Friday, April 29, 2011

Wonderland Tea-time

* Wonderland Tea-time *
What tangled bangled fangled thoughts
Reggae blue grass sounds in my head
A swilling bilging slipping sensation
Crazy cumquat moments flaring
Mad Hatter commentary saner than before
And sweet Alice is a perpetual bore
Despite the eat me and drink mes
The uppers downers pharmaceutically enhanced
Cannot escape her tight Victorian pants
Finds all this world fey yet dull
In a jaded travel writer's way
Wonderland through her eyes is not wondrous
Barely manages to be a surprise
Get the impression prefer to be at home
A novel in her hands and alone
No wild Wonderland suitors nearby
Prefer potatoes mashed and lamb fry
Or in a moment of divine inspiration
Usually lacking from Alice's life of constipation
Perhaps a light salad of garden greens
And jugged white rabbit in cream.

Descent to peak

* descent to peak *
Tired close my eyes
Quell the thoughts spraying
As a drunk in a shower
Showing such perfect wit
Sketching out his name
Punctuated with his sh*t
The world can be an unholy place
Full of tears and despair
Some find their way down lower
Others are taken there
Beaten down by the savagery
Of their fellow man
Crushed and tortured and lost
Beyond reach of normal men
Who dare not tread too far
Beyond the lit and level byways
Of the civilised highways
Avoid the dark and narrow alleys
Where the angry multitude glower
Growing more frustrated and furious by the hour
Les Miserables waiting to rise up
Tear the street asunder
Bring down their hate and thunder
Upon the privileged empty heads
Too long living in safety of soft beds
Fed and dined on toil of others
Now rising up those sisters and brothers
Inflict on them the torture penance
For those without a choice or voice
Then around bonfires they rejoice
Your cultural icons rich and good
Make such fine firewood
And your necks shall be offered up
On these Madame Guillotine shall sup
Always the way with popular uprising
The results are never all that surprising
The rulers get the sharp end driven
Of a spike of justice for their high living
And Les Miserables settle back to sleep
Until in defence of liberty they leap.

Till a baa'd ending

* till a baa'd ending *
These oozing thoughts this heavy head
Against calypso rhythm of uncertainty set
In my heart feel steel drum beat
I hold it down and will not surrender
To angry irrationality of animal chaos
To take the world I see laid out
In ordered lines and discerning thoughts
Rid myself of manners imperfect
Seems a foolish trifle to do
I can get better and will so endeavour
To fit into banality of your ordered world Declare myself a joiner not a
rebel
Say all we know is for the best
Hold up sacred books of redress
Our divinity in politeness enshrined
Reject the forces of disorder
Dress as another clone
Aspire for only those things
My standing in life dictates
For which such as I should aspire
A single sheep in an innumerable flock
Content to graze until the day
When all of Time and life is gone.

Bill's gratuitous slop

** Bill's gratuitous slop **
Shakespearean literature is the gutter
From which students literary suck
So these poems set-down do explore
Why Shakespeare base you should deplore
His words are oft tasteless and crude
Where he would place a rose is so rude
By any other name his genius be obscenity
Whether peddling paedophilia or promoting unwedded promiscuity
Innkeepers harlots and shrews dot his scripts
Figures of authority denigrated as selfish twits
Where fairies or gods become involved
Motives of these mystic beings are not evolved
Merely there to mischief stir and create asses
From among the love struck bourgeois classes
Royalty upon whom great responsibility bestowed
Treated with more familiarity than one from whom money owed
Shakespeare gives them feeble minds or dark ambitions
All they do is plot and kill or act seditious
Women kind are treated foully and worse
A shrew who must be broken to remove her curse
A young maid barely fourteen summers long
In a relationship completely wrong
To a young angry braggart fast with the blade
No surprise both soon are in their grave
Witches and thunder for effect
Kings and queens with defects
Unsound princes and suicidal princesses
Or ambitious ladies stained by crimes they cannot forget
There are thieves and bullies here
Drunkards fools and many many murderers
So few in whom you could say
They are good and truthful and would pray
Those who seek to perform good
More oft than not end up as worm food
This is the dark world Shakespeare sees
Of quarrelsome nobles and less holy Sees
Where language of the gutter rises
Stuck together with metaphor and simile
A rose by any other name
In this case is a turd rolled in glitter.

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Island holiday

* island holiday *
Floating on the salt water free
Trapped between two blues you see
Deep blue azure of sea crisp and clean
And the other domed above my head
This is sweet tropical paradise
Pineapple juice cocktails
Sunscreen protection
Lazy idle mornings prostrate
On sheets shall not need to wash
The towels are large and fluffy warm
This modern air-conditioned recreation
Of some traditional wood and palm leaf abode
They would have had to fish or farm
To feed their appetites empty
Instead we wander carefree every day
Till evening comes our way
Then a buffet feast for chieftains is laid
For us to eat till we are completely fed
And then again return to palatial bed
To lay our stress-free untroubled head
Until dawn has come and gone
Sun climbed unchallenged into peerless sky
We shall arise and once more lie
Trapped between blue of sea and sky.

