TONY THOMAS
Tony Thomas was born in England in 1939,
and is a retired bureaucrat living in Brisbane,
Australia. He has an Australian wife, two
adult daughters, a dog and a cat. He holds
a degree in economics from the University
of Queensland. His interests are catholic,
and include: writing fiction, poetry, and
political diatribes to the newspapers. Other
abiding interests include political and social
philosophy, with occasional forays into logic
and the foundations of mathematics. His politics
are left wing anarchism, but his activities
are restricted to the pen rather than the
sword. Tony is actually a well known poet,
writer, mathematician and logician of some
stature, though he modestly complains that
on the contrary, he is not only obscure -
but unknown, and should probably be described
as such. On this website his prose pieces
and poems attract an increasing number of
regular readers - so I reckon he is wrong
for once - enjoy. ( Editor.)
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JACARANDA
BLUES
by Tony
Thomas.
What is the precise colour of the jacaranda
flower,
is it pinkish blue or bluish lavender?
No matter what the answer, in classroom or
veranda,
Australian students know the feeling it invokes,
and the clutch of fear unrelieved by feeble
jokes.
In Queensland’s springtime (autumn in a northern
clime),
the jacaranda blooms for a few weeks at a
time,
strewing the ground beneath the trees with
purple bells.
Indoors with books and binders student study
texts sublime,
in weary preparation for their examination
hells.
Silently ringing before their eyes the fragile
blooms of spring
bring fear into the hearts of would be bachelors,
and master’s hands wring in despair of becoming
doctors.
Assiduous students need not fear the testing
hall,
but slackers must beware the purple waterfall.
And after the terror’s past and cap and gown
is imminent,
a higher degree may be required to pay the
hex or rent.
Even when the grey possessor of many silken
hues
walks beneath those leafless trees, harbingers
of sombre news,
he may recall the pangs of the jacaranda
blues.
In life’s twilight, when examination time
comes round again,
and grave processions celebrate the urn and
not the pen,
the falling of the jacaranda’s rain may lead
us then
to fields beneath the canopy of purple shoots,
where past students graduate to the jacaranda’s
roots.
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