paulspoemstoday.com

    

Caution:  the odd poem may contain swear words.

 

 

Greedy: 1%, Victims: the World

Media

Manipulative, lies, nil probity

 

Voters’

Greed, ignorance, apathy

 

Enabled

Means, motive, opportunity

 

For

Collusion, corruption, impunity

 

From

Prosecution, responsibility, accountability

 

Relying on

Faith, a god’s will, imposed importunity.

 

Taut law’s

Injury, duty of care, negligence

 

National interest’s

Dereliction, lost opportunity, eminence

 

Guilty:

Ecocide, genocide, maleficence.

 

Sentence:

Arrest, seize assets, jailed malevolents

 

Outcome:

Survival, the planet, intelligence…

 

 

                            Dying to dye

Humans discovered early, how to dye cloth

Insect, plant pigments, colours to show off

But Black was a problem, solved quite late

But hugely expensive, for the rich to sate.

 

To flaunt their wealth and assumed status

The rich wore Black to funerals: envy gratis

Then new dye tech, common and cheap

New norm: turn up as mourning Black sheep.

 

 

         Fribble frabble

The shilly shally

               of the dilly dally

The smelly swelly

               of the beery belly

The dingle dongle

               of the wingle wongle

The niggle naggle

               of the bible babble

The wiggle waggle

               of the dribble drabble

The ziggle zaggle

               of the ribble rabble

The cribble crabble

               of the swibble swabble

The greedle grabble

               of the human habile

The dribble drabble

               of the chibble chabble

The subtle sputtel

               of the scuttle shuttle

The fibble fobble

               of the wibble wobble

The hobble cobble

               of the gobble squabble

The bumble stumble

               of the fumble rumble

The crumble jumble

               of the grumble mumble

The timble tumble

               of the humble umbel

The dibble dabble

               of the scrabble babble

The stubble rubble

               of the double trouble…

 

 

                                  Wi-Fi’d

She’s my bluetooth-linked, external hard drive

On alert, surveiling, warning, how to survive

Asking, telling, reminding and demanding

Me: the harried humanoid poor Siri thing.

I don’t own a mobile, so it’s hot-spot wife-eye

Always in range, no VPN, so prone to hack and spy

Accessing data, ‘the air cloud’ in her head

Or consulting old standby Google instead

So I wait in suspense, with addition of AI

Dementia’s only answer: the question, “Why?”

 

 

              Future remembered

Privatised profiting,

Services nothing.

Printed money flow,

Interest rates low.

Monopolies enabled,

Equality disabled.

You didn’t remember the future…

 

Corruption’s cost,

Democracy lost.

Confected wars,

Profiteering soars.

Elites’ dark money,

Cons sheeple to their dunny.

You didn’t remember the future…

 

Gluttonous whales,

Your health fails.

Big Pharma’s wealth,

our lost health.

Pandemics repeating,

Life retreating.

You didn’t remember the future…

 

Minority derision,

Hitler’s division.

Ignorance votes,

Con man gloats.

Media lies,

Decency dies.

You didn’t remember the future…

 

Sucked in by influence,

Societal consequence.

Fossil fuel lies,

The Planet dies.

So much beware,

So little care.

Remember to remember your future…

Or remember, you once had a future…

 

 

                      How long?

How long is a phase, a stage of life,

compared to a single cause of strife?

 

How long for a car to be old,

or a friend to similarly hold?

 

How long for a loan to mature,

or trend or fad to lose allure?

 

How long ’til a make-over’s due,

or until your real friends are few?

 

How long for a memory to fade,

or for resolve, ambition to jade?

 

How long from lust to true love’s make,

compared to that for a heart to break?

 

How long for extremist’s violent foment,

Or to undo harm, true atonement?

 

How long’s it take for trust to renew,

I don’t know. Would a decade do?

 

 

Tequila slammer

As in the tradition of ‘lick, sip, suck, savour,’

look at the photo/s, try to guess the poem’s topic,

read the poem, reflect back on the image/s and the topic.

(Hint: look for the faces, eyes, noses, mouth)

                   Old boys

“I say old boy, where’d you get that silly accent?”

“From Eton old sausage, it’s where I went.”

“Well old chap, stop eating old sausage!”

Knees bent, feet wet, poolside hostage

Thin, fat, tall, short, eyes shut or winking

Old brows brandied, loud or thinking

Furtive, slit or gape-mouthed in a row

Silly, stone sausages spruik what they know.

 

 

                           Telling

Space-time tells matter how to move

Matter tells space-time how to curve

Nature tells climate how to organise

Climate tells nature what survives

Atoms tell electrons how to confine

Electrons tell atoms how to combine

Morals tell money where to spend

Money tells morals how to bend

Religion tells wars where to start

Wars tell religion to take heart

Evil tells ambition to plot, prioritise

Ambition tells evil to con, win the prize

Politicians tell corruption: “Add to cart”

Corruption tells politicians miles apart

Privilege tells entitlement to expect

Entitlement tells privilege how to affect

Envy tells hardship to disguise

Hardship tells envy to demonise

Motive tells apathy, “No thanks.”

Apathy tells motive to shoot blanks

Anxiety tells aggression to explode

Aggression tells anxiety to reload

Ignorance tells lies how to advise

Lies tell ignorance how to surmise

Social media tells truth how to die

Truth tells social media the reason why

Groupthink tells caution how to evaporate

Caution tells groupthink how to alienate

Risky shift tells reward how to inflate

Reward tells risky shift: disaster, too late

Psychopathy tells behaviour how to pretend

Behaviour tells psychopathy how it will end

Coercion tells control how to play

Control tells coercion when to slay

The mind tells AI how to arise

AI tells the mind creativity dies

Fear tells hate how to catalyse

Hate tells the fear-mob why to despise

Hate tells the mind how to dehumanise

The mind tells hate how to normalise

The mind tells hate how to Auschwitz-Gaza-ize

The mind tells humanity to survive or demise…

 

 

                                  Those pesky homonyms…

If a don’t-knower is a vote NO-er, would they go on an ark with Noah in

Or arc up: “Where’s the detail?” because of his dark skin?

How much can a lesson lessen, or affect the effect of climate change

With profiteers given such free range?

Who knows what the nose knows, if the olfactory cell has naught to sell

‘Cos mucous, a cold, caused it to swell?

He’d do well to heed, having heard the herd

Or risk being labelled an arrogant turd.

If a nun gets none, no reason to moan, no pubes mown

Blind devotion to the known unknown.

Is Holy water wholly omnipotent as used by a priest’s sacrament done

But holey for a Nun who’s allowed to use none?

A flaw in the floor, but billed for a shonky build

Won’t pay if you are strong willed

Is it a fair fare, for such a feat with poor feet

A rickshaw takes ‘tourists’ to meet fresh meat?

Mine profit awe from ore, or eco-destroying oar

Greedy magnate just wants more.

Does the manner of decorum at the manor depend on things guessed by the guest

Or the alcohol drunk in quest?

He who went bald, bawled, rather than dye or die

With a comb-over raked on high.

When the flu virus flew up my flue, my nose I blew ’til blue

Days I spent, a miserable few.

Pare a bruised pear, you need a pair, to make up the loss

Of the brown stuff you toss.

How much did a maid need to knead dough for bread to be made

Before bread tin in oven be laid?

If one has won, is an idol ever idle

With elusive career to bridle?

How much has the collective groan grown, the political scent sent, not worth a cent

Given how high is people’s rent?

Does a lone prophet profit from a loan

Of public support’s positive tone?

Is the lion’s mane the main reason a lioness is pried from the pride

Or prowess the reason to hide?

Should a mouse pause on its paws, where in the past a cat has passed

Or just run very fast?

Does a flea not flee, on hearing its prey pray

‘Cos it knows that won’t work anyway?

If eight giant squid got ate by a whale

Does it beech itself on a beach and wail?

How dear is a deer, and is a doe worth more dough?

Don’t ask me; I’m just a dumb arse. I wooden no…

               

 

                                             Thera: opportunity lost

Sinkholes were common in the old fields of Thera, now Santorini

When in 1976, a new one collapsed, trapping a man and his donkey

But strangely, this one not random: a perfect squared rectangle

Attracted archaeologists, excavations, lots to factually untangle.

 

They revealed an unknown ancient city, buried by volcanic debris

Three-storey houses, piped water, flushing toilets, for things excretory

Geologists found the volcanic island blew its own top clean off

With sonar-seen cracks radiating eighty-kilometre seafloor troughs.

 

With cubic kilometres of island explosively pulverised into the air

Such force would’ve given, the whole planet an enormous scare

With the noise and shockwave reverberating round several times

The hunt now on for “When?” as per various geo-physical ‘crimes.’

 

Timber from the old houses, radio-dated ancient: centuries BC well-nigh

Nile Delta sediments the same, from tsunamis ten storeys high

(Could this be when the seas parted for Moses’ exodus into Sinai?)

And the hunt for global ‘nuclear winter’ strife, sun-blocking debris in the sky.

 

Peat bogs in Ireland showed deeper buried layers whose age concurred

Three years of nil growth in five-thousand-year-old Bristlecone Pines spurred

The global search for scientific signs, data or history to accurately date

This catastrophic phenomenon that sealed so much of creatures’ fate.

 

Aztecs cut beating hearts from 20K young women to paint their pyramid red

To appease the wrath of the Sun gods, for sunlight for crops near-dead

Then the epiphany! The Chinese emperors, had paper, recorded history

Poring through ancient detailed records, 1628BC, solved the mystery!

 

The Sun, distressed-red for three years, food plants dying, mostly dead

Millions starved, died, ravenous rat packs eating dogs alive, food wars’ dread

Plus in that first bang! All Minoans (and memories of) on Thera gone

Their high-tech, including the ground-glass lens found, not passed on.

 

Now Galileo developed the ground-glass-lens telescope around 1600AD

Then four hundred years later, we watched men moonwalking on TV

So speculating, had Minoan techno survived, progressed at the same rate

Would the birth of Jesus have been televised, similarly au fait?

 

And what of other cultures, peoples’ discontinued contemporary rites

Australia’s unique Indigenous: 63K years BC, oldest continuous living cites

Gwion Gwion sophisticated rock art, started Pleistocene, post-last ice age

Gone, no lore nor explanation, at 1-2K years BC, another victim of Thera’s rage?

 

 

                                      Medical AUSLAN

Drove two-ninety Ks to the dick doctor the other week

My pushy Prostate: his diagnosis to seek

Charged me two-thirty bucks for a ten minute linger

And all he did was give me ‘The finger!’

Next week, two days and twelve-hundred Ks

The eye doctor and his high-tech scan ways

Paid four-seventy bucks: Nevis or Melanoma?

Gave me ‘The Thumbs-up!’ with his Diploma.

 

 

                                      Trauma tax

All human embryos are female ‘til about six weeks

Then the Y chromosome, if present, testosterone peaks

Males: ovaries to testes, spermatocytes fill the space

Girl babies’ ovaries, born with 400K oocytes in place.