Wait

*** Wait ***
Waiting
An idle unspun
A stone not skipped
Around me others sit
Same situation same frowns
We are beached without direction
Those who might guide us
Not in their due attendance
So we wait
Completely sated of inactivity
And in truth we are not yet late
Our flight merely has not arrived
And due to evolutionary restraints
We are unable to fly ourselves
So we wait
And beyond the gathering at our gate
The airport life continues unabated
Anxious faces on those striding past
Towards their flights which have arrived
And are loading as we inexplicably sit
For the craft in which we are to uplift
Ride through the evening skies to home
Is still somewhere between here and there
Not yet landed and not yet sighted
So we wait
An announcement states
A delay as airplane has not arrived
Is running less early more late
And so we know must patient sit
Knowing when we board our silver steed
Matters not how fast it flees
We shall still arrive home late
At end of day not a something to celebrate
So we wait
As Sun escapes our sight
And evening curves to darker night
Our patience starting to wear thinner
We wonder if ever come to pass
Upon a flight we shall part
For now with racehorse eagerness
We are waiting at the gate
Our damned airplane is running late
And we are bored and frustrated
And still we are still
For all the force of combined wills
We do not move or stir
Still we wait.

Me and the cat

* Me and the cat *
The cheetah races to dinner catch
I urge myself forward more phlegmatically
For money to pay a mortgage
To catch a crowded train
Or to ensure I arrive on time
At somewhere I presently am not
A concept beyond grasp of speeding cats
Which they would find perplexing
The only time they know to mark
Is stomach growing less full
Sleep is over and time to do
What cheetahs do the very best
Run out and bring back a slower dinner.

As Rivers flow

*- As Rivers flow -*
The moving rocks of time
Dreams of yesteryear
Fragments of worry
All become Time tossed slurry
In tributary of your life
One river course among many
Sometimes found in flood
Other times crushed by drought
In human life the seasons are
Less refined or identifiable
Making it more difficult to gauge
At which level water flowing
If who you meet is full of life
Or on the edge of dry defeat.

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

For how long will angels watch

** for how long will angels watch **
Maybe there are angels
Which my non-believing eyes cannot see
Protecting even such non-believers as me
Ensuring laws of gravity prevail
We step out safely not catastrophically
Allow me to be born in right country
At the right boringly civil time
When food and accommodation are available
And I am right colour and right gender
The right height and right education
To align myself to social norms
How long can my angels dictate
That my faltering steps shall not fail
The watercourse of social life in which I swim
Is constant and at its peak
My learned morality and sensibilities
Age and physical abilities
Match those this place and time demand
When shall the inevitable decay take hold
When my grip is less firmer
My views and abilities less bold
And angels to a new generation turn
Finding them a better fit for the Time arrived
Directing the flux of events
To suit those new enthusiasts of life.

Life lived as a lesser Odyssey

** Life lived as a lesser odyssey **
Morning finds me waiting
Abroad an inflammable flight tube
Packed with other still waking souls
The inter-city commute
An hour and a half to track Apollo's arc
Then to terra firma firmly placed
Skate on wheels of hard thick rubber
Down the destination runway
And translate to Shanks pony
Till taxi rank is found and vehicle gained
Then another space of transportation
Less car than slow coach
One of a pushing milling multitude of crawling insects
To termite hills of CBD
Gravestone flat reflective pillars
Luring with their beauty
As the Sirens did years before
To lose yourself in the dream of commerce
Instead be devoured by Time and wear
Then discarded as casually
As a broken shoelace
For you can no longer fulfil
Role in which you are placed
So this morning flight marks
Not only present but futures many
Counted and costed and come up
As empty as dreams which on morning waking
Fade into the nothingness of lost memory
The forgotten myths of sleep and life.

Take providence's tide

*Take Providence's tide*
Take advantage of providence
When to your door comes knocking
Lift each moment of effort
So able to gain luck's good fortune
When time and place coincidence
There are none more unlucky
Than unprepared and unfocused
For when moment flits across
Must be ready to take full advantage
Leverage all opportunity for this day
And those days without luck which may follow
Reap when the harvest is ready
For no harvest will grow
Where no seed is sown
And if you are unable to harvest fully
Stock the granaries of your life
When ill fortune visit poverty follow.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Blue view of blue skies

-blue view of blues skies-
These blue skies hide
Portents of tragedies to come
They cannot be averted
Or delayed for life decrees
Into every life some rain may fall
And how we respond to inclement weather
Marks the character of ourselves
To ride out gales with intention
When skies clear to blue again
To do better with our time
Until the next storm arrives
For if into all lives rain must fall
So must sun shine
If we can but see its rays.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Between sky and sea

-Between sky and sea-
Here between sky and sea
Halfway through a day of life
Sun illuminates all good done
And casts shadows over other things done
The straightness of back as yet unbent
Eyes are keen and memory clear
Blindness awaits and ability to forget
The closing rhymes in concrete set
A date you cannot yet ascertain
When dusk on day of life wane
The full progression have been reached
And into deep dark sleep you shall slip.

