Scattered Glass

 

Scattered Glass

 

Glass scattered across the road,

like rain,

glistening.

There’s been an accident.

 

Ordinarily I wouldn’t give it a second thought

I’d just think “there’s been an accident,”

but this morning I think

about those involved.

 

Hundreds will drive past

this pond of broken glass,

some will catch a reflected gleam,

some will hear a crunch,

 

but long after the glass is cleared away

someone will still hear the crunch

echoing in their memories,

and will still wince from the

reflected gleam of their vision.

Seiko Staring

Seiko Staring

 

Time slides.

Seconds drip

into hours

into days

into a life.

 

Life slides

and drips

while a man

stands

admiring

his new Seiko.

 

Life catches the bus

our man

still. Seiko staring.

Eulogy

Eulogy

 

If I should die

and you survive me,

don’t you cry

retain the memory.

Have me cremated

in front of a crowd

of the people I hated

then shout out loud;

 

laugh you may as you see him burn

but with this thought he left you

it only took him a few years to learn

the mysteries that stand before you.

 

Then watch them cry

as you read this out

that I should die

without any doubt.

All

All

 

All

Because

Content

Dying

Evolves into

Form.

Getting

Heavier

Inside.

Just

Killing

Life.

Maybe

Now,

Over. Over

Periods

Quietly,

Rightly

Suppressed,

Tightly.

Under

Viral

Words,

X factors.

Yours,

Zealot.

it ergs me

it ergs me

 

i don’t like it

but i need the money

so i shut up

and put up

and cow the milk

and spread the honey

The Legacy of John Winston Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 19

The Legacy of John Winston Howard, Prime Minister of Australia 1996 - 2007

 

Johnny say sorry

              for ignoring land rights.

Johnny say sorry

              for the Cronulla riots.

Johnny say sorry

              for the children overboard.

Johnny say sorry

              for this fucking stupid war.

Johnny say sorry

              for sanctioning book burning.

Johnny say sorry

              for ignoring global warming.

Johnny say sorry

              for aiding your media cronies.

Johnny say sorry

              for all the Alan Joneses.

Johnny say sorry

              for detaining refugees.

Johnny say sorry

              for raping the ABC.

Johnny say sorry

              for preaching your evil hymns.

Johnny say sorry

              for marginalising muslims.

Johnny say sorry

              for abandoning David Hicks.

Johnny say sorry

              for poisoning weetbix.

Johnny say sorry

              for the I.R. reforms.

Johnny say sorry

              for the sedition laws.

Johnny say sorry

              for the soldiers who have died.

Johnny say sorry

              for creating apartheid.

Johnny say sorry

              for the rising interest rates.

Johnny say sorry

              for sucking up to the United States.

Johnny say sorry

              for your selective history teaching.

Johnny say sorry

              it’s time, it’s time for the impeaching.

To the Tune of Tom Waits’ ‘Pasties and a G-String’

To the Tune of Tom Waits’ ‘Pasties and a G-String’

 

Staring at a brick wall

              looking through the sun,

my eyes are half-wired open

              and the day has just begun.

 

Knocking on the bleachers

              making sure my throat is clear,

sing a song of cigarettes

              as the midday sun draws near.

 

Throw a fish to Shiva

              watch it flapping cold,

twist my neck much further

              now the day is getting old.

 

Walking on a tightrope

              swinging from a tree,

my eyes are now wide open

              which is why I cannot see.

 

Gently light the candle

              watch its wax wane slow,

drown my head in slumber

              shifting to and fro.

As I Lay Me Down to Rot

 

As I Lay Me Down To Rot

 

As I lay down upon this rock

and watch my skin begin to rot

I place some pennies on my eyes

and spread my arms to be crucified.

 

The sun burns down upon my head

my mind will join where my soul is dead

a sacrifice of no note worth

I’ll bleed into soil and pollute the earth.

 

Eternal condemn as I killed my days

damnation is mine for my evil ways

I cut to pieces my rented soul

used love as a shovel to dig my whole.

Without Archon

Without Archon

 

Too young our limitations are taught,

and recollections of battles fought

are written in history by victors alone,

while revolutionary pages are bleached by bone,

and the stories that scream to be unleashed

are never in so called democracy teached.

Oh lust to be without archon.

In my head the battle is won.

The Birth of Sorrow - Thoughts of Human Suffering

 

The Birth of Sorrow – Thoughts of Human Suffering

 

And they named him ‘Sorrow’,

              for he cried.

And his tears flowed like a river,

              for they weren’t his, but the tears of a million generations,

and every tear he shed

              represented one human suffering.

He never stopped crying until he died,

              and then the world shed a tear.