 

So a woman pregnant, at the early five-week stage

Embryo, rice-grain size, its life’s gametes formed, full gauge

Present in the one body at just five weeks’ gestation

Mother, son or daughter, plus their future procreation.

 

Life traumas suffered, induce epigenetic changes to our genes

So those suffered by a mother (or father) pre-natal means

From grandparents through to grandkids, three generations

PTSD, anxiety, depression’s mental health tribulations…

 

He: Uni sport-star, ‘A’ student, sudden feelings: intense cold

Severe insomnia, life ruined, “If I sleep, I’ll die, before I’m old.”

Found out unknown grandfather, froze to death at same age

The revelation, counselling, freed him from his subconscious cage.

 

She: severe mental health problems, a crippling obsession

A yearning, plan hatched to end her life, the depression

By jumping into a foundry’s molten steel to herself vaporise

‘Til she traced dead grandmother: Nazi gas chamber’s cries.

 

The subconscious brain’s phenotypic behavioural vice

Nucleus Acumben’s psychological inheritance price

So search ancestral history, past trauma’s incidence

The unexplained makes sense, your path to recompense.

 

 

                        Fossil dentistry

Folded towels and surgical gowns

Sterilised, clean, to meet nervous frowns

Fresh new swabs stacked handy for use

Blood and rinse water’s surgical sluice

Dentist’s drill laying quietly in wait

The dreaded sound of imminent fate

Crumpled swabs methodically discarded

Blotted blood-stains duly disregarded

Dentist’s shoes and ridge-back remains

Scaley existence now rock-strata stains

Patient’s jaw with healthy molars

Fossilised like X-ray watercolours

Abscessed molar in extraction tray

Removal’s need shown by decay

Bloodied gums with roots post-removal

Pre-suture closure for patient approval

Then the Meteorite’s brutal intervention

Scales’ defiance define present attention.

          

 

                The girl on the glacier

The track to the glacier was rocky and long

Ice age retreated, melt-waters’ tumbling song

Then suddenly a fence, and a warning sign

“No entry unless…” crampons, conditions times nine!

 

So I jumped the gate, continued on to the ice

Broke a piece, chewed it, millennial, tasted nice!

Soon came across a young woman and a bloke

Ice picks and adze, cutting ice steps for tour folk.

 

Challenged me: “No guide, crampons…” assured them, my goal

Steps melting, asked, “How often d’you do this patrol?”

She,“Every two days.”

Me, “Shame, soon gone with climate change heat.”

She, “Oh, I don’t believe in that climate change bleat.”

 

“How long you been doing this job?”    “About two

years when…”

“How high up the cliff face was the ice back then?”

Pointed out a boulder, ten metres up: “Up there…”

Sudden look, brain joined dots, aware, left her to stare…

 

Postscript (10yrs later):

Told this yarn to nice young Teacher from NZ

“Hike there now, no glacier to even see,” she said

“The small scrap left only accessed by helicopter.”

Sadly my prediction to the anti-change adopter.

 

 

            The far queue IQ

Time cures youth with aging

Immaturity’s just a noun

Ignorance may be educated

Drunkenness sobered down

But stupid lasts forever

Dumb legacies of a clown

Those who just grow older

Induce a scornful frown.

 

 

                                                 Manhandled 

He: well-toned, tattooed, wearing only dick-stickers, phone in hand

Followed by young son and daughter, dick-stickers and bikini, tanned

Followed by Mum, dark Chador, both arms full: towels, beach paraphernalia

Got me wondering: patriarchy, religion, new generation: continued or failure?

 

The Western perception, democracy-enabled, progressive but hand-braked

Fighting Homophobia, sexism, gender-inequality, sincere or grudgingly faked

Espousing, enforcing by colonialism, capitalism, legislation or confected war

And Christian religions, denominations supplanting cultures there before.

 

But hang on! With most of the World’s sovereign population ruled by fears

Community and/or religious-based patrilineal controlling-group seers

With executions, prison for protesting gender inequality and women’s clothing

To the West’s bilateral nuclear family kinship system’s disgust and loathing.

 

But the West, enabling Christian private school systems designed to perpetuate

Patrilineal ideologies, by grooming, indoctrinating, supplies of future reprobate

To ensure wealth, privilege and power stays in the hands of the existing elites

Inequity, inequality, capitalism’s exploitation politically disguised as Christian beliefs.

 

With seventy-five percent of UN votes thus anti-Western culture and values

Collective non-Western moral conservatism, guided by non-Christian salutes

While right-wing ‘Christian’ zealots, campaigning to enslave Western ‘democracy’

Sexist, conservative male mindsets: the unified path to next World war’s kleptocracy.

 

 

                                Boys, bits n pieces

Rebuilding an engine, old Landrover, for an old mate

Laying in pieces, a long forlorn dusty, rusty wait

Re-bored block, ground crank, new pistons over-size

Shaved head, ground valves and valve seats: wise.

 

So fitted the crankshaft, new bearings, tensioned caps

Rear main seal, with sealant for potential leaky gaps

Gudgeons joined pistons to con rods, then ready

To insert ringed pistons, new big-end bearings, steady.

 

Rotated the crank and pistons to check if all good

Too tight! Too much friction, not as free as it should

So strip it down to locate the hidden problem

Wrong rear main bearing supplied, “Sod them!”

 

So ground off the bearing edge for journal clearance

Re-assembled, all good, so camshaft-sprocket coherence

Then guides and push-rods before the engine head

Head bolts tensioned, in order, for new gasket to bed.

 

Timing chain and tensioner, synchronised positions:

Crank, camshaft drive, and lobes, valves pre-ignitions

Then distributor and oil pump, covered by the sump

Intake and exhaust manifolds and the fuel pump.

 

Front pulley, water pump, timing cover and fan

At other end, flywheel, clutch in bellhousing flan

Alternator, carbie, rocker cover and dipstick

Then mate it to gearbox, alignment’s tricky trick.

 

All these parts! Designer smarts, steels and other alloys

Cast, machined to exact tolerances all in counterpoise

End result: eighty percent of fuel to heat, light and noise

And servicing costs, worn parts and polluting boys’ toys.

 

So bring on electric vehicles, so simple by comparison

No gearbox, clutch or cooling system plus much more to shun

No noise, no fossil Carbon, but heaps of torque and grunt

Fuel cells with Hydrogen, give expensive servicing the punt!

 

Epilogue:

24volts, disconnect ignition, remove plugs, to crank it over

All good, replace plugs/ignition, so started the tight motor

Timing light on timing marks to tune the ignition

Whoosh/gush of coolant, new welch plug blew position!!

 

 

                                     Red luft balloons

At Steep Point, WA, most westerly place of mainland Oz

Superfecta to complete, Cape York, Wilson’s Promontory

Cape Byron, the cardinal points, and a photo because

It’s tradition, and proof, to back up this true story.

 

Inky Indian Ocean,  swell-crashed cliffs, blue sky backdrop

But wait! “What the…?” Red balloons, all four of them

Weaving, bobbing, maintained height. Suspended? Floatation strop?

Photo first, drive round cliff, to solve mystery, phenomenon problem.

 

Drive round corner, blokes camped near cliff-top, beers, waving

“Come in!” So do a U-ee, drive into camp, they all turn away

One bloke says, “Thought you were two sheilas, us misbehaving.”

“From Perth, been here a week, no fish, just sharks, last Tuesday.”

 

Impressive camp: generator, hammer-drilled rock bolts for tent pegs

In limestone, with wind forty knots, offshore in direction

Good for balloon fishing, perilous for tents and drunk legs

So concreted pipes, rod-holders, reel and safety harness, each cliff-top section.

 

Standing at cliff edge, rod-lines-tethered helium balloons floating offshore

With dropper line, down forty metres to sea-surface, gang-hooked bait

Skipping, with wind changes, lines, balloons, adjusted, obey physics’ law

Patience, anticipation; alluring, tempting fish to their barbed fate.

 

Bloke chatting, face to me, back to rods, others in camp drinking beer

Suddenly, a rod smashed, I say, “You’ve got a fish on.”

He looks around, but rod is back up: “Nah, nothing here.”

Turns back, rod smashed again, I say, “A fish, I’ll bet, no con!”

 

Looks round again, rod is back up again, balloon steady

I say, “You turn round, we’ll both watch together!”

No sooner done, rod bows again, he yells, “Fish on, Freddy!”

Well… Blokes toss full beers, come running full tether.

 

Wide-eyed I watch, a rifleman prostrate on rocks, shoots all balloons out

Another, clipped into big-game and safety harness, pumping the fish

Another, large rope, lowers multi-gaff hook clipped to line with a shout

The fish pulled to cliff-edge, gaffed, hauled up, “don’t lose it” the silent wish.

 

A two-metre mackerel, “aboard” at last

Cheers, high fives, their first fish in a week

Me, the hero, long-haired “sheila”, a lucky blast

Beers all round, photos with me, and the fish so sleek.

                

                                        

                                             Chokos

The weathered house we rented had a huge old Peach tree

It hosted a rampant Choko vine, bulk Chokos picked for free

Each evening at  dinner, the boiled Choko, nightly I’d gag

Age seven, couldn’t eat ‘em, my sorry plate they’d lag.

 

Ten pm, not allowed to leave, everyone else in bed

Made to sit, there or eat them, dinner table instead

Then one night, old man home, from the pub pissed

Dragged me out, lump-of-wood thrashed, as his anger hissed.

 

Flogged me ‘til my arse bled, I slunk off then to bed

No Mum checked on me, cried self to sleep’s bloodshed.

Woke up, blood-glued to sheets, for the morning’s dread

To school, painful plank timber seat, wiped blood-stain red.

 

Nothing said, no apology, like it never happened

Still never ate Chokos, my stubborn resolve maddened.

One of many childhood floggings, including a king hit

From behind, busted my ear drum, lifelong Tinnitus remit.

 

When sixteen: “Go earn some money, watermelon picking!”

Dropped me off, middle of nowhere, school bus shelter sitting

No farm house, people, cars seen, no food or water to drink

He never came back to pick me up, not knowing what to think

 

Deserted or abandoned, like some stray, wayward pup?

Or punished, given a scare, or a controlling threat heads-up?

Mid-afternoon walked to the highway, hitched back to city brink

Some kindly Indigenous blokes, a more fatherly transient link.

 

Studying at home for Senior matric exams for the next day

Old man, “That’s enough study!” turns lights off straight away

Me: turn on, he: turn off, ‘til he rips fuses from the meter box

Same each night, did my best, per the two-hour exam clocks.

 

So finished school, ran away, new town to make my own way

Decades later, old man’s last days, sat bedside for a day

He started to say something, an apology? but refrained

Shrugged his shoulders, couldn’t do it, never saw him again.

 

And still today I marvel, at blokes whose father’s passing

Brings mourning, grief and sorrow, lost love everlasting

So sad but uplifting, their memories treasured, enduring

Their start in life amazing, normal and securing….