Why Tuscany not for holidaying

** why Tuscany not for holidaying **
Much ado about Tuscan loving
Exotic locale to tell story lowbrow
Of nobles seeking urgent bonking
Sheriffs providing comedy relief
And those brave fellows of sword and shield
Betraying one another for fun it will yield
There holiday from disputes martial better spent
Reading a book or playing chess
Rather than witty retorts and endless gossip
Eight year olds have more flair
And plot their deceptions with more care
Than ever these adults did
Such a compress of idiots applied
To the scenic hills and elegant villa
Beneath blue skies in sunny Tuscany
Oh tra la la lee for a black plague
To disease all and sundry.

Hamlet is a prat

* Hamlet is a prat *
Hamlet is a prat
Should be no end to repeating that
Playing at being by grief driven a mad fool
When he was in fact a brainless vengeful tool
His father's death Hamlet moron sought to avenge
Blamed mother and uncle for regenicide
And how he sought to kill them
No simple knife or hunting accident
Instead topple whole nation into civil war
Giving keys to gates to those
Who would usurp country's monarchy
It appears in revenge's heat
Hamlet did not pause to think
What joy gained in vengeance done
If birthright lost to invaders
Your sister plummets to her death
And you are as ghostly dead
As your father and his poisoned head.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Down with Rom and Jules

* down with Rom and Jules *
Romeo and Juliet
Those star crossed lovers had it easy
All the excuses in the world
To act upon hormone charged impulses
Such fickle hearts they both possessed
Ready at a moment to say this love is the best
And all the barriers put between
Only inspired deeper this must be heart's desire
Against their families simple to rebel
As every teenager knows so well
Best to raise arms in conflict against
Those who despite all your faults love you back
Then the melodramatic theatre of their plans
Plots and potions and secret weddings
Acts of children without a brain
Playing at romance not knowing pain
Eventually their recklessness condemns them both
To self execution when they lose the plot
By mis-communication do each other in
Verona was probably a much safer place
When these two impetuous lovers
No more those narrow streets did grace.

When Fates conspire

*++ When Fates conspire ++*
Bubble bubble toil and trouble
Shakespeare's words reverberate still
A black pot and three crones on a moor
Stirring magicks evil for those who pass
Offering cryptic truths unhindered by
Any sense of deeper morality
Setting in place these wicked truths they cast
A Thane to be and perhaps a King
Enough to turn any man's head about
And if not your own your sons will be
The rulers of these kingdoms ringed by sea
These meddle-some predictions the Fates outline
By their appearance set in train the crime
Plant the idea in Macbeth's treacherous ambitious head
He could be King if the King were dead.

What we need

* what we need *
How much more might be demanded
Form our lives than this
A roof above our heads
A dry place to sleep
A fully belly when we feed
Access to clean water and heat
How much more might we require
Beyond these things it transpires
Is weighed in our desires not needs
The human body well fed and kept
Shall not in truth deteriorate
How we set our desires shows
As much what we have and have not
Without the love and trust on which to rest
We dart a hundred ways and our stress attests
To the need beyond the physical sustenance
To a deeper joining as an individual
To another individual or the World
To a philosophy complete or kisses sweet
And all else is static and thunder
Opposing simplicity to be found
In our own portion of Happy Ever After.

