Poem # 44 Time Space Love

Time Space Love

Space and love are one and the same,
beyond the expanding volume of
the universe space ceases to exist,
and there we would

have no space to contend
with and no time.
In our shelters if we have no space,
time accelerates dangerously.
At high speeds time is stretched
and love can jump the tracks.
At the end of the day unless
we are riding a ray of light
like a cosmic cowboy, then we need
time to slow down, we need our space,
and even just a little bit of love
can illuminate a long shadow.

Poem # 43 Death Notices

Death Notices

Obituarys are towards the terminal end
Of the daily broadsheet.
I read them to marvel at the trail
individuals have left to mark their
path through life, while
I have only left muddy footprints.
There is no glimmer in the
image of the deceased,
however notable their life.
This is how the press indicates
respect for, or fear of, death.
The eyes of the significant one
in the image are
dull and flat,
as if the sparkle of
their lives and achievements
has been scattered like
magic dust amongst those
of us left behind.

Poem # 42 A Scatological poem

A Scatological poem

We filled our heads with knowledge
in the crowded room
delighted that the school was empty of
high school students.

The empty buildings were still littered
with the remains of food,
and scarred with obscene graffiti....
what the Principal did with dogs.

It was desolate outside our seminar room.

Time passed
and my stomach contracted with a natural urge.
"Where is the nearest toilet?",
I asked an executive.
"The downstairs boys are available."
"Are they clean?"
"They looked good when I checked them this morning."
Reassured I headed in their direction.

Relieved, I squatted naturally on the the bowl.
As I viewed the grotesque writing on the walls
of the cubicle
an awareness smacked me with full affront.
Quelle horreur! What a predicament!
There was no paper!
(Of course!, the school was empty, it had not been supplied)

I considered the resources at my disposal.
The water?
... I had no knowledge of the operational method.
A handkerchief?
... disposal presented a problem.
... there was nothing for it, I must venture forth.

With pants around my ankles,
waddling like a duck or a dancing Cossack dwarf,
I headed for the entrance.

I found a bin filled with useful paper.
I grabbed two sheets and
as quickly as the action allowed
returned to my former position
on the bowl.

Regaining my seat I considered my sheets.

One was a tract from a religious instruction lesson
complete with an illustration of Jesus giving the sermon
on the mount.

On the other a quote from Xenophones

" If oxen and horses and lions had hands or could draw with these
hands, horses would draw pictures of gods like horses, and oxen
like oxen, lions like lions, and the gods would resemble the bodies
each species possesses"
and a picture of Karl Marx.

Was this telling me something?
What a dilemma!
Was I to deface a picture of our Lord, or was I being invited to wipe out a
seminal concept which led to mans emancipation?
Any decision would be a philosophical commitment.

Would God forgive me?

I made a leap of pure faith,

flushed,

and pulled up my pants.

Better to live with shit
than to forsake ideals
or commit sacrilege.

It was an uncomfortable feeling.

Poem #41 country town

Country town

"S'pose i better get your detail',
Said the concierge.
'What would you like to know?',
I replied, projecting what I
Hoped was bonhomie.
'What's your jock size?',
Sarcastically,
'you'd be a fat cunt!'.
We continued until finally,
'That'll be $25 cunt!'
Maybe that's their way of being
friendly?.
'I don't think so', commented
My son, 'just a dickhead'.

Poem # 40 Towards the Nullabor

Towards the Nullabor

Highway drafted across
wide brown landscape
a drawing line
shimmering graphite grey
into the west,
explorers footsteps.
Cool breeze in my hair,
and the motor sings its
highway song.
I am the soul of the van.
We glide past gargantuan
harvesters and headers,
they have no soul.
Up ahead in the distance
shimmering water
never there.
A lonely isolated service centre,
a frontier outpost.
Was it there before?
Does it really exist
amongst the twisted
denuded blackbutt branches
dry reaching for the sky?
I am surrounded in semiology.

Poem # 39 Kalymnos

Kalymnos

The sea, pearl turquoise,
mountains ash-blue in the windless heat,
a puppy fat caique puffs past
in a line like little ducklings,
its bow wave a dark miraging
ripple on the creamy blue
surface of the sea.
All that is left of its passing
is the tiny tongue lap
of the transparent blue water
on the stones,
the waiting green crown of pine trees,
the tiny motor chorus
buzz of insects, and
the enormous landscape of silence.
My eyelids droop in
the thin shade of a pine,
in the agelessness, the
absolute dissociation of
a natural, wild
Greece.

Poem # 38 Art is

Art is

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