 

 

                   Hidden heredity

How does a spider, via a fertilized egg

Pass on to offspring, how to spin a unique web?

No tuition, parental guidance, just innate skill

Programmed behaviour, triggered, not free will.

 

The female preying mantis does it with ease

And many spiders submit to their squeeze

The males lured to fertilize her eggs

Genetically driven, he literally begs.

 

With sperm transfer barely begun

The doomed male’s race is almost done

As the female starts to eat him alive

Vital protein for her eggs to survive.

 

With humans, our behaviour is nearly all learned

Or so say the experts, academic quals earned

And current theory accepted, learning equals memory

New synapses, axons myelinated, an instant recall directory.

 

But things confound, neuron-based memory theory

Like the Indian orphan baby, fostered, revealed recall eerie

New city, new family, no relation, surprised to hear

Him recite his family tree, correct names, an innate seer.

 

Amazon Indigenous shamans, have vast botanical knowledge

Unlearned, not passed on pedagogically, no training college

Ayahuasca: first vine leaves, then dimethyl tryptamine, hallucinations

Triggers come dawn, new botanical nous, unhitherto realisations.

 

Organ transplant recipients have long reported after

New knowledge, sensations, feelings, ascribed to the donor’s character

Parents, grandparents see behaviours, insights, beyond their years

In their kids. Bewilderment: ‘Not prompted by me nor their peers!’

 

A few years ago, some scientists arbitrarily assigned binary code

To the four nucleotides, the basis of all heredity, of DNA’s lode

Using standard polymerase chain reactor technology they converted

A whole ebook, complete with images, into chromosomes, DNA subverted

 

Each chapter a chromosome, in a test tube for two weeks left

The sequences then translated back, to text, no hopes bereft

When every chapter reappeared with just five minor errors

New insights, potential, unleashed by these triumph sharers.

 

Subsequent calculations showed all human knowledge and data

Thus converted, could be stored in mere grams of DNA, pro-rata

So by now I’m curious, thinking, extrapolating, postulating

Our memory’s not neuronal, but DNA-based, hereditary awakening awaiting…

 

 

                             Pourquoi?

Why do we misuse such a clever brain?

Why treat nature, the planet with disdain?

Why do undeserveds get so much acclaim?

Why do we believe things whose truth not a grain?

Why does god’s will make people insane?

 

Why can’t people see, political will’s all feign?

Why does concern, compassion so quickly wane?

Why are we obsessed with the completely inane?

Why do suckers, rich people’s wars, take all the pain?

Why do such liars, recidivists, their trust maintain?

 

Why are innocent kids society’s bloodstain?

why are decent people screwed over in the main?

Why do crooked CEO’s never have to explain?

Why are society’s problems so blindingly plain?

Why did Leonard Cohen never get to reign?

 

Why is the universe’s origin so arcane?

Why are we surprised at each new virus strain?

Why is there advantage in being so vain?

Why do we accept the place of those on the gravy train?

Why is revolution the start of the next campaign?

 

Why is decency so damned hard to sustain?

Why are whistleblowers forced to refrain?

Why do unimportant things burst the splenetic vein?

Why do modern war crimes not lead to arraign?

Why is the question not spat back: no, you please explain?

 

Why do hypocrites exposed, blatantly remain?

Why does ‘progress’ create the planet’s casualty moraine?

Why is porn humanity’s biggest eyestrain?

Why do we think, the status quo will, the planet maintain?

Why are we ruled by the testosterone daisy chain?

 

Why will humanity perish, while drinking champagne?

Why did life’s progenitor choose the cell membrane?

Why is people’s greed nature’s Lindane?

Why are pretenders perceived as cool, urbane?

Why is intelligent design the cause of migraine?

 

Why so many ‘christians’  from goodness refrain?

Why does an imaginary friend so easily enchain?

Why is truth elusive, hard to ascertain?

Why does history repeat, again and again?

Why is joy, not money, the best capital gain?

 

Why is trashing our planet not seen as profane?

Why are empathy, caring, morals now so on the wane?

Why do beliefs run rampant, over facts’ domain?

Why do people desist, then loudly complain?

Why are humans so, despicably inhumane?

 

Chorus:

Why? why? The little kids ask why?

Sigh. Oh my, it’s who cares, not why.

 

 

                                             Let it R.I.P?

Not just your average normal virus is Covid nineteen

No-one knows, where it’s going or where it’s been

But simple things gleaned, observations and research

Help prevention, elimination, to knock it off its perch.

 

Just one micro-aerosol, sized one fifth of a blood cell breathed in

You’re infected, cells invaded, for rapid reproduction to begin

Within two days (no symptoms yet) you’re shedding virus, infective

By day four, symptoms maybe or not, your viral load MAY test positive.

 

Unlike others, Covid virus invades every system and organ in your body

Blood, brain, even testes: impotent, no libido and/or sterile waddy?

As it moves through incubation, symptomatic for average two weeks

Then inflammatory, multi-system damage to tail off at twelve weeks.

 

Either way, even asymptomatic, damage is done to your immunity

To new strains of Covid, other diseases, with random impunity

So vaccines help, less virus load, less symptoms in the sickly phase

But they only last months, so booster needed, with new variant plays.

 

It’s days of infection, not severity of symptoms that predicts Long covid

So vaccinations help heaps, the virus load incubation curve less turgid

As Long Covid symptoms develop up to one year after infection

During which time, a new variant infection with even lower protection?

 

Now a virus that sheds, is load-infective two days before seen sickness

Means vaccines, though protective, become selective agents propitious

Willing mutations to become resistant, to the vaccines themselves

New strains, repeat infections, our immune protections’ empty shelves.

 

So, Long Covid: tissue damage, persistent, or autoimmune attacks after

By acute or asymptomatic, or appear post infection months later

Eg. brain syncytia fog: unable to read, comprehend do mental tasks

Or fatigue/exhaustion: brushing teeth is like Everest sans O₂ masks.

 

Or blood cell micro-clots, and inflammatory micro-tears in your capillaries

Shutting down function, in myriad essential systems and organ ancillaries

Bad luck! Either way you won’t keep a job. No work, no pay, no future way

Vaccines won’t prevent Covid or Long Covid, but will stay a hospital stay.

 

And Covid hides, forming Syncytia and jumps cell to cell, invisible, evasive

All the while destroying B/T cells, immune self-protection less persuasive

Immune recovery only STARTS five months after the infection founded

One hundred risks: Long Covid, comorbidities, brain/heart damage compounded.

 

Data shows Covid results in more heart problems, with higher risks of and to all

Arrhythmias, Atrial Fibrillation, stroke, lung clots, failure and attack’s dire call

Especially in smokers, diabetics, kidney disease and other pre-conditions

But also in healthy, fit, non-obese and no heart or risk-factor dispositions.

 

Worst I’ve read, for more than one year, a US woman, just thirty something

Ninety minutes per day power walker, then exhausted bed-ridden weakling

Brain fog reading loss, severe foot pain like walking on broken glass strife

No sleep, pain like a mobile on vibrate in her chest: she took her own life.

 

Eighty percent of those infected, get one or more Long Covid symptoms

Nearly ALL infections release mutated variants, most mild, rare bad victims

Each new mutant gets genetically closer to a lethal strain, vaccine or not

So wear a mask, quarantine, ignore self-serving popular opinions’ greedy plot.

 

My Vagus nerve, unsupervised, 24/7, controls my heart, lungs and gut

Don’t want it damaged, same as my vigilant immune system, but

If so, the constant surveillance, destruction of new cancer cells gone

Uncertain future, don’t believe the ‘ It’s mild, get it, get over it’ con.

 

 

                               Dented

Everything these days is unprecedented

Bushfires, floods, Giga-bytes, all documented

Fashion, looks, wealth: all complimented

Atypical, plain, reliable: so lamented

Empathy, morals derailed, disoriented

Lies, conspiracies, motives invented

Despot leaders with minions demented

Minorities, refugees, by racists resented

Photo-op Ministers by flags ornamented

Taxes, enabled, by loopholes circumvented

Whistle-blowers, Reports: redacted, compartmented

Distractions as cover-ups, straight-faced presented

Statistics, indices, National Accounts misrepresented

Insiders: connections, dirt files, silence cemented

Crises, printed money, elites’ wealth augmented

Wage earners, oldies, the poor malcontented

Fossil fuel industries, taxpayer supplemented

Climate change, extinctions, ecocide unrepented

Nil-tender contracts: donor-cronies alimented

Scandals, rorts, corruption: LNP shit-scented

The emperors of lies and spin ungarmented

Honest, caring folk, by cheating cons tormented

Loathing fermented, unassented anger vented

Voters decremented for those unprevented?

Won’t hold my breath ‘til that’s implemented…

 

 

                      The shirt shirk

Staying at our place, a nice young fella

Some actions, revealing, the real story teller

New girl to impress: ‘Can I iron my shirt?’

Showed him where, his ironing skills to flirt.

 

After ten minutes, no result, still there

Went to look, iron in hand, dumbfounded stare

Twenty one years, (his mum) never ironed himself

Taught my kids: do naught they can do, for themself.

 

Else pandered, spoiled, can’t/won’t help themselves

Adults, to relationships, they bring empty shelves

Teach kids to see, care, clean up their own mess

Consequences later, divorce, no life-long redress.

 

Show me a useless, lazy, (chauvinist?) today

I’ll show you a parent who made him that way

Then one day paired up with their significant other

Marriage a licence, to root a new younger mother.

 

 

 

 Real life after death

All those leaves, and multi-limbed trunk

Macadamia’s growth form’s fate self-sunk

Cyclonic winds blew it, arse-over-head

But its life not in vain, now that it’s dead

Trunk inverted, carved feet on the ground

Other bits n pieces, useful, hanging around.

 

 

                                Covid dreamin’

Reminiscing recount: my youth-job at an abattoir

Subconscious brain response: my slumbers noir

Got my Moderna Covid booster

REM-sleep dreaming like I’m used ta:

 

~…I’m at my beach house, for Xmas feast

Had slaughtered and butchered a feral beast

Came home after a couple of drinks

The fridge side covered, by absconded meat ginks

Amoeboid steaks had escaped the door seal

Like bloody fridge magnets, moving, unreal!

Opened the fridge to giant macrophages queer

Jokingly said, “One of ‘em’s opened a beer!”

Snatched it roughly off the bottle’s crown

Lid still held while it sucked beer down!…~

 

Four a.m. woke me, to reality’s fright

Slight sinus headache, jab shoulder plight

Gold Coast mansion and grey dawn’s creep

Better write this down before back to sleep…

 

 

                                         The final cut

Years ago, as memories go, a mate and I and his girlfriend

Decided to find, our fortunes mined, for sapphire, our days to spend

As a dirt-poor student, own welfare impudent, I’d ventured to sleep on the ground

When elderly residents, generously provident, gave veranda space unbound.