Revolution recycle

** revolution recycle **
Does every second generation need to
Shed blood for you to heed to
The fact dictatorships are not swept away
By a revolutionary council presiding
Holding power so there is no back sliding
To the tyranny the revolution overthrew
Through martyrs blood on the cobble stones
Bakers clerks and taxi drivers wielding guns
Combat the armour of tanks
Through a popular uprising to overthrow
The tyrannical government in place
And replaced with a council unelected
For fighting revolutionaries know
They must always be on guard against
Return of that which went before
Must root out dissent when it appears
A state of emergency must prevail
Till every opposition voice is silenced
Country of old regime must be cleansed
From every position in government
Every soldier who was taught
The tyrant's word is law and right
Always the state of emergency lingers
Yet only so many pies and always so many fingers
A smaller revolution occurs
Hard liners force out and remove the moderates
For some of them preached reconciliation
A lessening of the council's power
And the council's chairperson now has absolute authority
Courts to serve council's whim
An army well paid to impose order
And a secret police as insidious as that which passed
The jails begin to fill up
Brief libertarian spring comes to an end
A more austere outlook prevails
For the revolution to fully succeed sacrifices must be made
Guns not butter focused upon
Luxuries set aside for common good
And if luxurious lifestyle you still pursue The council will attend to you
Counter-revolutionaries drive Ferraris
Run businesses and have large houses
Their success shows their support for old regime
String them up or deport them
And their assets the council for revolution take
So much power and so much wealth
The Council begins to manage assets diverse
Eventually it seems the smallest revolution occurs
Neither fully understood or sanctioned
As those who would contest power with Chairperson
Identified for the traitors to the revolutionary state they are
Those most loyal are rewarded
Family ties become a form of trust
Priceless in a land rent by paranoia
The Chairperson puts in place structures
To ensure none may challenge the revolution
The properties gained from former regime
Spread among those protectors of revolution
And the poor stay poor on the streets
And the secret police begin suppressing
Those who would question the Leader
All the riches fill the pockets of those loyal
And the first family do as they wish
For the courts are to serve them
The army to protect them
And the secret police to prosecute those
Who would oppose the revolution complete
And it takes the time of two generations
One to acknowledge they were conned
Another to think this time they can get it right
To rise anew against the tyrant
Shed fresh blood on the cobble stones
And the revolution is born recycled.

The Wallflower Manifesto

** The Wallflower Manifesto **
Looking out into the presence of others
Those seven words define The Wallflower Manifesto
Watch and wait for others to action
And then in response gain
The interests and desires of your heart
Yet how long do you cling to the edges
If the desired do not initiate contact
Refuse to acknowledge your strength in
Adhering so strongly to the wall
Demonstrating such faith in The Wallflower Manifesto
When should you take another leap of faith
Reject safety inherent in the manifesto's strictures
Cast yourself upon those moving shoals
Of enigmatic people involving themselves
In the dancing conversational body politic
Of this party where you have been cast adrift
Might it take alcohol or desperation
Or a fermented brew of both
To send you veering forth to commune
Abandoning The Wallflower Manifesto
And who will you be then
A recidivist against all for which you stand
Someone not yourself till you infatuate
And so claim object of your desire
With success achieved you can safely re-assume
The politics and guiding path of your life
The Wallflower Manifesto.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Second life

*-- Second Life --*
Life crumpling your soul as an old drink can
Feel soul collapse under your foot
See how edges tear and soul loses form
By living the soul becomes so deformed
Shall not be reformed till the second chance
The second life you plaintively hope exists
And that your karma bank is positive
All the negative issues and selfish acts committed
Be balanced by the loose change tossed into
The waiting collection tins on Good Friday
At every set of lights between here and second life.

Winning parentry

** Winning parentry **
To live life must you live the life yourself
Or can life be lived through
Those to whom you have given life
Store their achievements with your own
Weigh them only with their failures
As you in contentment glow
Unbound by those same covenants
You have placed upon them
The admonishments as a parent
Which become the fences in which they run
Their lives now set unless they can
Break out and find pastures fresh
And do you claim their escape
As victory for yourself
That in parenting so brilliantly
Instilled in them the confidence
To take or to reject
The immutable covenants you once laid down
Those fencelines you set
In which their life to play
And as all life is chance and risk
If beyond the bounds they falter
You can place the blame on them
For having thought they knew better than you
The perfect parenting situation
In every event you win.

- Unravelling -

**Unravelling**
This lost emptiness of heart
Compass of life sways
No direction on Time's horizon marked
Contemplating merely these seconds
A moment to moment existence
Within a larger box of Time
Odds and ends and split ends
Fibre of self and memory unravelling
Shall I too find upon my deathbed
The name Rosebud
A cherished toy all I wish to recall
Shall that be dementia or contentment
To recall such oddity at end.

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

In your smile

*** In your smile ***

It is a deep gulp of fresh air
A long refreshing drink after a hot day's walk
So I find the draught of your smile
As readily as a mountain spring it rises
When I am close and you are nice
Adminishing any gloom of life
Putting all these concerns aside
Work or traffic jams or bills
As long as a roof above our heads
A bed in which to crawl
And your smile to remove doubt
Then the most squalid premises be a palace
And the work I must commit to
To bring you the life deserved
Is no chore instead a blessed task
And the weariness I wear
Shed when I can smell your hair
Draw you closer so our bodies
Nearer than next thought or breath
So I find my life easily lived
In the warmth of your smile.

