poetrytownsville

What time did time begin?

What time was it just before time began?

What time will time end?

What time will it be just after time ends?

You hold the holocaust in your hand,
sing mountains
remove,
but they remain,
defiant,
defiled.

You rap on gentile heart,

boast a crucifix
uncrossed.

In rags and tatters
you moan
of salvation sought through word.

Wander through image,
mesmerised
by light and lack of hair.

Struggle to reach,
but never tire
or try.

Buy/borrow/steal
an Amen
as though it were
a brand,
a tag,
an ending,
PRETENDING.

Subtle as icy wind
you winnow images,
icons from charf,
display like trophies,
PRIZES DUE.

Never wanting to steal
nor stash
but needing too.
so doing.

Such are the songs unsung.

Road Trip

I know of Viet Nam from as a child.

The government wanted my body there,

they said it was safe,

safer than a road trip in oz.

The sand pits there were filled with other playing children,

(mostly playing dead.)

but they said there was room for me,

in the light green of a jungle walk.

But I never made it,

to any shade of green.

Voters’ dumb words

spoke louder than the crash of falling dominos.

Like my father before me,

plucked back from war’s vortex.

By a Colonel North saying,

‘These men can’t go hopping Islands,

with the sons of Nippon,

not trained in the art,

off the boats.

Like my son after me,

when the Two Towers fell,

saved from war by a mosquito

singing:

This boy can’t go to war,

sleep, sleep in the Forest,

in the weariness of Chronos.

Three life times saved.

The Old Mad Cow

moos for milk.

‘No, no,’ says farmer Brown,

‘Cows don’t drink,

they give milk.

But still she moos.

Stupid cow,

did the others never

teach you?

Yours is giving,

not getting.

There is an order:

light follows dark,

tide turns,

falls,

stars dance round a point,

since time ungotten.

Cows give.

But still she moos.

Saviour For Sale.

The agenda is filled to overflowing with a that-ness:
That a saviour may appear.
That a saviour will come swiftly.
But none does.

So wisdom’s scroll still rambles
with scratchings of the misguided,
whose missives promise redemption
while leading to perdition.

Words of prophets,
once profound,
now lie in gutter, profane,
next a litany of lies.

All this not-ness wants an untying
waits a resolution,
a saviour…
fully paid or dollar down,
but none comes.
Despite Inter Galactic ad crying

‘Saviour wanted
urgently.
No experience,
just broad shoulders,
phone any time.‘

While in another universe
Just a few light years away,
classified ad reads:

‘Saviour for sale,
as new,

hardly used,
broad shouldered type,
will deliver,
anywhere.’

ERNIE

There’s Ernie my Dad,
sits with the other murderers
at the retirement home,
sits each day and kills time.

He sits and waits
for breakfast,
then waits for smoko,
then lunch,
tea.

Next door is Don,
partner in crime,
never convicted.
He’ll talk all day
about cutting the sugar bush
up Mulgrave way.

Tell you about Joe the Yugoslav
could cut and load 20 ton a day.
He’ll talk of Badilla
and Trojan cane.

And Ernie,
he’ll tell you about packa poo tickets,
his Dad used to print them.
Ernie,
he’ll tell you of opium dens,
Uncle Jimmie used to run them.
Ernie, he’ll tell you about Mah Kong
and other stories
but you have to have lots of time to kill.

16
FATHER SON

I tell my sons, ‘I love you.’
They bounce back with,
‘Love you, Dad.’
Too easy.

With me and Dad it’s different.
He loves me,
calls me, ‘Number one son.’
Only son, actually.
But—
‘I love you.’
Those words are as big as the Berlin wall—
he can’t get his mouth around them.

I’ll remind him
next time I see him:

The Berlin Wall these days,
comes in bite-sized pieces.

17
WHATS’s-A-MA-CALL-IT

Listen,

rain.
When heavy rain falls in Townsville
it’s front-page news.
Yesterday, rain fell
an hour’s drive from here,
that made page two.

Three years ago my son was born here,
in drought.
in rain shadow.

He doesn’t know
the meaning of
‘rain shadow’
but he lives surrounded by the lie
of the words:

Dry Tropical City,
cocooned
by brown parched mountains,
back drop for
green Frangipani,
coconut and palm.