Too Many Goodbyes

Too Many Goodbyes

 

Too many souls

shifting into the night,

passing too quickly,

too many goodbyes.

 

Fires that burned too furious,

fires that burned too bright,

too many souls

passing into the night.

 

The lives we lead

and the paths we take

inevitably lead us

to the love we make.

 

So at the end of this stanza

there is nothing I’d forsake

for the loves I’ve had

and this terrible ache.

An Innocent Breath

An Innocent Breath

              for Paul Jackson 6 July 1973 – 1 August 2009

 

Into an ugly world was breathed an innocent breath,

uncontained by boundaries of life and death,

floating on air like an ethereal sail,

elevating all who would take time to inhale.

 

Now the breath is extinguished but the air lingers long,

in the dance of a child’s eyes, or a blackbird’s night song,

in his beloved nature my brother is now clad,

in the words of his mother, a rogue of a lad.

 

It was my absolute honour to have shared some of his time,

haunted by his wisdom, lit by his sunshine,

he escaped through dreams into a wine glass bay,

he’ll be forever in my thoughts simply waiting to awake.

The Epistolary Battle for the Soul of Betty Hester

The Epistolary Battle for the Soul of Better Hester

 

The epistolary battle for the soul of Better Hester

was fought in the realm of time and mind,

the church spruiked their bibles and all of their saints,

the left merely offered a find.

 

The imaginary cackle for the whole of Betty Hester

was littered by ghosts in decline,

feinted warriors fought in positions contort,

while the pen scribbled furious lines.

 

The contemporary shackles that were bestowed on Betty Hester

forced her letters to a 20 year bind,

while waiting to publish a shotgun called out

and the battle was ended in kind.

In Praise of Disorder

In Praise of Disorder

 

Somewhere in disorder are the spontaneous mistakes that make a day particular,

paths that lie unplanned, hidden in erratic overgrowth.

 

In the mess of photos scattered throughout cardboard boxes,

childhoods hide in sepia tones.

 

In the disarray of LP records leaning across hi-fi shelves

hum the scratched songs of your forgotten youth.

 

In the rustic cases of second hand book stores

great words wait to carry you to other plains.

 

In the windy change of seasons

streams await to clear the stale ink from your diary.

 

Held in chaos lies a sweet bohemian breath inhaling all order and exhaling life, planting a kiss

on your unsuspecting cheek, eject your iPod and listen to the street.

Need

 

Need

 

What do you need?

A pen,

paper.

Thought.

A simple life

expressed

in the simplest way.

Happiness, grief,

on paper.

Hopes, fears,

in the pen.

A life.

A Single Tear

A Single Tear

              -for Silvia

 

A single tear escapes,

and travels a lonely cheek.

 

One single drop,

slow

and carefully

crawls

from the eye,

through the valley

between cheek bone and nose,

and places a gentle kiss

on the side of the mouth.

 

A single tear,

born from within,

from a single memory,

from one fragment of a life,

not a life,

but a life remembered.

 

One beautiful diamond

into the pool.

I Want to Build a Café

I Want to Build A Café

 

I want to build a café,

where all my friends will drink,

wallpapered with savages,

call it “Ginsberg’s Stink”.

 

Have a jukebox in the corner,

playing music no one can hear,

expounding on the dogma

“the Manipulation of Fear.”

 

At night we’ll ouija monsters,

ghosts of ones who were beat;

Have you come to bleed the freak?

Twelve dollars fifty, all you can eat.

Whispering to Embers

Whispering to embers

 

I’ve stood in the open

and dared lightning to strike,

screamed down thunder

to remember a fight.

 

I’ve whispered to embers

to turn to fire and burn,

stared through past windows

and wanted to yearn.

 

I’ve cried at your stories

and laughed at my own,

built temples to decadence

while I’d none to call home.

 

I’ve swallowed my youth

from a bottle of time,

I wanted the story

but drowned in the rhyme.

Tuscany

Tuscany 

 

I’ve had enough.

 

I’m going to take my family to Tuscany,

where we’ll suckle on the Tyrrhenian nipple,

and bloat ourselves on the blood of the sangiovese,

then simply lie back in the sun. And never get up.

Selling Sydney

Selling Sydney

 

Walking from the train station

to the office through

the quiet city streets.

 

Echoes of history.

 

I walk past terraced houses

that have stood together

for over one hundred years.

 

Feel the stories

 

dripping from the bricks,

stories of loves & struggles

fixed in history.

 

New buildings.

 

Cathedrals of consumerism.

Shopping centres. Office blocks.

Apartments, high rise.

 

Selling history according to corp.

 

My office building

looms

grey.

Like a rain cloud

solidified and fallen.

 

I step off the street

and into the open plan

designed for efficiency.

 

And put aside my history.