 

Lo the dawn, prospects forlorn, at the thought of a stockman’s breakfast

A spit, a piss, and naught to miss, with cursory glance-around repast

Hi ho! Hi ho! To work we go, with shovel, pick and sieve

We scoured, we toiled, our efforts foiled, as nature failed to give.

 

Return to “camp,” with hurricane lamp, our “neighbours” sprung a surprise

A dinner proffered, gratitude offered, their life story: we sipped their apprise

But their biggest lament, unemployment, his job, school bus driver deposed

When we asked why, his sad reply, the school teacher’s left, school’s closed.

 

Of teacher we inquired, of what conspired, to make her leave so early

With school year just started, the reason departed, was bush lore hurly burly

An eager city girl, arrived to a sudden whirl, of country dinners nightly

Each station homestead, filled her head, stories of dread, big spiders, snakes unsightly.

 

School’s first day, she made her way, to the toilet, first recess

With piercing scream, poor girl was seen, to run in state of undress

Across the road, to workers bowed, with shovel, tar, plate packer

“Help! Help!” they heard her yelp, “A snake has bitten my clacker!”

 

With earnest renown, they lay her down, her privates eagerly scanned

And sure enough, all red and rough, two puncture marks did stand

So calloused hand, at urgent command, with knife proceeded to cut

To cause to bleed, the poison to cede, from her delicate pale butt.

 

Then one thinking man, with incisive plan, to the toilet, he went to seek

The snake’s identity, venom’s propensity, medical aid’s critique

To his surprise, then able to surmise, the poor girl’s probable fate

Subconscious mind, snake stories defined, her horror to pre-date.

 

School closed for summer, no flushing comer, the toilet bowl dried up

Then entered girl, in one smooth twirl, close door, skirt up, undies down, back up

Then on the throne, realised groan, at snake bite’s instant pain

Not seen but felt, new nest it dwelt, a chook! defends its domain.

 

So obviously shamed, her butt inflamed, and seen by all and sundry

Her self esteem whacked, her bags all packed, her future seeming tawdry

Understandably upset, needs unmet, no comfort with locals’ pity

No one could blame, nor seek to shame, when she went back to the city.

 

 

                                           Two black Crows

Two black crows sitting on a wire

One named Henry, the other Josiah

Hot to the touch this thin new perch

Strung between poles, metal, not birch

Erected by white men, what can it mean?

Nothing like black men, for centuries seen

Mouths spout white spray, on finger-spread hands

Pressed against rocks, once which were sands.

 

“Aark, Aark! Aark, Aark!” The crow’s melancholy lament

Or so it seems, to the human ear rent

With this sound so stark, but with obvious nuance

What can it mean; is it scold, scorn or romance?

Perhaps a rendition, with confidence spent

In a landscape unchanged, and familiar scent

Of a past, present, future with sameness and surety

Life would be dull, with no humans for scrutiny.

 

Two black crows sitting on a wire

Wings defy gravity,  perched up higher

Heads cocked lop-sided and fixed glance askew

Humans to ponder, strange marks on paper, pencils do

They enter the building, where staccato clicks

From morse key and reader, whose aim is to fix.

The tyranny of distance and lonely of heart

The rest of the white world, of which they are part.

 

 

But the crows have no notion, that pulsed electricity

Conveys under-foot, invisibly, such succinct explicity

And be as they may, words of hope and  importance

Of love, ambition and the cold world of finance

They betray no warnings of grave  circumstance

That there is with nature, no second chance

The foreboding future, dulled by curiosity

The culling of nature, with no reciprocity.

 

Two black crows sitting on a wire

Parallel to it, an identical sire

Whose purpose as  metal pair, enables voice

To race at speed, at time, place of choice

Its senders not sighted, in rambling sheds, houses

Seen for miles, no trees, just fields, farmers, spouses

And kids, playing here, there, pitch lethal stones

With shanghais, knock crows, off wiry thin thrones.

 

Two black crows sitting anywhere but on wire

Not by choice, nor lack of desire

But simple, obvious absence, abundantly matched

By fields supplanted, spanned roofs, tiled not thatched

From which emanates the silent fog of radio waves

Whose importance dictates how everyone behaves

Even the crows, now nothing to fear, humans seldom seen

In cooled comfort, with internet and TV, talking has been

Removed from the wire, replaced, by magnetic quick fog

White noise not heard, even by, the barking “guard” dog.

 

But real noise there is in the early morn

When the new dawn’s peace is suddenly torn:

“Aark, Aark! Aark, Aark!” provokes angry retort

“Get outta here, let me sleep, as my head is fraught

With hangover and headache, and besides it’s Sunday

A day of sleep-ins, and preparedness for Monday!”

But the call of the crows is no malicious plot

It’s a cry of despair for the ignorant human lot.

 

“Look at the damage in your new way of life

Is the greed worth the stress, disconnect and strife?

What of the future, no land of milk and honey

Will white men realise, you can’t eat money?”

But humans ignore, the calls with apathy

Or reply with scorn, born of psychopathy

“We must sustain growth and strength of economy!”

Sadly for all, it’s not the right homily.

 

Two black crows sitting on abandoned wire

Discussing the loss, of once was shire

Up high no longer but safe on old fence

Humans have gone, no longer hence

History repeating, another civilisation lost

Humans don’t learn, that it’s nature’s cost.

 

 

                                         Covid: the interview

She: “So, Covid, a global pandemic. Where did you come from?”

It: “Well, that’s commercial in-confidence. I can’t drop that bomb.”

 

She: “And why do you cause severe illness, even kill some?”

It: “That’s a design fault. Killing clients is just plain dumb.”

 

She: “Well if so, what’s your aim, your future plan?”

It: “More strains by mutation: more infectious, less lethal Anne.”

 

She: “How do you rate our Health and Prime Ministers’ fight against you?”

It: “Ha! A push over! Them and the stooges they appointed too.”

 

She: “What do you mean, how so? The media reports otherwise.”

It: “They talked about doonas, ignored me, ‘Go the footy, beers n pies!’

 

She: “But they got their act together when infections took off.”

It: “Lol! State Premiers saved their arse, ‘cept for one rolled Gold toff.

The Feds were all talk: ‘It’s not a race!’ Used me for political gain.

Vaccines, quarantine, incompetence, and Gladys’ negligent disdain.”

 

She: “So what’re your thoughts on anti-vaxers and freedom fighters?”

It: “My best allies, with LNP dog-whistlers and slimy vote-con fire lighters!”

 

She: “It’s been frank but not a pleasure Covid. Thanks for your time.”

It: “Fuck with Nature’s systems? Fateful Humans’ greedy paradigm…”

 

 

            Sort’a  ’bout water

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Peaceful, serene, random order

Even old shells, a restful boarder

But Nature’s message, there to read

Peril to ignore, with human greed.

Challenging times, stormy weather

One good omen: a lone black feather

Spiritual sign of faith and trust

Hope, solutions, not forlorn dust.

The entry points, Nature’s plughole

Provident rains, gravity’s goal

Seeping down through porous rock

To fill Artesian’s timeless sock.

Trees: rainmakers, deep roots suck

Groundwater, minerals, make yer own luck

Evapotranspiration, Nature’s rain solution

And Boabs, Bottle trees, storage execution.

And timeless geology, weathered morphology

Allowing soakage for flood-rain meteorology

Channel Country seeping towards Lake Eyre

Refilling the basin, the Artesian to share.

Each bore uncapped, waste water lost

A dam, climate change, replenishment cost

Fracking, gas production, pollution with no care

Destroy at your peril, greedy humans beware…

 

 

                        Closing the gap

(… the easy, less important one)

Once things were joined, aligned with an overlap

Then the plastics industry discovered , invented THE GAP

Unsightly, evil, leaking air, water, even your secrets!

So off to the hardware, a wall of gap sealants.

 

Sealants for this, sealants for that job

Find the right one to seal the thing-a-me-bob

No gap too big, no “too hard” complaint

How did we cope, before half-inch paint?

 

 

                 Deserted, ’til next time…

Driving near Cape Peron, deserted sheep station

Sandy track, tricky, near beach, sudden distraction

A scarecrow man, sitting, mid-air on tree tops

No… sitting atop marquee, on beach, revealed past copse.

 

Deserted marquee, white 4WD, six tinnies beached

Eight trawlers anchored, miles from nowhere, not a soul breeched

Made camp, calm sea, launched tinnie, five K’s up the coast

Found reef, fish certain catch, such remote outpost.

 

No sooner baited, white caps, ferocious breeze

Up anchor, bash back to camp, safety unease

Idyllic beach, now one metre waves wop onto shore

Sure to be pooped, so reversing in, over rubbley reef, calm before.

 

Yelled to wife, “Hop out, help me pull boat, once ashore!”

Looked around, she’s gone! Just two hands on bow I saw

Only heard, “Hop out…” Now up/down, hanging on bow

Yelled over surf, “Keep yer feet up, stone fish will endow.”

 

Now white knuckles, and panicked toes, showing at sharp end

Up/down dance, as the one-metre waves, I continued to fend

And thus head to sea, we managed , dry land to reach

Motor up, jump ashore, drowned rat and all, the tinnie to beach.

 

Then safe, dry in camp, a beer to contemplate

Same scene, deserted marquee, trawlers, intrigue conflate

And suddenly, a bloke appears, from tent, a relieving piss

Wind blew out tent side, mass of bodies inside, hidden bliss.

 

Soon after, another bloke launched a tinnie

Driving out to trawler, in the rough wind-swept sea

When it flipped, bloke clinging to hull upturned

Me, only witness, otherwise concerned.

 

About to raise alarm , when a would-be pisser appeared

Saw tinnie drifting seaward, yelled, help volunteered

New tinnie towed ashore wreck, way down the beach

Flipped it as well, when almost in reach.

 

So 4WD drove down to tow them out

Swam rope out, as landlubbers pointed, continued to shout

Idiots bogged it, on incoming tide

Thought morons will ask me to rescue their pride.

 

They managed to push it, much to my relief

Then back to ‘normal,’ deserted, tent-bound aperitif

And twilight revealed, it all became clear

Young women, prostitutes, work break, on beach strolled near.

 

They played ’til late, then early at daybreak

Trawlers slipped moorings, riddled with headache

Girls drove out, marquee closed, waiting, same deserted hue

Wives, girlfriends oblivious, to the secret rendezvous.

 

P.S. On the track to Peron, many Birridas to be found

Flat, pale, crusty, six to hundred metres across, mostly round

Don’t drive on them, you’ll break through, bog, get stuck

And lose your vehicle, drowned in calcium sulfate muck.

 

 

               Roulette before, during, not after

Back to the Doctor for the result of her genome test

As maybe organ donor, for her son she wouldn’t rest

Incredulous, then angry, when Doctor told her gently

DNA shows you’re not the mother of your sons, apparently.

 

The test, based on a blood sample, whose embryonic origin

Is mesodermal, same as muscle, but by comparison

Skin, hair, nerves and teeth, formed from ectoderm

Relevance, revealed by persistence, memoirs of pregnancy’s term.

