Toy Airforce

paper wasps in a heatwave
come for what’s left of water in the pond
refuelling with handy syringe
suctorial proboscis

half-length in slime
well back, in verandah shadow
I watch them drink up
until they’re well satisfied

I’m kept waiting while
they’re checking their antennae
taking it in turns to fly off
on their sorties

when it’s safe enough
for me to approach
I’ll go out and fix the damn pump
swearing oaths in stinging heat

Dazzler

dragonfly’s compound eyes –
each a GoPro action cam
filming along
riverbank’s ruff of floating green

for satisfying
its singular need
to semaphore sheen

it declines to settle
for long
on reeds

this dazzler weaves
between
tips of rushes

its burnished body
its thrumming wings
of coloured glass
flirting with the surfaces
of H2O

until the glint
of everyone’s
idle, summer afternoons
stroking by like
a Disney cartoon

Ross Jackson is a retired teacher who lives in Perth. He has had his poetry and short fiction published in various literary magazines and websites in Australia and overseas. His collection ‘Mallee and other poems’ was published in 2016, and the collection ‘Time alone on a quiet path’ by the University of Western Australia Press, UWAP, last year.

Readers’ original and unpublished poems of up to 40 lines can be emailed, with postal address, to [email protected]. Submissions should be in the body of the email, not as attachments. A poetry book will be awarded to each accepted contributor.