Tuesday, April 12, 2011

Let leaders play

* let leaders play *
Valid assassinations listed
In the manuals of war
Whom can be killed and when
To protect the politicians who declare war
Who say their country must fight
No laws that the killing of the common soldier
In a trench serving his time against an unnamed foe
Is murder most unjust or wrong
Yet the removal of a single ruling man
The tyrant preposterous is not allowed
For would set a bad example
And make targets of politicians who war would wage
I wonder if such a bad example needs to be set
Every so often when knock on door answered
A double tap into politician's jingoistic head
Let the politician feel the fear of death
Notice their friends being liquidated
Encourage them to cease conflict sooner
Or perhaps not go to war in first place
If in doing so they would know
Not only those others whom they sent to fight
Might pay the butcher's bill of war
Some payment might fall upon their heads
Perhaps a failed attempt leave them maimed or crippled
Those enthusiasts of wars for ideals
They appear unwilling to follow themselves
True democracy and marchers on the streets
Appreciated in some distant land or city
With which they have no acquaintance
Not at their doorway on their watch
Democracy long a watchword be
Too often wasted on the free
And the restriction of assassinations
Too often allows to live
The reasons for immoral war.

Weather

* weather *
The distant rattle of rain on tin
Sounds like Soweto rioting
And the weather is a carnival
Of lightning and rolling thunder
Admission having been paid into this day
We have the weather performing
Showing all its many guises
One moment shaping to drench us
The next in crisp riposte to fry us
Clouds scuttle on and off the sky stage
As rapidly as cockroaches when light is on
However every plot twist weather rights
Frustrates us more and shows us clearly
In the weather we have no rights
Insignificant animals on a landscape
Over which weather claims domain
We are to be tortured wet or dry or blown over
Until to weather's might we surrender
Leave the battlefield and scurry away
Back to our holes defeated
Mistreated by this weather
Which when it plays a fairer fellow
Could be taken for a steadfast friend
Not this moustache curling cad
Possessing morals of a corrupt preacher
Who would as soon sell us out
As consume a drink of tea
Or finish off some hot dinner.

Monday, April 11, 2011

Less concrete till dried

* less concrete till dried *
I often question if we ever knew them
Ever knew the complications which drove them
When we look back and of history avail ourselves
We can see the patterns clear and so obvious
Of why a certain course was taken
How each decision had been made
Each moment in history transpired
Exactly as it states in the documents written after
As we would now expect such course to take
Yet when the decision made
The decider was not to history slave
Did not have the awareness of those other events
Either in the past or present or future soon to be
Which would in correlation with this decision
Dictate the way history would be made
Perhaps they made guesses and assumptions placed
On the manner others would act
Or of battles expected to have a certain duration
Yet as most of these deciders knew
Or would soon learn as history bluntly taught
Nothing is completely certain until completely fought
Even if they thought they knew the end result
Always at the edges the chance of the upset
The Persians slowed by 300
The failure of the BEF become triumph of Dunkirk
Stalingrad refusing to yield
The egos and insensibilities of men at war
The great moments and the sour
Of Hood and Wales sunk ingloriously
An archduke assassinated due to a chauffeur's wrong turn
Even with all the technology weighed
Logistics and factories and fibre of men arrayed
A decision had to made
To go forward and release the dogs of war
Or practice caution and keep powder dry
And looking back at that moment
Convalescing all of life lead before
Perhaps not even seeing this was the moment
For so many others past or yet to be might be
This moment when history later with hindsight's absolute clarity
Would say this was when the tide turned
The insight was brightest or design failed
The path was irrevocably set to defeat or victory
And all which would follow was more or less inevitable history.

You can be as free as me

** you can be as free as me **

I have been a king, and been a scholar
Sold my soul for the mighty silver dollar
Now I'm free
NOW I am FREE

I bought your love with a diamond ring
Never meant a god damned thing
We fought more than the McCoys
Built a house and life based on toys

We barely shed a tear as we broke apart
The only thing out of warranty was my heart
Picked up my entire life in eleven plastic bags
Drove away to deal with grief's seven stages


For now I'm free
As only a lost and lonely soul can be
For now I am free
As long as I carry my soured dreams in me


Wore your charnel corporate robes of grey
Destroyed so many lives with our money making ways
Never built or crafted a single thing
Just bred the money into a bigger money thing
I stripped my soul back with paint thinner
Joined the losers and cursed the winners
Locked my desk and threw away the key
Keep your peanuts I will not be your monkey


And now I'm free
As ever a condemned man can be
And now I am free
As there's nowhere else I could be


Same time each year offered unto Caesar what was his
Thought it would go for community services
Instead you built your weapons of war
Which when they explode shake world to its core

The men and women for whom I voted
Of high minded principles and ideals often quoted
However when it came to caring or government
Took the money and on the people turned their backs


Now I'm free
As a citizen in a benevolent tyranny can be
And I am free
No better place under God to be


Counted up the forgotten taxes
Saw the woodsmen with their sharp axes
Who saw every tree as an affront to humanity
Working so hard to create environmental catastrophe

The forests are dying in clouds of acid rain
Fish stocks and farm lands will never be the same
Radioactive iodines flowing into the sea
Nothing left pure and safe for you or me


Now I'm free
As any part of the food chain can be
Now I am free
As much as a marginalised constituent living an alternative lifestyle will
ever be


I had been a king and been a scholar
I once sold my soul for the worthless silver dollar
And now I'm free
Now I am free

So put down your robes of corporate grey
Escape your cities and run the hell away
Feel sun on skin and be kissed by the wind
Its time for you to start all over again
For you can be free
As I am free.

