top of page
Poetry - The Daily Grind
This selection of poems demonstrates Alison’s diversity of poetical forms and styles. With the voice of protest, often satire or humour, the Poems explore a diverse range of issues from the bigger philosophical questions to a poetical critique on local governance.
For example, The God Con-fusion, is a treatise on the existence of god? Ode To an Empty City is a protest about the Sydney Time-Out Rules and the demolition of historical districts for high-rise elite apartments.
The God Con-Fusion
Written by Alison Marshall, 20 October 2016
The God Con-Fusion is inspired by David Attenbrough, as a personal response to his
comments questioning the validity and existence of a god… a god of love and compassion?
This garden Paradise
And by the hand of God did fashion and design
The earth the stars all lifeforms, measured and defined
His plan for all humanity all-knowing and divine
But! What twisted reason and view sublime
What Wit. What Humour. What Smite
Created a world of nerve bitting parasites
That infect the heart, the nerves, the sight
Is this gods vision, the miracle of life?
Suffer those who live in pain
With twisted deformities of body and brain
Struggling for breathe all though the long night
Is this the god of love and light?
The god of famine and drought and plague
The starving child waits for the rain
The harvest dancers sing in vain
Another season without water
Another winter without grain
While The nature gods with great fury and storm
A hurricanes Annihilates the village on the shore
Volcanoes sweep forth violent hot lava
That bury a city of fine art and culture
Is this the divine mystery?
Another shipwreck, all crew, lost at sea
The ancient god of catastrophe
The pope and the clergy in rich attire.
Keepers of the sacred word conspire
Symbolic Icons to worship and glorify
Laundering guilt from the god crucified
The god of the church and cathedral spires
His shrine of gold; falsely acquired
Stolen from a lost and pagan empire
Behind our holy banners we plot and frame
The divine right of Kings in a holy death game.
The god of war and bloodshed and pain
In the death throws of battle we Call out his name
In the mountain temple an endless recitation
The god of the humble in wise contemplation
Seeking nirvana the life force Vibration
Believing in Karma and reincarnation
Yet the guns and bombs of an army invasion
Kill monks while poised in a lotus flower mediation
And for all the creeds of truth and salivation
And scared words in earnest dedication
At evening vespers chanting incantations
Justice and peace for all people for. all nations
And still The innocent suffer persecution
Another cold dawn mass execution
Who designed this myth that profits those in power?
Penetrating our lives at every movement on the hour
The new age gods of hedonistic passion
Enlightened lovechild in condescending compassion
And Holding hands in circles on the beach in seclusion
Its the cocaine god that feeds their delusion
Paranoia in their full moon confusion
The guru god of the financial institution
Waiting for aliens their final solution
Another god of the grand illusion
Is this the grace, the love that we seek?
A creed for the powerless
The exploited, the meek
An entire pantheon of gods for the weak
The gods of the sun and the moon arise
Reflect our birth our destiny our time
The heavenly spheres control our minds
Affect our temperament, as Venus aligns
World disaster co-insides
with the coming of the Easter, flood and tides
As mars appears on the Western sky
Our troops are ordered to the border line
A whole people destroyed.. in an act of genocide
A one-legged boy in a field of land mines
Is this our fate, the future for All mankind?
Begotten with a greed that enslaves us all
Is this angelic love or do we fall
Fall where? Into some mythical hell
To Suffer!
If I suffer enough will I be called
A chosen one
And from his own image he made us whole
Condemned to a death with an infinite soul
To suffer the bone crumpling, mouth mumbling face… of growing old
And all our passion our plans our love gone cold.
And gave us the gift of invention and will
With a primitive instinct to conquer and kill
Hard wired and programed to procreate
Gods own neuro chemicals dictate
His plan to control and regulate
Our moods and passions - lust and hate
Who cast this mortal neuro-net where doubt and despair transpire
In the shadow of midnight madness twisted thoughts conspire
The capacity for cruelty and torture…. we acquire
And made manifest the perversity of human desire
This cosmic universe: gods magnificent vision
Formed of matter and nuclear fission
From order into chaos with calculated precession
What reason and humour made such a decision?
Earth. Gods Eden in an end - game collision
Our beautiful blue world spins out of control
On a fixed trajectory to the nearest black hole
Is this gods plan For ALL life for all souls
IS this the transcendence which is to unfold
And when its all gone wrong there humanity to blame
A god that enslaves us with fear and shame
The icon burns; eternal flame
On our knees, at the altar, whispering, we pray
Instinct
Written by Alison Marshall, 1 June 2019
Beware ye weary travellers
The allure of the Exotic, the Erotic, the Euphoric
The divine Mystery of Flesh and Death and Touch
SHE a Hybrid of mixed blood and races
Her smile a catacomb of a 1000 faces
Without borders without time
A winged Kali in flight
In her holy red cloak dancing creole through the Night
Solicit thy Mistress. Imprisoned by her velvet clasp…
Exquisite torment./Primordial bite
You cannot scratch, you cannot Hold .
