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The Writings and Poetry of Tony Thomas


     Jacaranda Blues
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 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 and writer, 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 get attract a high regular readership - so I reckon he is wrong for once.


Jacaranda Blues

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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