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
]]>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
]]>a man with
a gaunt face
and stringy black hair
is approached
by a polite
Indian fellow
blue checked shirt
tucked into jeans
The first man is
sitting at the computer
terminal that the second
man has booked
Outside it is day two
of a Melbourne summer
heat wave
fast approaching
forty degrees
Many of us have chosen
the library as shelter
from the angry elements
The gaunt man
is not going to move
his face closed and hostile
someone took the computer
where he was going to sit
A third man
also Indian
a busy staff member
young and funky in
a Jackson Five t-shirt
diffuses the heat
finds another terminal
for the polite
waiting
fellow
In the foyer of the library
a stack of local newspapers
show images of the
memorial service
for a local Indian student
recently murdered
No-one in the article
can be sure that the
attack was racially
motivated
The melting pot
of Melbourne’s west
always simmers
and can rise to the boil
with violent surprise
But today
in this place of respite
things
are
cool
]]>confirms that the reigns of power
will be handed on a platter
from the baby boomers
to Generation Y
Gen X
now and forever
the Jan Brady
of time
the awkward
middle child
Profiles of six
up and coming
Gen Y about to turn thirty
reveal a yawning mediocrity
I want to travel some more
I’m not ready to settle down
My friends are important to me
The minutiae of these
lives is not mediocre
to those living them
The yawning malaise
lies in the fact
that this is front page news
Are we so numbed
by warming and terror
catastrophe and technology
that we could not
find six up and coming Gen Y
with passion to burn
and desire in their eyes
for what may be possible?
This is no revolution
this is no overturn
this is a global reading of the will
from one generation to their offspring
Designed to anaesthetise
gloss over the damage done
the wrong turns took
Look!
You don’t even have to fight for it
The power’s yours
We’re off to spend our Super
Good luck with this thing called Planet Earth
]]>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.
]]>Christmas whispered
Now
it shouts
]]>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?
]]>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?
]]>He doesn't have to say them, sometimes they just grunt and ask how often you floss.
But today, he must be able to sense the extra level of stamina it took to stay sitting in that chair.
He shakes my hand and as we part, he smiles and says:
'Well done today'
]]>