She leaves her mark. Immortal Imprint.
That Bitch Kiss.
That pleasure seeking Primal Itch
Welcome to the realm of bloodlust and instinct
A transparent fog coalesces
A Sediment layered with a thousand whispers
A thousand lies Waist High
A slimy belt
a sequinned g- string; damp
Pinning down the broad underbelly
Of Jungian dreams and Freudian screams
Of sweat and leather and muscle
In her pleasure dome of mice and men
She feeds upon the mid night hour
Without a voice, without a sound
No forest call or siren song
Suckling the life force , without discrimination
Careless of love or gender or generation
With Bloated lips that punctuate your mortal alfoil;
Your vocal incantation…
Vibrating the crevices of your trembling inner thigh
The hot sacred places
Piecing the flesh
Wildebeest breathe
A rebel on ice with a hypodermic
Panting with the effort
Of lust and heat
the raw thrust Penetrates
Giving rise to love imperfections
101 nights that u can’t remember
A Roulette Wheel of Pills and Potions
A Voodoo Love of lines and Lotions
Insidious Creature … O where have you been
In your breeding ground of soil and soot
Submergence zone
Where the air is thick
A railway tunnel defunct/ A Cave
Where childhood visions remain entombed
A muffled voice warped and muted...
Permeates, /giving shape to thoughts Subliminal
That sub-terrarium maze that dreamers fear
The Black Red Magic and forbidden chants
Painted Naked youths in a tribal dance
An underground subway of chains and shackles
Of Revolutionaries and Miscreants
Partisan meetings and anarchists of
Occult rituals and deliverance..
From the sunny disposition of the everyday pretence
Circling above. Those gargoyles on High. Like Birds of prey.
That Feast upon the soul of Human Desire
That wrought iron Twisted, skin blistered Misaligned and
Mutated
Perverted nature of human desire
O Naked Flame
That Lights the hidden passages of my brain
O Beauty that cannot Lie
Draw me asunder
To purse my longings
For I am driven by my god given DNA.
Gods own creative alchemy for divine foreplay.
The chemical equation that controls my mind.
That ignites my Sex Beauty unique and Profound
O Naked Flame
O Beauty that cannot Lie
Draw me asunder
Close to the heart beat/ the Jungle Drum..
the pulse of stamping of feet/ repeats
Circling a campfire now extinct.
That left trace
A fossilised carbon Imprint
An Ancient mortal Footprint
That Danced …to the
The Rhythm of BloodLust and Instinct
Ode to Kings Cross
Written by Alison Marshall, 29 March 2016
Dedicated to Glenn Lockitch
Diamond lights skirt the harbour Shimmering across the waters To a
midnight secret beach In the Sydney Summer heat. We meet.
The Lights go out at Midnight
In the Emerald city precinct. Sandstone deep
Walking the beat. Talking the beat.
Sentries encircle this city Keep
A monotonous rhythm.……. Indiscreet.
Marking time in the empty streets. Sordid
Where the bars are closed, the facade is boarded
The alleyway of lights with barricades is cordoned
The night air like treacle, Seeps
Breathing Over the harsh pavement
A vacant stretch of black concrete
A resonant void where the Night People used to meet.
The citizens retreat.
Sans ideas, sans stories, sans songs
It has the smell of Martial Law
But this is not war
On every corner and every door
The four meter line is quartered and drawn
No glasses, no shots Besieged by three…
A passport entry. Required. To the last bar on the scene.
Under surveillance with cameras on drones
Enforced sedation,
It’s the Midnight Cinderella Syndrome
And who gave you the right
To bend my time after midnight?
And now I lay me down to sleep
Tranquilise the life force of the streets
The heartbeat, of the city cloaked in silence
An echo chamber of lost voices repeats.
a conversation, Vanquished
In whose name is this Decree?
Merged in the shadow of retrograde greed
To shape and hew for a developers fee
As the gentry demand a harbour view
Annihilating all…
An Alter ego, juxtaposed, to that timeless force
The ebb and flow
Of pathos, where the wild wind blows.
For all the rules and time out zones
The creative spirit will find a new home
For you cannot cut the ribbon that binds
The sacred river of melody and rhyme
The white light of inspiration that defines … our Art our Time
As the radical fringe realigns
To a left bank quarter In this city sublime
bottom of page