John Holding

John Holding is a participant in Poetic Portraits, an intergenerational creative project to showcase the creative talent and diverse life experiences of different generations in Monash.

John Holding writes poetry daily, having started while holidaying in 2024. He has had some of his poems published in Spillwords, Eunoia Review and EdgeofHumanity.

John is now honing his poetry in an ambition to be published by top tier poetry magazines, as well working on a poetry book.

Six Inches Deep

History, only six inches deep.

 

Found. 2018–

Slow detector’s sweep

In quiet bush, shattered by

The ringing ping— prompts the dig in hope

Of gold, hard swinging

Pick, dig, reveal.

 

Not gold.

 

Lead.

 

Soaked in stained Jaara earth,

Along its side, a scar

Surrounded by red, bleeding

 

Into white.  Lost, 1854–

Castlemaine.

 

The grey, leaden slug, never

Meant to maim,

With that heft—

 

Kill.

 

I can see it,

 

Chambered, weapon raised

 

Fired—

 

Red flaring boom rages its spreading

Smoke hiding his face,

Blending dirt smeared clothes

Into the dull grey eucalypts, a black

 

Rough Iron Bark or two.

Shadowed.

Jaara ghosts watch.

 

Did his face whiten

Like his knuckles squeezing for death’s Booming release—

Shouting his hate, his greed, his fear.

 

No death this time.

 

No parting of bark hut wall,

Painting the inside with red

No final groan.

 

A silent flight, a touch of a branch?

Scrape of a rock?

Why else the scar?

Till soft puff marks its pause.

 

Weighing in my hand:

 

Such a thin history—

 

Overwriting millenia—

Feathered feet leave no print,

No rusted steel, no hard iron axe

A culture lived in wood,

 

Ended in rough lead.

Six inches deep.

 

Older now.

Take that slow walk

Across the lonely sands,

Feel again the crunch,

The squeeze between the toes—

Though your memory wavers.

 

I cannot save

your life

 

Forgive those last heartaches:

The linger of soft lips,

Her gentle tug on a lock of hair,

Warmth of muscled form held close.

 

I cannot save

Your life.

 

Wind slow now, bows the soft grass,

Breathe its scent, so low— so low.

Gaze towards the sun’s

Slivered crescent— thin

burn above the river Lethe.

 

I cannot

Save your life.

 

Pause, for one last time—

Stand tall, unbowed

Recite— that defying of the setting sun—

 

Dylan Thomas’s good night

 

I cannot save your life.

 

Come, walk back to warmth with me.