Friday, April 8, 2011

Summer picnic

* Summer picnic *
Between sun rays scamper
Heart light and dreaming
A natural high from cut grass
Floating lazily meandering butterflies
The joyous giggle shrieks of children
Around us the park life moves
Mothers pushing prams shoulders bare
A dog inquisitively inspecting every tree
Picnic blankets dotted across the ground
All is Summer with cold chicken and green salad
Drinking from long necked bottles perspiring
And all about the buzz of busy bees
Working as eagerly as we shirk
As they labour to fill their larders
And we our memory stores stock
Against the moments cold approaching
When seasons swing changes again
And Sun is gone and picnicking mocked.

Would prefer

* would prefer *
I want to embrace you
Explain the greatness of you
Speak of destiny to be fulfilled
Great things you will do
How you shine so bright
The most beautiful tree in a forest
How if fairy tales were still written
You would get the leading roles
And have to learn to avoid
old ladies peddling fruits with possibly poisonous traits
Explain how in my daughter
Blessed to have one so clever and fair
Full of grace and friendly
A jewel beyond compare
Then you step from the house
Looks like a nest in your hair
Shoes are unpolished and dress is dishevelled
I almost totally despair
Find myself critical as I don't seek
Ever to be critical of someone so sweet
Your room has been declared a war zone
Every surface covered in debris of life
Those socks lying there need a wash
And your jacket should be hanging
Not in a crumpled ball unbecoming
Seems your perfection doesn't extend
To tidying your room
I find my voice rising
And before I can catch self
I am telling you off
And all the time loving you
More completely and deeply
Than fullness of sea
Or distance to moon
Than sand grains on the beach
Or disorderliness of your room.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Airport dawn

*airport dawn*
Melbourne skyline stretched
A sky of flattened hues
On horizon pinks float to orange
And as across dome of sky colours sketch
A bathtub ring of purple fading
Rising to a hint of translucent green
Before the twelve shades of blue takeover
At peak sky becomes Isfanan tiled blue
And light is even and still
Early morning calm even at an airport
The aircraft seem to hang in the air
Gliding in to land upon scruffed runways
Later this scene may grow hectic
For now the slumbering barely woken atmosphere
Of a dairy farm on a cool winter's morn
The aircrew parking aircraft unrushed
A singular lack of urgency is overall
Even the baristas in the terminals
Are dozing and unhurried as they provide
The fuel of economy to jaded businessmen
Suited up for another trip
Into the great blue yonder
A taxi trip and meetings many
As they try and make this trip pay.

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Class

*class*
The faces of the gathered
Strung with different string
Some puppets cast out smiles
Others send forth frowns
And some are blank
Tired and snoozing character they lose
And we two who travel close
Our journey ever onward
Watching those others gathered
What do the gathered see
What do they make of us
Are we stereotypical or rare
Thought of as jolly or full of despair
Are we peasants in their minds
Or ranked beside the most aristocratic blood
When we speak do they sigh in joy
Or turn about in fright
Having heard such an accent before
In the mouths of tenement children
Swearing this and goddamning that
Do they reconsider
Into which social rank we should fall
Consider their prejudices
And decide that after all
Such words should not the cultured ear infect.

Folding Time

*+* folding Time *+*
A folding in of Time
Diminishment of Space
Gradually we vanish
Between the creases of mortality
Eternity is not for us
Our thoughts cannot capture
Therefore we do not deserve
The poisoned chalice reward
Of life beyond our mortal term
For as we wear and time concludes
Weariness of sinew and energy
To entrophy we descend
Not to death but stillness
And then the universe works on us
We break down and succumb
To the inevitable demand for our atoms
Leached off us and diluted across
The universe infinite
And in this way we capture eternity
Or in eternity we are captured.

Of other primates

*of other primates*
It can be so damn annoying
How deficient world is of commonsense
Seems the world prefers chaos and disorder
For evolution to lean towards failure
Catastrophe to be the sermon preached
Yet should we expect otherwise
Life even lived intelligently is fraught with danger
More often we cannot quantify risks
Let alone actually find a solution to avoid them
Our implicit covenant with society
To try and avoid wreaking havoc on our fellows
Conflicts with our own internal hard wiring
Regarding self preservation and advancement
Of the organism most dearest to ourselves
That being of course our very own self
Still I yearn for more thought
As ill mannered seem to be taught
Hasty mindless action without thought
Is best manner in which to live
In a complex mechanised society
With other primates who are as dull
In projecting eventual conclusion
Of electrical appliances and bathwater
Or wet roads and excessive horsepower
At least it clears the decks
Of those foolhardy souls ridiculous
For whom commonsense is not ubiquitous.