 

She ordered new tests, based on skin and hair cells

The conflicting results astounded, rang science alarm bells

‘Cos genetically, she was two people, a human chimera

To embryology, uterine gestation, a new knowledge era.

 

Most women ovulate, conceive around the fourteenth cycle day

Basis of contraception’s abstinence method, the age-old way

But a proportion of women in a cycle, regularly ovulate twice

And some, in a cycle, days apart, release an ovum thrice.

 

Multiple pregnancies, same cycles, producing non-identical twins

If implanted close together, embryos, placentas, identities merge skins

Only one baby born, the secret sworn, ’til something goes awry

Most commonly women, auto-immune disease cause underlie?

 

The miracle of new life, a complex and perilous journey

But destiny’s set long before the maternity ward gurney

In fact, with both parents, long before conception, implantation

Epigenetic change, induced by lifestyle choice, thwarting expectation.

 

So women for example, in the three months before getting pregnant

Not eating fruit and veg, switch genes on, or make dormant

Their daughters and grand-daughters, life-long impositions

Predisposed obesity, diabetes, and vascular disease conditions.

 

Likewise angry men, sons born with amygdalae enlarged

And smokers’ sons with physiology impaired, guilty as charged

So set your own, healthy house, habits not hard

Give kids the best chance in life, no genetic prison guard.

 

                                                  Old

‘How old is it?’ Common question. ‘Just curious.’

The answer triggers judgements, thoughts not spurious

Valued, not valued, ambivalence in between

Old people, for example, sighted but unseen.

 

Things transition, costly to priceless with age

Tempered by their place on the rarity gauge

Or owner’s position and celebrity status

Or chance re-discovery from a long-lost hiatus.

 

Most things old, obsolete, valueless

Disposed of, unless possessing a nostalgic bless

Or in mint condition, or famous, museum bound

History preserved, for the obscure, common, uncrowned.

 

Old things of value, must prove their provenance

With fakes, frauds, problems with governance

Or old wine, found corked when sampled, worthless

Or of such quality or purpose, considered ageless!

 

Cars depreciate, dilapidate to abandonment

Rusty wrecks rescued, restored, with lavished intent

Resprayed, original colours, paraded with pride

High value, loved, cared for, death denied.

 

Old societies sheltered, and fed the aged

Experience, wisdom, cures, securely caged

Older people now, regarded, dismissed as too old

Respect, endearment, until really old, tightly controlled.

 

 

                   Ugly as a hatful

Funny how some things stick in your head

Something you saw, someone said

Tucked away somewhere, seemingly gone

Then suddenly triggered, memory on song.

 

Early primary school, about age eight

Morning recess, near port rack, line up, wait!

Choking foul stench, teacher found where at

Billy Bock, on school bus, had shat in his hat.

 

Climbing off roof, onto ladder, eight metres high

Cursed baggy shorts’ leg, over ladder rail, caught my thigh

“Bloody baggy Billy Bock shorts,” (he always wore)

A hatful of turds triggered, as I quietly swore.

 

 

               Nurse mischief

Mate playing footy broke his leg badly

Hospital nurse answered his questions gladly

 

‘What’s that operation where tonsils are removed?’

‘They do a tonsillectomy, if that’s the problem proved.’

 

‘Yeah, so what’s it called with the appendix taken out?’

‘An appendisectomy, perforation expected, no doubt.’

 

‘And the one where men are sterilized?’

‘Vasectomy, the vas deferens are excised.’

 

‘So what’s the one that turns a woman to a man?’

‘Oh… I don’know when that operation began…’

 

‘Well they tell me it’s called an addadictomy…’

‘Can’t recall that one, but I’m sure it’ll come back to me.’

 

 

                             D world

In D world today there’s change apace

Quiet, unnoticed this exponential race

‘Til suddenly it’s here, all over the place

Irreversible, good and bad, in your face.

 

Digitisation, everything now codified

Binary, barcodes, blockchain, QR tied

Photos, books, music, mass communication

Our lives archived, Cloud-based supplication.

 

Deception’s side effect, we take it for granted

Anytime, anywhere, everything’s supplanted

By silicon chips, miniaturised, unseen, hidden

Newest must-haves, dumped old tech’s midden.

 

Dematerialisation, things we used to buy

Some for function, prestige or not ponder why

CDs, DVDs, camera, calculator, watch and maps

Even your TV, now pocket smartphone Apps.

 

Demonetising, with EFT, crypto, Paypal and credit

No cash, but ‘secret’ payment by financial edit

Cheap tech, ‘free’ Apps do whatever you want

Your private data, adverts, your payment font.

 

Disruption’s march, jobs, industries gone

Robotics, automation, technology’s song

Cheaper, more effective and transformative

Get with it or bust, the new brutal normative.

 

Disintermediation, the middle man gone

Agencies, lawyers, fees, contracts long

As blockchain, cryptos, Non Fungible Tokens

Peer to peer transactions for digital wokens.

 

DeFi and dApps, the next internet phase

Finance minus banks, crypto platforms erase

And Google, Fakebook and other data miners

Blockchain dApps, anonymous secure signers.

 

Democracy’s donor or debilitating drone?

Digital access, empowering tech for the poor and alone

But politics, donor-cronies and powerful elites

Fake news, social media, easier for cheats.

 

And the D world denaturing as species retreat

Degraded, denuded as depredates deplete

Divisive dissemblers drive the dissonant drawcard

Displacement, disease, and destruction disregard.

 

 

                       Oh… that?

Good times, sad times, yesteryear

Old love’s newness brings a tear

Should’a, could’a, didn’t, recalled regret

Chance lapsed, denied, never to forget.

 

Wondering what would’a, hindsight’s re-run

Satisfied or better life, or elusive fun?

Old paint, faded photos, flyspots on a wall

Memories retreating, reminiscing’s trawl.

 

 

                  Nitmuluk sailing club

Nitmuluk, Katherine River, we hired an open canoe

Paddled up, forded rapids, through the third gorge’s rusty hue

Snorkeled, freshwater crocs, turtles, a barra swam up to my face

Swam in side waterfall, climbed escarpment, interesting scenic place.

 

The wind always blowing, downstream flowing, the gorge’s snaking track

Found some old rope in flood debris, time to head on back

Broke three sticks, a mast and two cross-arms, so as to configure

A beach towel sail and two sheet ropes, Nitmuluk’s first square rigger!

 

Wife up for’ard, feet to hold mast foot, sheets to position sail

Me, aft with paddle, a rudder to steer, shipshape hearty and hale

It sailed so well, we passed the other paddlers, the looks upon every face!

With effortless ease, we ran before breeze, our sailing skills to showcase.

 

Two blokes paddling, urgently upstream, came into view late in the day

Changed their course, to pass close by in an inquisitive way

As they passed by, looked at me, “You idiot!” with plain European accent

Heard his mate astern, “We will do that ja?” with envying hopeful assent!

 

 

                    Maaate!

Self-centered, selfish, one of the boys

Grumpy at home with bullying ploys

Anything, everything, always annoys

Denying family of entitled joys.

 

Weekends, nights, whenever it suits

Away, enjoying purchased pursuits

Grogging with sexist, like-minded brutes

Then home expecting a wife with the cutes.

 

Old age, disease, then catches up

Expecting attention like some new pup

No-one cares, on his pity to sup.

Sympathy drained from his now-empty cup.

 

 

                       Pizza delivery

Echidna Chasm, at Bungle Bungle, The Kimberley, WA

Started as a waterfall, monsoon mountain-side display

Over time, eroded its way back, in, nearly a K

One hundred metres, deep but narrow, arms-width today.

 

We sat at the end, at the base, of the thankfully dry waterfall

Thoughts of a horrid death, if there, after a wet season rain squall

Eating our lunch, left-over pizza, camp oven-cooked last night

Then noises, a tour group, young lady soon walked into sight.

 

American girl, intrigued, stopped, looked at me, the pizza, me, postulated

Hands on hips, “Oh my Gaard, that is so sophisticated!”

Thought we’d flown in pizza, nearest town 300k’s

Guess one might think that, with US cultural ways…

 

 

           The waiting room

‘Take a seat and fill this form.’

Gloom-filled seats, waiting room norm

Silent thoughts, staring at the wall

Or drooped heads bored, seeing all.

 

Receptionists clack with keyboard haste

Photocopier hums, spews paper waste

Phone voice thunders, addressing needs

Patients fidget as patience bleeds.

 

Mobile phones to tap and swipe

Clock on the wall, the real slow type

All these people to see one specialist

Same visit time, or consult medalist?

 

 

                     No fitting room

Most folks know the terror of the arachnoleptic fit

Frenzied slapping, face and head, and the odd spit

To remove the spider and its sticky silken thread

After blundering face-first, into cobweb dread.

 

So here’s me on a box, up on plank and trestle

No handholds, just a wall, for a tippy-toe wrestle

To remove a huge wasp nest, on the peak of the eave

Paintscraper pushing, a-cutting, with hope to cleanly cleave.

 

Most came off, one piece, chiselling at the rest

Next thing to my horror, I came off second best

A hand-sized Huntsman spider, parachutes on my face

Eight metres up, blinded swat, I somehow kept my place!

 

 

                 Surprised at Surprise Creek

On a bushtrack shortcut from Lichfield to Daly River

Came across Surprise Creek, literal truth giver

Walked to the top of the first waterfall plateau

Delighted to find a giant namma hole inflow.

 

Perfect four-metre circle, cylinder-like

Smooth vertical sides dropped down out of sight

Donned mask and snorkel, jumped in to look

Stunning clear water, swimming in ‘air’ mistook.

 

The walls adorned with dinner-plate algae, grey-green

The bottom, forty feet down, the likes never seen

Completely covered with spherical ‘drill’ stones

Awaiting the next flood to grind the bedrock’s bones.

 

Back to the surface to wife’s concerned hue

(Despite clear water, I’d disappeared from view)

A young couple, had arrived, just after I’d dived

Conversation awkward, amiss, contrived.

 

After they left, wife clued me in, embarrassed

Newly arriveds, poolside, me below, forgetful, careless

Freed from my pocket, emergency spare floated up

Surprise Creek delivered, a tampon blowup!

 

 

                              Hope

If fear trumps the chance, of some possible reward

Decisions and consequences, thus swayed in life’s accord

So what role plays hope, and its opposite: despair?

An antidote, or purveyor, disappointment to wear?

 

With hope to cling to, comes mind-set, positive thinking

The will to go on, things better, future reward inkling

Despair is banished, subconscious cellar dweller

For now, rays of hope, negative rain’s umbrella.

 

Combine fear and hope, the power to deceive

With promises, undeliverable, no intention, reprieve

False hope believed, deliverance, saviour, no more abuse

After-life, real life, canny con men seduce.

 

When things hoped for, strived for, even feverishly desired

But objective denied or lost, hope dashed, dreams retired

Despair bounds forth, with agony, anger, sadness the toll

Even suicide’s twenty-minute window, threatening mind poll.

