Poem # 56 Who Cares

Who cares

Riding my bicycle;
Jasmine scent in the
moonlight,
sharp and heavy,
where the gliding
air changes from
warm to cool.

An open window,
domestic drama,
I stop and watch.
Is this suspect?

The moon escapes
from the clouds,
and suddenly I
feel naked,
like the world
can see me.

The street is numb and silent,
but for a man who's
stumbled home and
shouts at his wife.

A little girl cries.

"Why can't the world hear?"
I ask myself.

Poem # 55 Simpson Desert

Simpson Desert

Perspiration drips onto
The skin made raw by the spade
I used to dig my vehicle
Out of the sand dune.
Like Cain I wander the desert
But can find no refuge.
It's Christmas 2011 and
thirty eight degrees.
"Fuck Off!", say the caretakers,
"It's Christmas!,
We don't do business
On December twenty-fifth!"
I feel that's not biblical,
just sad.
But the desert has compensations
- landscape charms,
Old ruins,
strange sculptured rocks,
big termite mounds, and
birds with attitude.
I've seen fleeting luminous colours
that like pots of gold
are impossible to grasp,
and trees that are almost
human as they droop
from lack of water.
In the desert man is not
able to hide away
like the animals.
In the desert man
cannot hide his desires.
He can fufil them, or not,
but cannot hide them.
Are our actions ever
spontaneous or always
pre meditated?
To what extent is
generosity on our part
magnaminous or
self serving?
Maybe the desert animals
know these answers.
Maybe my dogs know them too,
because their heads are
cocked to one side,
listening without judgment,
Like a therapist, and
their eyes are bright
Above their panting tongues.
I smile at them
as I put away the spade
under that hot sun
in the desert
at Christmas time 2011.

Poem # 54 Reggae Song

Reggae Song

I keep no secrets
I keep no secrets
I keep no secrets
from you.

I tell no secrets
I tell no secrets
I tell no secrets
of you.

I seek no secrets
I seek no secrets
I seek no secrets
from you.

I find no secrets
I find no secrets
I find no secrets
of you.

Love is a joining,
a span across the void.
a union, a narrative,
great stories will unfold.

An open book whose leaves
with seasons will be turned.
The path on this journey
of our lives will not divide.

I keep no secrets from you
You keep no secrets from me
I seek no secrets from you
You seek no secrets from me

No secrets, no secrets,
no secrets in our lives.

Poem # 53 Any Body

Any Body

Got a tattoo on my stomach,
a circular line of dashes
says ' hole to another universe
cut along the dotted line,
earthman inside!'.

Got two earrings - got them when
I saw a special at the wicked body shop,
one piercing for five dollars
five piercings for twenty.
You can't see the other three.

I carry a piece of ten centimetre
nylon fly wire in my stomach to
hold in my hernia.

Got tribal scarring in Becuanaland,
it's identical to the binary code for zero.

Got a quote from Proust tattooed
on the palm of my left hand -
that hurt!

Got a rebore in my sinus, and
a port and polish, helps
my engine run more efficiently.

Crimped my salivary gland
one night when brushing
too vigorously
whilst under the influence.
Pushing it with my tongue
constantly makes me look
evil.

I could go on -
but why bother,
let us simply say that
I am unique,
just like
everyone else.

Poem # 52 Wordplay III

Wordplay III

Zeppelin airbus dub her data media
Zeppelin airbus dub her data media

Bulbous bouffant blubber macadamia
Bulbous bouffant blubber macadamia

Degrade centigrade persuade upgrade

Lamia anemia academia mania
Lamia anemia academia mania

Mullet gullet mukluk buttock
Mullet gullet mukluk buttock

invisible unthinkable admissible medicinal

Roughend jocund fecund refund
Roughend jocund fecund refund

Tortilla!

Poem # 51 Farmhouse

Farmhouse

Ruined farmhouse in
crepuscular light
parquet floor a mosaic
of rabbit and sheep
droppings.
Sagging linoleum
in the kitchen
below the old
kooka stove.
Peeling wallpaper,
dust doing its dust dance
in the half light.
Nothing else to indicate
a man and a woman once
lived here in
love and hate,
had conceived in
one of these rooms
or the other,
three children
one with a physical
deformity the parents
were ashamed of.
In this house jam was
dribbled on the floor,
urine swirled around a bowl,
and dreams on a pillow.
Children left, never to speak
to their parents again.
On the wall illuminated in
a shaft of sunlight
a bleeding heart,
and outside the house
a shroud of blackberries.

Poem # 50 Life

Life

Like a rock climber dawns rosy fingers
pulled themselves over the horizon.
At peace for one moment and
hands behind my head I stared at
the spider webs in the corner
where the wall met the ceiling.
Then she said,
" Every time that I tell you
that I love you, you say nothing,
but that's your problem"

I had an inner dialogue with myself
( thought bubbles ) " If I say
nothing when you say you love me
it's both our problems.
My anxieties become your anxieties.
My confusion becomes your confusion.

In life children confuse parents.
Students confuse teachers.
Patients confuse doctors.
Individuals in the flock
confuse pastors.
Those in love who have confused hearts,
confuse those in love who have clear hearts."

but I said nothing.

" You need to see a counsellor!",
she said getting up out of bed in
her underwear momentarily illuminated
by golden beams of light
in which floated myriad
particles of dust.