#516 - a little of my blood

 1.vi.21

516

2.149

a little of my blood

 

in the wild song of flight

because the bastards are coming for us

 

a little of me hiding

all this skin in the game

 

begin with the same story

… try to blend in

be tree

but wake up and the forest’s …

someone sent it up a chimney

an accent will give you away

 

as with pyjamas

read off a table of laws

took my pun

and love

 

my people and yours

the friendly tussle –

seasons and parting

 

like a violin run to the woods

to the garden

there just a moment

and always here before

 

saw through my head

bones of those thought to stay put

 

river for a song

the gods are prisoners of stone

 

having already suffered for sins

one could not yet have committed

 

there’s night and winter anyway

most of the blood in me

    as it turns out, well hidden

  now

with the twenty six tin letters retired

ready to stand and fight

 

at the Flying Islands Showcase / Booklaunch at Maitland IF over this last weekend

 

#515 - nobody owns it

 

31.v.21

515

2.148

nobody owns it

for the series ‘teaching our children the truth of the world’

little parable for neo-cons

 

nobody owns

the first light or its fences

perspective – vanishing

the gods, their gifts

heavens, as we see, defaced                         

or quiver strings

 

nobody owns her his own heart

nobody owns angels

many have had

or take a simple disease –

just for common ground

please hither

 

nobody owns the picture we paint

everything is lent

      like this way the world

and wickedness sharing

by way of just a leer, a grin

 

take time –

cut and come again

they make it till forever

(efforts to save, perennial)

 

the tribe antics, flavour of thing

truth, though each has

 

nobody owns this idea

(the patent on patience

may be more than pending)

 

the vast

and take an exo-planet

(have a go at that!)

 

nobody owns their own excuses

… fate or simple facts

 

dinner digesting has a mind of its own

and who smelt dealt

 

nobody owns a dinosaur

though this parable’s for them

 

call the mist to bliss

who holds the day?

   or forgetting

this that crops up

set magic means and ends

               who’ll possess the spin?

come one, come …

 

who can hear the country?

it’s something no one can have

             like whiff

                 like lost your way

 

who has a Sibelius symphony

        may keep at home to play

 

the fall of leaf, the tendril up

come a cropper

 

the chattels of love are moment until

vanish in and as a dream

         hence

 

the slavery of pets is illusion

(cage and the chains are not)

 

and the black dog sold a pup

nobody owns up

   or down

anywhere you care to go

 

no one owns the chorus

who can claim applause?

 

books? you’d think?

they’re collecting you

… if you can’t see what the product is …

 

take a swig of the air at this point

wear a thing’s not the same as possess

nobody’s got that law’s last tenth

 

all sorts down the drain

and let’s take your smelly rubbish

the odourless as well

… things you ought to own

they’re gone gone…

so all of us must share

like the far choked fish

of the never legend

 

the seventh sea’s for piracy

kings colonize fresh turd

 

possession of a river

colour on a map

no one owns the rights to absurd!

 

the orchard light or afternoon

the water from a tap

nobody owns the day yet

though many stop the clock

 

the passion, the principle of popcorn

 

your millions and billions

are numbers

even paper is vanishing

little skies on our now desks

 

are crushing the life from things no one holds

from nobody owns the bones

the ancestors march on

 

eat me and drink me

 

pyjamas are a borrowed crime

 

rejoice in the dust no one can settle

and vanish in over our heads

 

no one has owned a rainbow yet

who catches cloud won’t keep them

 

this goes for anything I’ve said

 

as with the road, so conversation

 

these very words

how you read them

no one will ever own any of them

 

we’ll wait for the weather here

#514 - tell centrelink (the world love poetry tour)