 

But the vapours of hope, still there to condense

Re-liquefy, re-focus, the joy of living, life’s recompense

Something, someone, family, friend or stranger

It doesn’t take much. Hope trumps despair’s danger.

 

 

                  Cut on the bias

Clothes, who needs ’em? Well everyone by law

Otherwise traumatised, aroused, by what you saw

Some obsessed, enslaved, with having the ‘right’ look

Some have oodles, versus others with slim bankbook.

 

Some would look good in an old hessian sack

Most of us though, accentuate some drawback

If not real, at least in our insecure perception

Fretting the ‘bad’ stuff revealed by our reflection.

 

Some have real taste, dress sense that’s obvious

Others no clue, appearance mismatched, notorious

Some clothes plain ugly, flattering to none

Some could care less, no race to run.

 

Women, even over-weight, maintain a waist ’til thirty

An advert, I’m available, possess reproductive fecundity

So bare mid-rift, bikini, a point of difference

‘I can, but you’re older’: Gen-Y statement of irreverence.

 

Dumb men though, did quite the opposite

Older, balding? Shave your head, disguise it

Gen-Y’s thought ‘cool, I’ll copy the old fart bit’

Razor blades, cheaper’n ugly pills, (with the odd zit).

 

And the older paunch, youthful shoulder-hip V-shape gone

Fat old apples, to disguise, wore shirts out long

And yeah, you guessed it, the young-uns copied it

Sucked in again, unthinking fashion-wise dim wit.

 

Production, consumption, the fashion status con

Huge effects, on environment, sweat shop slave automaton

While profits, huge mark-ups, go mostly to retailers

Labels, brands, corporate soldiers, mind-tinkering tailors.

 

The influence of men: laws banning women in slacks

‘Cover all but your eyes!’ religious decree, gender tax

A ‘President’ : ‘Women should dress like women in my White House!’

Clothes maketh the man? Girls’ looks a must, to be more than a spouse?

 

 The Inverse Square Law of Nagging

Exploring relationships in my mind

Dynamics, tensions there to find

The inverse square, nagging’s flaw

Theory proposed, I formulated Law.

C = 1 ÷ N²

Where C is the likelihood of compliance

And N is the extent of nagging’s reliance

So the more I’m nagged, the less I do

Twice the nag, one quarter result due..

 

 

             The intervention

“So what’s your problem?” I asked surly Jack

“I don’t have a problem!” he sulkily spat back

“Thirty kids in your class, you’re the only one here

Sent by your teacher, your behaviour: nil endear.”

 

“You have any medical problems, causing your betide?”

“I’ve got ADHD,” he quickly replied

“How do you know that?” I keenly inquired

“I’ve been to the doctor, a certificate supplied.”

 

Said I, “A spectrum disorder.” He: “That’s not what I’ve got”

I explained: One end, real problem, the other end, not,

With every shade, of behaviour in between

Some kids no control, others, not ever seen.

 

But studies have shown, that of all kids diagnosed

Only two percent have, the real problem posed

The rest have bad behaviour, matching, similar

Due to environment, abuse, neglect, parenting in particular.

 

I asked him his thoughts for his future guide

What job, career, and resume required

“I’m gunna be a fireman,” he emphatically said

“I’m pleased, most your age, uncertain instead.”

 

Shrugged shoulders, no answer, a look of defeat

When I asked him how, what to do, what he’d need to beat

Those others, in few years, with whom he’d compete

For the few jobs on offer, he’d feel the heat.

 

His ignorance of resumes, job hunting established

I said,”OK, let’s pretend you’ve been short-listed, lavished

An interview, the questions, what will you tell them,

Of yourself, how your quals match the job, or system?”

 

“What d’ya mean?” My patient entrapment, intuition:

“I’ve done fire training, I know firefighters’ job definition

At a fire, it’s team work, attention, strict work behaviour

Your work mates face danger, you must be alert, a saviour.”

 

“So at interview, will you tell them you’ve got ADHD?

That you can’t concentrate, behave rules, complete tasks, to be

A trusted part of a trusted unit, crack emergency response team?”

“No way!” he cried, to which I said, “Why not? What d’you mean?”

 

“I wouldn’t get the job, if I told them that.”

“So you’d keep it a secret?” “Exactly, kept under my hat.”

“But people know you, now, in the future, and

Referees on your resume, interviewers, may show your hand.

 

“If I were you, and I truly had ADHD

I would make it my business, at all times to be

A person behaved in a manner to hide

All trace of my problem, attract praise and pride.

 

A flicker, a realisation, flashed on his face

He went back to class, my dialogue to his teacher I’d grace

And never again to my office he’d pace

His bad behaviour, now a null space.

 

But another boy sent, (there’s always another)

Soon, the naughty chair, his arse did cover

With serious hearing deficiency, in class equipped

Him: headphone aid, teachers: radio mic conscript.

 

Dialogue revealed a well-intentioned mother

An attention-seeking boy, spoilt by smother

Whose ambition, a “Steve Irwin” animal handler

How can that be, your hearing so obvious to pander?

 

So I told him a story, of a boy’s ADHD

Whose fireman’s career wasn’t to be

Unless… you know the rest; I left his subconscious brain

To join the dots, never to hear of him, ever again…

 

 

            Cave critters

As speleologists, cavers, we were plainly rank amateurs

Make it up as we went, risk entrepreneurs

Exploring blind, sometimes lost, and forgetting turns

Look back, recall the way out, the desperate soon learns.

 

One cave ‘ended,’ progress stopped, by a long crevasse

A steel cable, suspended pulley, haul yer ass across

We had no pulley, a butcher’s hook our only cheap device

Hanging via Swami belt, the friction, no progress suffice.

 

So we used to chimney down the narrow crack

Then walk the cravasse’s guano bottom track

Then, muddy feet, chimney back up at the other side

To enter more caves, branching up, down, far and wide.

 

Flowstones, stalactites and shawls, all sparkley white

Hairy Maries, (cave centipedes), and bats, loom into sight

Our simple Dolphin torches, gave about five hours’ light

And ‘cave breathing’ groaning noises occasionally gave fright.

 

One cave we stumbled upon, surprised at what we saw

Previous visitors, carelessly or otherwise, left peanuts on the floor

Next time they’d sprouted, geotropism, one inch tall

Two weeks later, translucent yellow, knee height one and all.

 

One cave had a thirty-metre, right-angled, tight ‘crawl’ tunnel

Shed helmet, torch etc. slither arms-first down entrance funnel

Your head side-on, push gear ahead, inching, not for the faint-hearted

Return trip same, hours later, stinking, if someone had farted!

 

Another cave’s entry, a metre-wide hole, chimney down forty-metre shaft

To a huge cavern, hundred metres long, five sink holes, very deep draft

Secure our rope, abseil down, then many choices to explore

My only regret, no camera, no photos, in those days, simply too poor.

 

One night (always went at night, warm in winter, cool in summer)

Abseiling down, my long hair caught in the sticht plate: bummer!

Thought: loosen rope, abseil further, pull loosened hair back out

Hair pulled in further, me bent over doubled-up, ‘I’m stuck!’ I shout.

 

Flick torch on, spy a chance, yell to two mates already at the bottom

One climbs other’s shoulders, to reach ledges, relieved to hear, ‘Got ‘im!’

Twenty metres up, I stand on his shoulders, frantically remove my hair

Hours later I prusik back up, at ‘life-saving’ ledges I humbly stare.

 

Two a.m., on my motorbike, cold, making my way back home

Car roars up, on my back wheel, I ‘squirt’ ahead, avoid the hoon syndrome

Car flashes up, prepared for the worst, I spy the POLICE door sign

Pull over, dismount, rapid-fire questions, they take the aggressive line.

 

They, the only car that I’d seen! Me the only vehicle that they’d seen

They’d spotted my caving clobber, backpack, time of night: ‘Where’s HE been?’

Keen interest, asked all about caving, chatted for quite a while

They thought I was a cat burglar, plying my trade with guile.

 

 

                         Nupday

“Want to…?”   “Nup.”

      “Well how about…?”   “Nup.”

             “Would you like to…?”   “Nup.”

                     “Did you like…?”   “Nup.”

                              Every day, in some way

                                      Every day is nup day

                                             Payday, Friday? Anyday soon

                                                    One day, someday, yupday’s tune.

 

 

                 Disdain!

Nanna driving Kelly, then aged three

To the hospital, new brother to see

‘Nanna why don’t you have a baby too?’

‘Nanna’s too old, no longer can do.’

 

Silence for a bit, thoughts carefully laid

‘So why not Mummy’s sister?’ age connection made

‘Babies need a Daddy, no man in her life.’

‘Why not her brother then, she’d be his wife?’

 

‘Girls can’t marry brothers, but stiil need a man.’

‘But what’s the man do, if that is the plan?’

‘He adds a tiny piece, to make a new bubby.’

Quiet contemplation, thoughts now troubley.

 

‘I know a baby grows, in the Mummy’s belly.’

‘But how does it get in there, to grow all swelly?’

‘Well Mummy’s got an egg, waiting there inside,’

‘For the Daddy’s bit, to make it decide.’

 

More ruminations, dreading next to hear

‘How’s the Daddy’s bit get in?’ Realised fear.

‘Umm…’ Confirming with her answer: Nanna’s got the ‘sillies’

Dismissive of her nonsense: ‘Oh Nanna… Willies!’

 

 

             One of many…

He said, she said, here we go again

A moment of truth, every now and then

The scales of justice, tilted by gender

Yet another way, women’s rights surrender.

 

 

            To and from

(with apologies to Bob…)

We turn our face to find the breeze

Caress both cheeks, know direction with ease

We name the wind, by direction it comes

From the East, an Easterly, stirs leaves of gums.

 

We look at a current, to see where it goes

Naming it thus, to where it flows

Certain delivery, known answers to find

Downstream’s deposits, solutions mined.

 

We look to the wind to see what it brings

An ill wind forebodes, a cool breeze sings

The QUESTIONS my friend, are blowin’ in the wind

Choose the wrong answers: our futures to rescind.

 

 

         Evolution’s synthetic revolution

As cultural evolution accelerates and outpaces

Our genetic evolution, barely changed, in stasis

But despite the growing gap, social V imperative

Our daily dealings ruled, by things primitive.

 

Our reptilian brain, paeleolithic, limbic by name

Lurking, surveilling, our best interests the aim

But the threats perceived, subconscious, response

The plains of Africa, hunter nomads, genes thus ensconced.

 

The present-day threats: loneliness, exclusion, postings

The media, new norms, racism, sexism, public roastings

Homophobia, bigotry, all take their toll

Anxiety, stress, mental health, lives lose control.

 

Add the research, funding, evil, technology of war

Robotics, no conscience, terrorism’s festering sore

Only chance for the human race future

Understand, educate people, about human nature.

 

Genetic imperatives, inherent, our subconscious brains

Nothing noticed, recalled, ’til subconscious register of importance reigns

Childhood experience modifies gene predispositions

Education, awareness, the self-help toolbox, for curative transitions.

