NOR’EASTER
Glad you’ve arrived -
Not a minute too late!

Look at you: 
Waltzing in
Flitting about
Skirting the crowd
Twirling for all to see.
Coquette!

Is that you?
Titillating sails 
Winking at waves
Flirting with flags
Refreshing to all.
Strumpet!

And now you’re gone, 
As fast as you came. 
Fluky damsel!
Are you really
‘A breath of fresh air’?


NOR’WESTER
Bellows fan Satan’s pyre
engorging the limp land
flaming prongs that
pierce Life.

Acrid, blackened sky
maelstrom of eucalypt burn
couple with Death’s crackle:
A bush holocaust.

Helicopters hover
like giant dragonflies
above a scarlet pool
damping
the inextinguishable.

Ashen faces face 
the Devil’s inferno
emboldened only 
by their past.

And people wait
at their gate:
‘Will it slow?
Or will we go?’

Blow out, evil wind!
…I beg you.


SOUTHERLY BUSTER
Blustering in from Antarctic climes
Whitecaps on a simmering sea
Boats scuttle to safety 
Like mice to holes
-Refuge.

In winter: harbinger of colder times
Overcoats and beanies
Frosted ground 
Land and Man 
-Shiver.

In summer: waking back porch chimes
Cooling frayed tempers 
Turning bush fires
Inward
-Relief.


SOU’EASTER
Watery wind
blowing from o’er the foam
Syphoning Life
from the oceans you roam.

Maritime mother
drawing us to your breast 
Suckling the Land
with moisture on request.

Damp day
sky and sea
coalesce into grey.

© Neil Dufty