30.v.21

514

2.147

tell centrelink 

this thing called employment detracts from my enjoyment

and tightens my diaphragm 

                         -- L’il Abner 

a note from Brian about the world love poetry tour 

this concerns our mutual quest for sincerity 

I love Vivaldi… it always feels like a graduation 

and I have to say

it’s been lovely this much mirth 

a life of advice taken, swallowing pills, bitter best

of course there are things to miss 

like the waiting room with Franz Kafka 

and dole tv -- hearing aids, glasses, all sorts

            that don’t really work 

and for people who can’t afford them

I know it's been a bumpy ride 

and I know you’ve found it hard --

     the stony face, the high bar for compassion 

… so few chances at human, but I could still see a pulse

no one’s qualified for this job 

      one understands this 

and the overqualified 

   (problem soon fixed when the school de-funding’s finished)

there were times when the effort at logic would make gasp 

   but hold it in -- this is an interview!

     grim picture you painted of worklessness too 

the world grows larger and each dollar less 

it’s Zeno’s arrow limps along again 

and what do you say at the checkout 

but 

‘here’s most of it… back on dole day… all I’ve got’

one gets used to the regular confessions

         and robo-shafting

 the coal and iron state requires 

but 

    that job licking the pipes was not for me 

I gave it a red hot go though

with the velvet fist, all that lube

believe me - I get it 

if one is not punished then who will win?

     may nod to show understood

I have however painted a picture of you 

        found a calling  

in fact I considered to join the leisure class

because true vocation is vacation

so -- don’t be alarmed

the body is beautiful 

   even after all this time 

I’m getting my gear off now

      getting everything tuned  

I feel the eloquence coming on 

we’ve read The Unconsoled 

know all about herd immunity 

if the wheel of fortune spun me here 

       it’s time to try my luck 

considered a position as an office plant 

….listening … just listening 

      but too green for that 

you know what Oscar Wilde said?

…

anyway Brian asked me to give you this note 

       blew a kiss 

said he’s off now for greener pastures 

on his world love poetry tour 

#513 - I heard the coal go past me all night

29.v.21

513

2.146

I heard the coal go all night past me 

(a night in Maitland, by the line)

honouring the seven million people worldwide who die from air pollution each year

I heard the coal go past me all night 

a kind of kettle all come to the boil 

(and stood there)

like air-con rumble 

(but the light was off)

like the rise of the sea

(but that seemed so far)

roar like a vacuum cleaner

(me cornered, and the dust still setting)

like tinnitus 

(something you’d rather not hear)

like a passenger train 

but heavier because 

this was the mountain 

on its way to China

on its way to India 

on its way to Japan

(where they’re just as greedy

and foolish as we are)

I heard the coal go past me all night 

and some would call it human nature 

of course it was a dream

it was to black the sky 

so we’ve night all the time 

someone said ‘the world needs us’

and who’s to say when enough is enough?

this was only in a poem you know 

no harm done can be done in there 

I heard the coal go past all night 

like the beginning of a big storm

        stuck there

like the train wreck in slow motion 

like a fire nearby and gathering 

like a reckoning to come 

and somebody said ‘but ours is the cleanest

if we don’t then there’s worse’

in my dream 

I could hear the machines

each said to the other 

dig deeper and deep 

there’s more mountain under

we go on forever 

it’s what we do best

it’s the only thing that we do

but I dreamed the dream of blue skies 

and green things

then I could imagine everyone breathing

and everyone’s breath for a song 

song of enough lung 

and now we can sing 

it’s a song of together 

(it’s so wet!  it could almost be true)

of this is our Earth 

we’re just the one spinning 

we’re the far blue

all in the one Ark riding 

I was in the heart of the Hunter Valley

between pasture and sea

forest and the future 

all of this on the stolen land

…

and can you guess what happened next?

it was like football out of the trenches 

and no more world war one

because christmas of course 

the driver climbed down 

and the miners downed tools

they all wanted to make it a Hollywood moment 

it was merely my reverie of course 

but things are so real in the dream

I heard the coal go past me all night

but I dreamed a dream

that it stopped