 

And aiding, even urging this plague of convenience

Technology perpetuating, demand-driven prevenience

Resulting unhappiness, despair and violence

Subconscious feelings, birthed sounds of silence.

 

So dependent on technology, as a species, we’ve become

A cataclism removes the basics? Survival only for some.

Third-world subsistence, old culture to the fore

Climate change potential: extinction or saviour’s door?

 

 

               Major look, ya silly chook

Was out in the boat, driver training this day

Read riot act, students onshore, behaviour: Stay!

Saw one boy running, diving through long grass

Thought when I get back, I’ll kick his arse.

 

Reprimand ready, packing boats to go, I saw him working

A plump red chook, tucked under one arm, smirking

“Caught it in the long grass, Sir, I’m taking it home!”

Said, “I’ll hypnotize it, you can work, it won’t roam.”

 

They thought I was joking, but soon gathered round

Dismayed, chook laid on its back, on the ground

Brought my finger down slowly, between its eyes

No touch, just calm withdrawal, straight, then rise.

 

Repeating this roughly circular, finger-tip motion

A chook will freeze, entranced, without any notion

The restraining hand’s gone, it’ll lay on its back

Hypnotized, ‘til woken by, a sharp noise, clap or whack.

 

Students all pissed themselves, disbelieving gawks

Then I clapped and woke it, took off with squawks

Boys diving, air swings, skinned knees, but re-caught

Most surprised, them or chook? at the lesson taught.

 

 

                  Lady luck

I chance to ponder on what is luck

Is it winning or losing? A rare stray fuck?

Or dodging a bullet in not getting stuck

With a drunk in a bar whose misfortune has struck?

 

Or dodging death in not coming down

With a virus, pandemic mismanaged by a clown?

Or secrets covered up, no talk of the town

Mates in places, no source of renown?

 

A driver who misses a crash by inches

Would reckon good fortune ebbs in pinches

Of thin air by chance, versus intended cinches

His driving now nervous, nuanced by flinches.

 

And those who spout about luck: “Make yer own”

Without crystal ball would surely moan

“Should’a been me, time and place had I known

Was nothing but arse, not deeds they have sown.”

 

So what of chance meeting, or fortunes made

From findings so rare, or some random trade

Is it all destiny, probability decayed

Or simply reward for those unafraid?

 

With humans on Earth, two hundred thou years

From twenty thou ancestors, each of us appears

Had just one died, you wouldn’t be here

To call that luck, no-one can sneer.

 

That were lucky: no broken neck in the ruck

No snotty-nosed kid to say that “You suck”

Maybe I’ll chance it and try for a fuck

No surprise there; it’s just Lady Luck…

 

                   Happiness

“Money can’t buy you happiness, son”

To a boy whose life has just begun

So what to do, on life’s fraught journey

To win the joust, of the joyous tourney?

 

First there’s this brain state’s known location

The LEFT pre-frontal cortex’s mid-gyrus station

Fires up in response, to perceived sensation

Flicks sad RIGHT’s gloom, to the LEFT’s elation.

 

For good brain chemicals, there’s WONDER and AWE

An achievement, nature, something you saw

And AMUSEMENT, nothing so healthy, as a laugh or smile

Or RELIEF, impending doom, elapsed for a while.

 

There’s also EXCITEMENT/NOVELTY and FIERO too

Passing a challenge, winning, a delight for you

CALM PEACEFULNESS, no worries, all needs met

And SENSORY PLEASURES, sight, sound, smell, taste, touch? You bet.

 

But there’s more to the story, in our genes we’re blessed

With NEEDS in-built, to challenge life’s test

SECURITY, safe, stable home, work and rest

INTIMACY, to share thoughts, problems, is best.

 

And the need to GIVE and RECEIVE attention

AUTONOMY, CONTROL over life, not detention

A feeling of CONNECTION to a wider COMMUNITY

MEANING, PURPOSE (goals), SELF-ESTEEM, not impunity.

 

But our genes equip us, with TOOLS and RESOURCES

To help us resist sad, negative forces

CURIOSITY, MEMORY, the ability to FORGET

The means to FOCUS, PROBLEM-SOLVE, and yet,

 

IMAGINE, know METAPHORS, EMPATHISE and CONNECT

Be RESILIENT, SELF-AWARE (react to, how others, I affect)

And to integrate all this, on a routine basis

Both RATIONAL and EMOTIONAL brain in stasis.

 

Happiness is contagious, misery: own company

Don’t measure success, by possessions or money

But experience of purpose, consequence for others

Make friends, hobbies, helping others, your chosen druthers.

 

Consciousness dwells most, in the present, reality

Ruminations, daydreaming, shift to past/future apogee

Regrets, anxious living, for possible future happiness

What can’t be changed, assured: likely means sadness.

 

Happy people think, least of the past

Or made sense and peace, with it, at last

An unhappy one’s captive, of events inflicted

Yet to learn, their choice not constricted.

 

But don’t expect happiness all day, every day

Misfortune, disappoinment, life’s helpful stray

Some sadness brings attentive, accurate cognition

Resilience, decisions, in a difficult position.

 

So use your resources, to get your needs met

It’s people you need, not wealth, the first step

Just look in the mirror, and crack a big smile

As simple as that, to light yer LEFT dial.

 

 

                              WTF?

What are the origins, of polite norms of society?

Unwritten rules, the difference, drunk or sobriety?

Words frowned upon, forbidden, there to dare

What age gives licence, permission to swear?

 

One way or another, we learn these words early

Parroted by little kids, makes most parents surly

“You mustn’t say that word, it’s not nice, not polite”

“Especially in public, at Kindy, not right.”

 

All cultures have baby talk: stretched vowels and switched consonants

But swearing’s hoovered up knowingly, with innate cognizance

“Are your widdle tootsies warm?” (It helps language learning x-fold)

“Don’t know what tootsies are Grandma, but my feet are fuckin’ cold!”

 

Adult hypocrites, we selectively swear post kindergartner

According to company: friends, colleagues, public, partner

“Well I’ll be fucked,” surprised revelation. “What the fuck?” bewilderment.

And “the-fuck yeah,” or, “absofuckinglutely!” show strong agreement.

 

Noun, verb, adverb, adjectival phrase, even an infix

The ‘F’ word does it all (and you thought it was just about dicks)

But there’s more; it can even clearly convey intent

With tonal emoji, “Fuck you!” you know precisely what’s meant.

 

So with grammatical use instructing meaning, tone and feeling

And emotional context: “Fuck off!” (anger), “Wanna fuck?” (appealing)

“Fuck!” (excitement), “How the fuck?” (awe), “It’s fucked…” (despondency)

The other variable is communicatory perception and thus respondency.

 

So as young kids know intuitively, swear words convey emotion better

Vents anger, less violence, lowers stress, a morale boost abettor

Builds camaraderie, promotes resolve (“Fuck ’em!”) in tough situations, abrasive

Raises pain threshold (Fuuuuuck!), and for supporters, not skeptics, is fucking persuasive.

 

 

                    Wealth

Billionaire in a life raft, mid-ocean, a tiny dot

Adrift, foreign crew mutinied, stole super yacht

Abandoned to die, no water, no hope

The worth of wealth, in this situation to cope?

 

A billion bucks would buy some water

A billion bucks is real wealth, not a flaunter

But what money gains, not so, wealth

Means naught, if what’s needed, is not on the shelf.

 

If money measures wealth, like scales measure weight

And money’s just printed, lent out at bank rate

To invest, speculate, maybe yield a gain

Does this indicate wealth, or just future pain?

 

And is this wealth earned, or simply inherited?

‘I’m a self-made man!’ falsely interpreted

Wealth creation from useful, productive enterprise?

Or rent-seeking privatised assets, no work, big prize.

 

The elite one percent, own half the world’s wealth

World’s debt: three hundred trillion, risen by stealth

Tax havens stash, thirty-two trillion, and through which passes

Half global trade, sovereign states cover, tax-cheating arses.

 

Much of this wealth, recently accumulated

By individuals, corporations who gamed the system, lubricated

By complicit, corrupt governments, insider promoters

By transferring public/private debt to conned voters.

 

By foreign debt loading, and profit alienation

Elites’ euphemisms for legalised greed alimentation

When liferaft Earth’s destroyed, shelves bare, ravaged

The only earning is learning, the only wealth is knowledge.

 

 

                 Peaceful

Walking the beach, people come and go

Some striding it out, others slow

Glimpsed between the coconut palms

Holding hands or cranking arms.

 

Mostly pairs in conversation

Resolute stares or animation

Countless waves slosh on the beach

Breeze-like thoughts out of reach.

 

Busy lives in suspension

Getaway places without tension

Murmuring palms stare like they know

Living the dream is patiently slow…

 

 

           Can ya believe it?

Some people suffer chronic disease

Others by accident, maimed with ease

Some are burdened with refugee status

But we’ve got unlucky catastrophe conflatus.

 

Some people homeless, struggle to survive

Others abused, sad memories revive

Some encumbered, for life, a huge arse

But us? Well we’ve got long grass!

 

Yarse, yarse, we’ve got long grass

All my fault, a pain in the arse.

 

So I puts on me hat, (early warning device)

When the sky is falling, best health advice

Been away two months, now all forlorn

Lo the dawn, go mow the f’n lawn!

 

Start the mower, knee-deep in grass

Cough, splutter, it died in the arse

Carby Jets, filters, all choked up

Out with the tools, mechanical checkup.

 

Yarse, yarse, we’ve got long grass

Pressure is on, hope it starts.

 

Strewth! Plastic carby fixed to fuel tank

Remove starter, linkages, and ignition bank

Cowling, crankcase breather and two head bolts

Just to clean jets! Designed by dolts.

 

Engine fired, see Dearest: “Long grass gone.”

“Stupid bastard, you’re always wrong!

Still there, needs raking, now it’s shorn,

And all that’s left is dull brown lawn!”

 

It came to pass, I mowed the long grass

Unlucky in life, with sparse lawn farce…

 

 

              Old Laurie

Camped at McGowans, North Kimberley coast, fish and oysters aplenty

Went into town, Kalumburu, sought traditional owner’s identity

To seek permission, to camp further north, up near Old Pago mission

Town Clerk’s office, said see old Laurie, ask him his favoured position.

 

Silver-haired fella, three score n twelve, old by Indigenous standard

But cheeky by nature, I liked him at once, like old fiends we chatted, candid

‘Til slimy white bloke, the bishop, it seems, sat beside us eavesdropping

Laurie’s elder status, what business with stranger? Snooping never stopping.

 

A spark, respect, he piqued my interest, I asked to return to chat

And not a week later, we sat on the ground, two hours we did just that

But the day before that, fish no lack, back to town for supplies

Found a conspiracy, pack of lies, to our disgust, not surprise.

 

Got into town, church fuel station, Irishman came to serve me

Paper-white skin, accent so thick, here one week, the heat be

All he could bear, something not right, silently thought, what secrets?

