Melbourne downpour
Melbourne downpour
means it takes everyone
hours to get home
I am safe and dry in my car
end of irritating work day
Restless and bored
Flicking through radio stations
I select the most popular
commercial drive team
There must be
a reason why
millions tune in every day
Within twenty minutes
I hear the drive team duo
a recap from breakfast
and a promo for the next show
Their voices are
hoppy beer on a hot day
creamy chocolate
a bubble bath for my ears
their words are big
fat bright shiny
glowing lies
about themselves
about the world
about the intimate
and down to earth relationship
they have with me, the listener
about how similar they are to me
and how far removed they are
from that mendacious
world of celebrity
Their lies
are so crunchy and
delectable
that I want to eat them all up
told with such brazen joy
that I long for them
to be true
Each lie is worth
more than my day’s entire work
ballooning their already
brimming bank accounts
inflating their already
elephantine egos
I drive on
the rain
steaming up
my car
I want to believe them
as much as I wanted to believe
that boy murmuring
sweet lies
in the rain
steaming up
his car
so many years ago
We want to believe the lies
but once you arrive
and open the car door
and step outside
you are alone
with only your voice
resounding
Thursday Morning
Driving down Barkly Street
I wait at a red traffic light
and see
two men sitting on a bench
One – dark haired
and swarthy wears a blue shirt
leans forward
arms resting on knees
The other – blonde
with sweeps of grey
yellow shirt
smokes a cigarette
They do not speak
Two men of middling years
with lives that carried them
to this Thursday morning
muggy grey summer day aching for rain
With lives that will
propel them on again
once this brief pause
in their day is done
In my story
they are little more
than featured extras
a snapshot I will carry
- until the memory fades
But for this moment
- car in neutral foot on brake, waiting to keep moving
they are the perfect shape
of contentment
New Year Comfort
If your thoughts turn to death, as can happen at the start of a new year, I have recently found the words of Walt Whitman to be of enormous comfort:
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward ... and nothing collapses,
And to die is differnt from what anyone supposed, and is luckier.
Those words are from Leaves of Grass (Song of Myself).
Old Walt has that peculiar shining insight that is the gift of true depressives. He struggled a lot with life and so you can believe his fervour when he finds things to celebrate and be hopeful and thankful for.
Happy New Year 2010.
May we all find light and fervour in the most unexpected of places.
On Summer
There used to be orange cicadas
green ones of course
their sci-fi heads
and chirping legs
but orange ones
I don’t know if they make them any more
there were wild plums
spilled and stained
on the footpath
we picked them from the trees
from the moment they were
just beyond too green
and risked stomach ache
by eating 1-2-3
I think there were
even black ones
cicadas that is
not plums
where did we find them?
secreted in the garden
wandering along window sills
they seem such a wild
and exotic thing now
but then they were part
of every day life
in sprinkler soundtrack
itch of cooch grass
wall climbing
bitumen burning
tin roof scrambling
white hot clothes line drying
panting dog
shimmer
and by the end of summer
we had a collection
of brittle brown shells
artifacts
trophies
weapons with which to
scare each other
finding them perched
on shoulders
creeping through hair
waiting in cool bed sheets
upstairs was hot and stifling
we all slept on the floor
in the lounge room
when nights got too hot
there was no air conditioning
just a brick house
with a slate verandah
and steps leading down
to the front path
lined with roses
that were pruned every year
and bloomed
and there were orange cicadas
and black ones too
they were special
enough to score points
but not so rare as to be worth
reporting to anyone
other than ourselves
not so rare
and yet I’ve not seen
a single one since
leaving childhood
do they make them that way
any more?
Empty paddock
The horse has gone
the bathtub too
The grass is long in the paddock
There is no shade there so I do not sit and contemplate the loss
I keep walking, my skin throbbing in the heat
while I grapple with the title of a poem
I have not yet written
about whether this need for fulfillment
can ever be sated
Did the horse die or did they just move it to greener pastures?
Whites so white
Who are the people who know how to
keep their whites white?
Angels come to teach us?
Or demons come to torment us?
I curse them as I toss out
yet another
yellow edged bra
If only they could teach me
my whole life would
be sweeter
And I could get caught
in accidentally
compromising
positions
without evidence
of sweat stains
age
and poor washing techniques
Cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
Cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
(how they found DNA to track down 39 living relatives of Hitler)
You may have heard
that two scientists
have used
cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
to prove
the existence of 39 living relatives
of Hitler
It captures the attention doesn’t it
even the imagination
cigarette butts, envelope seals and used serviettes
it could be an episode of NCIS
or the lyrics
of a Leonard Cohen song
I may be naïve
but I’m not sure why they have to find them
these 39
all of whom, I think
have changed their name
most of whom, I imagine
if they know their lineage
are just trying to live their lives
quietly, seriously, with as little pain as possible
and if they don’t
well …
… they are probably doing just the same
Did you know that Hitler
was ashamed of the mental illness
that ran in his family?
It was one of the reasons he never had children
He did not want to leave that legacy behind
He preferred
a different legacy
of a new world order
kind
But little did he know
that from his lips
in his tongue’s lick
from his mouth’s spit
he was leaving behind
a trail
to stretch his sticky history
on
through years
over time
to these guilty? innocent? implicated?
39
How many of us
are leaving traces
of guilt
remnants of shame
littered through the city
disappearing into the streets
of our lives
adding to the pile
of ever growing
refuse and rotting rubbish
that makes up the story
of humanity so far
That also
we hope
and sometimes can see
is the fertilizer
for the tiniest of seeds
a new way of living
new hope for being
that comes
maybe not from a DNA hunting party
following evil
and hoping in some way
this proof will stop it
but hope that comes
from looking at what
we do
and how
and who we do it to
and seeing what is there
on the cigarette butts and envelope seals and used serviettes
we all leave behind