When my son was three he said,

‘Dad, you know that stuff
that falls
out
of
the
sky?’

‘Rain— Son, it’s called rain.

18
FIFTEEN

He,

Fifteen year old son,
is prowling
like a lion,
locked
in circus cage.

He,
lets out a roar—
‘You won’t let me go
to the party!
You don’t want me to have fun!’

He,
charges imagined bars,
stops short—
fear of lion tamer’s whip.

‘No,
you’ll do as you’re told,
you’re only fifteen.’

‘But, Dad,’
he roars,
‘ I’m fifteen.’

19

JASON

When you were born
a voice inside me cried out.
‘No more war!
No more war!’

I don’t know whether that voice
was the new father in me
wanting to protect new child
or
child wanting to protect
new father.

20
HINDSIGHT

I could give you warning of the years to come,
I recall them clearly.
But advice is like medicine,
often hard to swallow
and
only effective if taken.

I could beg you to listen,
but my words can’t compete
with the wattage of your Walkman.
Besides … to you,
the years that have not been,
will never be.

When the years that will never be –
have been –
will you say to your son –
‘I could give you warning of the years to come.’

WATCH THIS…

There are no poems in space,
you can’t alliterate around asteroids.
Onomatopoeia’s pusillanimous
in a scene where there is no sound.

Sonnets and cinquains
sink into Milky Way’s magnitude.
Villanelle becomes vile against
enormity of dead stars still burning
a billion light years on.

Couplets collapse into black holes,
leaving verse blank-faced,
banal,
plain and rhymeless.

There are no poems in space,
but,
you need space to find poems.

ROAD KILL

STOP sign lies dead on road,
surrounded by shards of glass.
Was it car or truck?

Across intersection
STOP sign’s partner stands grieving,
back turned on carnage.

Street signs watch
silent,
dignified,
composed
but ready to scream,
‘We saw it,
truck,
hit-run,
we have the number!’
But street signs are seen—
never heard.

The question now is,
‘Who will eulogise
a deceased STOP sign?’
Maybe WALK sign.
He’s bright enough
but some say,
too green for the job.

ROADRUNNER

As you burn the bitumen with coyote behind you,
Do your thoughts ever drift to:
‘What if…?
What if he caught me?’

If he caught me,
would he make a meal of me,
or would he ponder Habit Two,
of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective Coyotes?

So then would coyote think?
‘If I eat this critter,
I’ll have nothing to do tomorrow.
No anticipation of Acme parcels in the post,
no more ingenious,
death-defying stunts,
rocket rides,
canine,
cannonball capers.’
Yes, I’m sure that’s what he’d think.

If he caught me,
would he gloat for a while,
then loosen his strangle-hold from my neck,
saying, ‘Caught you slow coach,
come on,
let’s share a can of Acme Baked Beans.’

No,
you dumb dog,
You’d eat me.
Beep, beee …

17/11/03

MORNING STROLL

The other morning I was strolling

through a minefield–

it’s a peaceful minefield,

council approved,

buffer zone,

high fence to keep animals out,

childproof gates,

warning signs in

twenty-five different languages,

and has actually been demined

BUT – NOT YET QUALITY ASSURED

so there’s still- A FEW

Claymores,

Jumping Jacks

and Anti-Personnel mines left.

I was walking through the

almost, ex- minefield

When, on my right I saw Hamlet.

‘Morning Hamlet, lovely day.’ I said.

Well, he can be a real moody bugger sometimes.
48
He sorta grunted, ‘ Morning.’ and off he went,

mumbling something about,

Two B–

must be the number of his apartment.

‘Hey, Hamlet,’ I yelled,

‘ You’ll be bloody omelet soon

if you don’t-

T-U-R-N O-N-Y-O-U-R-M-I-N-E-D-E-T-E-C-T-O-R.’

‘Oh,’ I thought, ‘ a stroll through a minefield

clears ones senses,

blows away the cobwebs.’

Skydiving’s boring,

bungee jumping’s so passe.

Now, what will I have for breakfast?

BANG!

A cloud of dust rises on my right,

Alas poor Hamlet.

Well I did warn him,

QUALITY ASSURANCE HASN”T BEEN YET

Now, breakfast–

anything but omelet.