Immanuel Suttner: Four short poems

I’ve long felt a bit inferior
to plumbers and tradesmen
who arrive
and do their job
brick by brick
who resolve leaks
restore tiles
rewire circuitry
and leave
their job done
while I
work with words
on jobs that have no
beginning
or

The Old Lie

“They gave their lives …”
No.
Their lives were taken
while they were doing
their best to keep them:
Unexpectedly,
A land mine under the left tyre;
shot by “friendly” fire;
an overturned APC;
mortar fragments in the carotid artery.
“They gave their lives …”
No.
Their lives were taken.

Teaching

Above every blade of grass
is an angel with a walking stick
that taps the blade
and tells it
“grow”

and above every body-mind
is an angel that taps it
with the unforeseen
and tells it
“let go”

In my Jewish National Fund
t-shirt
after seeing a Lebanese man
born in Barcelona
I climb back into my
Mission Australia car
to visit a bi-polar Thai woman
who lives in Australia’s biggest city
am I not the
United Nations
in a single man?

Immanuel Suttner