quickly.
‘Einfach,’
I mispronounce softly.

After a	       pause,
I proceed to share
the distant memory surfaced by this single word.

I was in a silent
secondary school library	
where the 2 cultures meet,
studying for my year 12 unit
‘Specialist Mathematics’.
A friend from my English
class was sitting                              across from me
studying German.

Red pen in hand,
she reached over
to my page full of complex
planes & imaginary
numbers

to scrawl a single word
in the margin: ‘Einfach’. 
I looked up at her quizzically.

‘It means easy,’
she whispered with a quokka grin.
‘That maths you’re studying
is easy compared to the language 
I’m studying.’

‘Agreed,’ I breathed.

My mouth & eyes smile
at this long-forgotten recollection
as I study my new friend from Germany.

In response
to my anecdote,
she mirrors my smiles 
& declares in perfect Denglish, 
‘Well, for me,	
German’s einfach.’ 



Life Locks


grid       
door      
                     
                     
                    
                     
combo   
land       
sea         
body      
pop and 
inter       
(b)          
un(b)      
                  
Sher       
                     
pad         
heart       
wed        
                      
                      
picked    
                      
                      
air           
dead        


lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
Lock,
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock
lock




in
out
box
er








Stock…

et



smith
pick

up
down

Michael J. Leach is an Australian academic and poet. His poems reside in Cordite, Rabbit, Meniscus, Otoliths, Plumwood Mountain, The Blue Nib, Blue Bottle Journal, the Medical Journal of Australia, the Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, and elsewhere. Michael’s debut poetry collection is the chapbook Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020). He lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country and acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land.

 
 

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