Beachfront, Semaphore, South Australia, in recent times. (Source: Wikipedia.)
Semaphore, Adelaide
Something was haunting those humid, summery,
Semaphore streets
in 1980, when I was there,
aged eighteen,
visiting Iris, my paternal grandmother,
with the rest of the family.
I walked the rain-spattered footpaths sensing
something.
I now realize it was someone
– you, Henry Reynolds,
great-great-grandfather,
who died in Semaphore’s Blackler Street,
in March 1918,
though I didn’t know it at the time.
Now, in 2020,
a question has finally formed in my head:
what were you trying to tell me,
forty years ago?
Probably nothing, except
that you were there,
watching me walk in your footsteps.
. . .
Henry, I can picture you
tottering into your front garden,
jaundiced, asthenic,
touching a rose
a week before
the Spanish dancer swept you away
– the last time you left the house –
your beautiful wife, Janey,
watching from the verandah,
tears in her eyes,
which she didn’t let you see.
Read more from Kevin Densley HERE
Kevin Densley’s latest poetry collection, Sacredly Profane, is available HERE
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About
Kevin Densley is a graduate of both Deakin University and The University of Melbourne. He has taught writing and literature in numerous Victorian universities and TAFES. He is a poet and writer-in-general. His sixth book-length poetry collection, Isle Full of Noises, was published in early 2026 by Ginninderra Press. He is also the co-author of ten play collections for young people, as well as a multi Green Room Award nominated play, Last Chance Gas, published by Currency Press. Other writing includes screenplays for educational films.
Very touching Kevin. I love how you weave personal biography & family history into your poems. I also love the clarity of your voice.
Many thanks for your comments, DB. I appreciate them.
I think if I had to name the most important quality I’m aiming for in my poems, it is clarity – which is not the same thing as simplicity, of course. Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass is a fine example in this context, I feel.