Simply beyond belief

* simply beyond belief *
My heart is a fishing line
Weighed down by thoughts
Of human acts ignoble
How we treat one another
Is sometimes simply beyond belief
And reasons given for allowing
Such treatment to exist
Is to say there are beliefs
A greater consciousness or grace
Defined by man towards divinity
And the strictures of this God
State God must be revered and respected
All must follow this god great
As if God was on Big Brother
And by not watching
We could vote God off
How little faith it seems believers have
In their God's omnipotence and intelligence
To think their laws of subjugation
Alienation sexism and division
Reflect their God's wishes
On how the faithful can attain
Spiritual enlightenment and divinity.

Long hair or short

++ long hair or short ++
The destiny of terriers
Completely different from suicidial terrorists
Short haired or long
The dogs not the humans
Seek out other company
In fellowship of pack find comfort
Joy is chasing soap bubbles
Unleashed by young children
Or snapping at butterflies
On a warm summer's afternoon
Not strapping on a vest of explosives
Pockets full of ball bearings and nails
And after a final private prayer
Sacrilegiously blow yourself to kingdom come.

The conscious imperative

* the conscious imperative *
Waiting for God
To lift his mighty finger
Might as well expect
A teenager to clean his room
The choices we are set
Are ours to resolve
If we acknowledge God in equation
Then it should be to note
The skills unto us bestowed
For it is with our sweat and thought
Or through our ignorance and fear
That the greatest good or harm will occur
And if we remove God completely
Decide a deity is an archaic leftover
As the Gods of Olympus are now treated
Then it still does not remove
The conscious imperative of us all
To do what ought to be done
To protect the feeble and make strong the weak
To defend against the evil some will do
Highlight the good in our world
And gird our loins for the fight ahead
Against those of every colour
Those of every faith
Those of every land or place
Who think themselves above fellowship
Decide they should oppress not enlighten
Who through tyranny and greed
Would cast down those who deserve
No less to live unburdened by fear
Than those who in their strength
Would demand fidelity and servitude from all.

Monday, April 4, 2011

Needed smile

*** needed smile ***
I need to find
The essence of your smile
Build the tremors in you
Awkward ghost tickling shivers
Down your back
Coursing through your thighs
See your eyes heavy with pleasure
Eager and bright as a predator
All white teeth and wide mouth
A most willing participant
Partner in this senses riot
As we build and ebb
Always seeking higher
Greedy sensualists pretzel twisted
Across each others sensitivities
Lapping stroking nibbling rubbing
Our beings against each other
Try to discover in the lee
Of volcanic passions raw
The peaceful gateway
To the soul we would behold
Worthy of trust and truth completely
Of who we are or would
From this moment forward seek to be
Even if all the future now holds
Is to work on perfection of our us
The union of individuals sharing
A life's journey stronger
Brighter more meaningful and complete
In the constant loving orbit
Of the other smile I need.

Is this

*+* is this *+*
Which truths we stretch
The failing elastic
Of trust in our lives
No longer open to share
The fall is painful
The contentment non-existent
Is this weather or mood
Age reflection or depression
Chemical imbalance or need for psychoanalysis
When thoughts wedge
Beneath weight of inability
To dictate life as expected
The rejected fundamentals
Knowing if not carrying the torch
Would have fallen long ago
Allowed waves to drag you under
And nay a ripple of your life be seen.

Ennui

+++Ennui+++
You could not blindfold me as completely
As I blindfold myself
Crashing to an end
Devoid of mental wealth
Soul a ringing bowl
Empty of any substance
Drifted down this river
Somewhere meant to something
Should have been unclaimed
Left on the side and ignored
Instead this life fulfilled
The components of a life
Wife and children and decent job
Holidays often enough
A house on which to pay a mortgage
A life lived in relative ease
Bailiffs are never at the door
And cars are ageing but serviceable
Like their owners if it be told
The days passing have become years
Each flickers past and discover
No closer to something I can't place
The reasons for searching seemingly dimming
Even the dreams grow weary
As unfulfilled they sit
And unfulfilled I ponder
If they ever could have been
Or were what I wanted for myself
Or were a template I affixed
When I saw what society desired
To comply and conform
I collected all the components
Build them together around me
But never formed from me
Never ran through me
Never a part of me
Instead I feel I stand apart
From this life which is mine
All components before me
None of which I feel I can call
None of which I think I can hold
None of which I seek to call mine.

Passing

* passing *
Death in the orchard
So sudden and complete
The fruit from this tree taken
Has outlived its time
The fall is inevitable
Trunk rotten and limbs in decline
The pain of living overwhelms
Any fear of death
Now welcomed an expected visitor
Not a stranger when seen so many
Already drawn into final embrace
One last sleep beneath apple trees
Sunlight softened by foliage above
Warm earth holds this body
And in the sleep slip away
A civilised exit in the orchard.

Friday, April 1, 2011

When drink answers

* when drink answers *
Dunk me strip me drown me
Set all cats howls against me
Sobriety has failed
This wasted husk leftover
From alcohol drenchings further
Lash me to this bar stool
Entire floor grown unstable
Keep me upright as I drink my fill
No wish to see beneath table tonight
A drunkard's voice I have
Louder than a mule and four octaves further off-key
Every song is shouted
Through blaze of alcoholic breath
To get too close to me
Is to duel with death
Set them up bar keep
Set them up again
When I am sitting I am steady
I have no power to offend
So my words are loose and garbled
With a wink ease their discomfort
As long as my glass is refilled constantly
Hate to die of thirst
In your fine drinking establishment
Shall spend my money freely
Flows faster than beer through pipes
All the night I will be drinking
Nursing this one until the next and the following again
So keep them coming bar keep
Serve another round
Until my eyes glaze
And all my efforts cannot prevent me
Slumping in drunken heap onto the ground.

Iines

***Lines***
Trace these fine lines of relationships
The tender fly lines floating
Morning lines and nightclub lines
Of lust and passion and desire
Watch the smile in your eyes
See if on lips its lingers
Seek the tingle of your kiss
Wash of warmth from entwined fingers
Skin to skin unbridles thoughts
Conversation flow is lost
All the lines are tangled vines
Which I grab for as we talk
Distracted now by heat blossoming
Is only my heart which races so
And how I want to press closer
Mould myself from head to toe
Against your lush fecundity
Taste the tastes of your mouth
Explore sweep of skin and slope of neck
Swoop upon rise of breast
Set sword of tongue to n*pple
Entertain and fire bring
To your heart and mind and head
Set a track to euphoria
Toe curling hand clenching body rocking ecstasy
On those lines which I chart
Through your words into your spine
In tender passion give and partake
Of soaring moments and our selves shared
In lines of trust and truth dared.

Set dreams aside

--- set dreams aside ---
Has the water from the well
Been taken too many times
Has the Sun shone unappreciated
So often it turns its face aside
Are our dreams formed of sterner stuff
Or as fragile and light as candy floss
Ignore the pain and battering heat
Ignore the buckets dry and empty
Ignore ignore ignore till day is gone
Ignore ignore ignore until night is lost
Struggle on and sisypheanan achievements mark
With blood and sweat and salt of brow
Till the fields and mill the wheat
Set dreams aside behind shelf of expediency
For our Tomorrows are all exiled
So ignore the heart's pleas
Ignore the soul's starving mewls
This is our life of grit and toil
Dreams will only serve to confuse.
There are no more things to write poems on
Poetry has completed all knowledge said
Metaphors and analogies can be put down
Rhyme and rhythm are all dead
This is the post-modern puerile consciousness
Where symbols which exist are ironic
And if the irony we can neither understand or find
Then the irony in fact is that
And poetry has less blood than stones
More money than a pauper tossed
Into a pauper's grave
The crows of realism and rationality
Plucked the bones clean down to marrow
Then sucked that out till nothing remains
Fragments of crushed bones
Less substantial than egg shells trampled
By an infinite herd of wildebeests
Racing to the very last water hole
I cannot taste poetry's bravery
Nor poetry's love and heart
All words are slaughtered corpses
Of a language in terminal decline
Poets carrion birds black and thin as cholera
Whose world view is of blight
Sick of heart and ill as homicidal night
They have no more beauty to impart
All poetry has been said
Now we are beaten with dry sticks irrelevant
Of Chaucer Keats and Dylan
Drowning in the symbolism
Overwhelmed by anarchy of nonsense
Going down for the third time
Not writing only dying
There are no poems for which to live
No poetry to enlighten our life
The end no clearer can be foretold
Than when the tailoring of words is gone.

Cross seasons love

* cross seasons love *
Those cold hands of Winter seek
Warmth of Summer in your lips
Pale as ice and parchment creases of age
Try and flow over supple skin of youth
There is wisdom here you think
Or wisdom from experience will be earned
When Eve and Methuselah lie down together
And meld their bodies as one
The bountiful orchards nestle desert land
Fertility and ripeness given glimpse of barrenness ahead
An exchange of views only confirms
Distances between heart and head
Elasticity of skin has failed
Joints creak and bones rub
Weariness sets in early as the dusk
Stamina like Time already consumed
While one of Youth springs forward
Unrestrained by body aches
Ill-temperate selfish youth in lusts
Serves no penance for indulgences taken
And he of dry and frost bitten of hair
He knows he cannot keep up
For now they meet and he steals
A drink of energy from youth's cup
Briefly in her exuberance recalls how once it was
And in the mirror sees himself as a king
Not The Fool in Time's cruel court.