Brought such a bloke, to a place like this, whose future regrets?

 

Then on to the… “Shop closed,” big town meeting

Slimy Bishop, to crowd, microphone bleating

Saw shopkeeper lonesome, stood under tree

Went over, “Goin’ on mate?” Reply really riled me.

 

His town council’s only shop closing, surely sent broke

Cos Bishop started “Takeaway,” flocked customers stoke

Bellies: deep fries, battered sav trans fats, two litre coke

At prices exorbitant: heart attack, diabetes, and stroke!

 

The town store stocked, a fair range of goods, considering its remoteness

Frozen meat cuts, vegetables, fruit, most with reasonable freshness

All that’s needed, to cook decent meals, but the sneaky takeaway con

Hissed Bishop Slimy: “Open only meal times, no competition. Come on!”

 

Shopkeeper said, town shop profit, was to bitumen the main street

Now never happen, all town profits going, hoovered, in order to meet

Church targets, investments, directives, issued from down south

No care, concern, not one cent returned, to one single hungry mouth.

 

But Laurie was born, at old Pago Mission, long, since, abandoned

His people from here, rescued overland, bombed “Koolama” crew stranded

Said during same war, Kalumburu airstrip, launched bombing raids: Timor, occupied

Japanese knew, Darwin too far, for fuel range, return distance plied.

 

So Japs tailed the bombers, to find their home base, then returned with bombs of their own

Destroyed the town, killing Laurie’s brother, future intentions shown

The bombers blown, not one single bomb, on runway, left undamaged

Laurie’s people fled the war, bushtucker-filled bellies, the old ways, not disadvantaged.

 

But regained his “white” life, found a wife, extended family, estates

And once a month, to Darwin he’d fly, a few beers, laughs, old mates

With mischievious grin, said don’t eat too many, my oysters will fill your pencil

And many a chuckle, we shared in the dirt, his humour wicked, wilful.

 

As we talked, the old ladies sat, a circle, card game entangled

And across the road, a basketball game, young gun’s attire be-spangled

Long baggy shorts, USA shirts, baseball caps backwards, just so

Said, “These kids learn old ways, bushtucker?” Paused, looked sad, said, “Slow…”

 

                DV: Nature or Nurture?

Covertly dishonest, manipulative, isolating, belittling

Controlling, emotionally abusive, violent, beguiling

Intimate partner abuse, or domestic violence: deliberate? inevitable?

Degrading, debilitating. Terminal? Inexcusable? Explainable?

 

Evidence shows, common traits of these monsters:

Narcissist, psychopath, violent, jealous controllers

All mutually exclusive, traits on their own

Variously combined though, an evil clone.

 

Infant parenting, toxic, or lack thereof

Abnormal brain-wiring/habituation, unseen result of

’til adult relationships, symptoms appear

Charismatic one day, then predator to fear.

 

Two sub-groups identified, ‘vipers’ and ‘pit bulls’

When hurting partners, vipers calm, heart-rate lulls

While pit bulls are angry, stressed, pulse-rate hot

Vipers psychopathic, pit bulls not?

 

Controllers created by emotionally-distant, non-attentive parents

Triggering brain changes: adult insecure attachment adherents

Variant ‘A’ monoamine oxidase mutant gene switched on

By toxic family environment: aggressive, violent brain to set upon.

 

Cuddle, nurture, teach sorry to activate empathy template

Narrow window before age three, otherwise psychopathic fate

Spoil, smother, reward temper tantrums by giving in, not saying “No!”

Centre of attention, emotionally desert him, narcissist the way to go.

 

In addition, nuanced overlays fill out the sorry picture

Experience, family, role models, and culture’s stricture

Sexism, lack of respect, conformity, and religious tradition

Inequality, acceptance, norms of society conditioned.

 

So combine two or more of these damaged traits

A monster in waiting, unknowing partners’ future fates

Advice to women: learn, look for these traits’ signs, symptoms

Upbringing history, trust gut feelings, exit early, avoid being victims.

 

 

               What odds…?

Went out to the rock place, on the other side of the river

The Ord, Kunnunurra, my petrology hope to deliver

A piece of local rock, ancient, pre-dinosaur, sedimentary

Polished samples on display, colours, evidentiary.

 

Bloke said,’Out the back mate, take yer time, your pick.’

A yard of rocks and boulders, a nice one now the trick

Finally found one, football size, took it back inside

‘Where’d ya get this?’ like I’d done something snide.

 

‘This is some of our good stuff, not usually for sale but,

Your eagle eyes found it, my mouth I’ll have to shut.’

He put it on his diamond saw, cut a piece clean off

Wetness showed the colours, observors’ eyes to quaff.

 

Took it home, intentions sown, ‘One day I’ll carve a shape.’

Years later, replumbed the sink, three tap holes now agape

‘I know, that Kimberley rock, the cut-off piece will do!’

Shaped it, glued it over holes, a shelf with patterned hue!

 

Sealant as clear lacquer to highlight age-old colours

And there it was! The most brilliant of exposures

Whole fossilized prawn, complete in sagital section

Wafer thin, a random cut, revealed it in perfection.

 

Went to look at the other cut face, on the bigger piece

There’s not a trace, or a smudge, or skeletal crease

Saw blade thickness took it, turned it into dust

With odds like that, my store of luck, now surely bust!

 

Author’s note:

Two days after this poem I wrote

Forty-seven years’ driving to note

My first prang, three-car pile-up

Two written off, no small hiccup…

 

                     Flogs

Everyone knows one, they hang round like dogs’ balls

Boastful, up ’emselves, self-promoting calls

Egotist, self-agrandizing, loathsome tossers

Greedy, aggressive users, sometimes bosses

Pretentious, self-centred and silently cursed

Wanking: the only race where you always come first.

 

 

Unfinished business: living rent free

He came at me surly, angry as hell

The firetruck word at me he would yell

And in between spitting, kicking, punching the wall

It took me an hour, to get him to bawl.

 

Not to be mean, vindictive nor harsh

But to purge emotion, find reason to laugh

The core of his problem thus revealed

A mean bully step-dad, hate’s dividend yield.

 

I said, “Seems you don’t like this bloke.”

“I fuckin’ hate him,” he loudly spoke

“Gunna smash his fuckin’ brain, with an iron bar!”

The cue I’d sought, the door now ajar.

 

“You know, this person you hate most, by far

Is controlling you, your thoughts, interactions, who you are.”

“No he’s fuckin’ not!” “But mate he is, ‘cos see,

You’ve let him in your head; living there rent free.”

 

“He decides how you feel, angry, upset, everywhere, at his whim

Anytime, all the time, ‘cos you’ve chosen to let him.”

“How does it feel, to know the person most loathed

You’ve given the power, control, your mind, unclothed?”

 

Silence, but a grudging look of realised determination

To which I added: “Good news is your brain’s extrication

Is a simple thought-fumigation of habitual encrustation

Think three times a day, in two weeks a new habit, liberation!”

 

Within two days, he’d moved to a new home, friends

Changed his subjects, on which new career goal depends

And I know not today where/what he’s become,

But I’m sure, rent free in his mind, there is no-one.

 

And thus many a kid gained a future, emotive liberty

By dumping the lodger, living rent free

Young girls raped, angry and sad

A sex-abused boy, by his mum and step-dad.

 

Sometimes I knew not, what caused the problem

No matter, the hated, the solution still “Sod them!”

I will decide who lives in my head

Especially long after the controller is “dead.”

 

And one more clue, to help you as well

Snide people, toxic “friends,” competitors who sell

Behind your back, lies, false stories, attributed to you

In order to poison, of you, others’ view.

 

For valued relationships, consult, educate

For losers, ignore, draw pleasure, don’t obfuscate

‘Cos their ire, jealousy, envy, duplicitous false glee

Means comfort, you’re living, in their head, rent free!

 

But a thirteen old, when I asked: “How playing rugby helps?”

“I can legally hurt people; my anger it palps.”

Before I could help him, he left our school, me

I can’t help but wonder, who/where he is now. In me, rent free?

 

                    Lycopene prostate food

Lady went into the Greek greengrocer’s store

No list, not certain to buy, or recipe for

He, new arrival, proud new Aussie

In the land of the dick-sticker cozzie

“Umm… could I have some broccoli please?”

He bagged and weighed them with practiced ease

“Will-a there be anything else?” he said

“Some tomatoes too please, would go with my bread.”

“Sorry liedee, we have-a no tomatoes.”

“Oh, some carrots then… maybe… I suppose.”

“Certainly, and-a anything more?”

“Yes, some tomatoes please.” (under his breath he swore)

“Liedee, what-a you get, you take-a the ‘g’ out of grape?”

“Oh, umm… I think that’d be rape.”

“Now what-a you get, you take-a the beet out of beetroot?”

“Root.”

“That’s-a right. So what-a you get, you take-a the fuck out of tomatoes?”

“There’s no fuck in tomatoes!”

“That’s-a right liedee. There’s-a no fuck’n tomatoes!”

 

 

                    Fixed or foxed?

Countless things I’ve fixed, rebuilt, modified, improved

From engines, to appliances, electronics, the fault removed

Bad design, under-built components, or just wear

Fit new parts, make new improved bits, I don’t care.

 

Spotting a fried resistor, re-soldering a circuit board dry joint

Cutting a brass gear to replace a weak plastic point

With technical manual help, the right torque setting

Or welding a new part, re-wiring, better outcome getting.

 

I’ll have a go at most things, ‘cos I can look

Pull it apart, see the fault, consult a book

But it’s amazing how much you have to know, to grow

In order to now realise how little you know.

 

And increasingly so, with computers, software, digitisation

Control systems, mechatronics, miniaturisation

Hidden, no visible clue, to how things work or fail

Broken? Get a new one. Repair knowhow beyond the pale.

 

Terminology, high tech, this increasingly esoteric multiply

The mindset: Dunno, complete mystery, don’t even try

Opens the door to agnatologists, and snake oil quackery

Void filled by trickery and pseudoscience ‘doctoropathy.’

 

Said she, “Can you fix my car? The electric window has died.”

An hour to remove the posh door trim, no screws, click-tabs hide

“Oh, sorry, it’s the passenger door I meant!”

“Oh.” At least the other door’s German secrets I’d circumvent.

 

Inside the door, a world of its own engineering complexity

Electronic sensors, motorised locks, window, airbag perplexity

All I could do was check, ensure, the maze of wire connections

Re-assembled, tried it, no success, apologetic conniptions.

 

“Thanks for the repair!” “Sorry, did my best, beyond me.”

“No, it works fine now!” I’d used the wrong code key!

Thought: ‘Lucky you didn’t take it to the glitzy car dealer

Would’a scammed a thousand bucks, fake fault revealer…’

 

 

                       Climbing the ladder.

           Grizzle, growl, grumble, gripe

        Niggle,    nag,    sabotage,    snipe

  Disrupt,  destabilize,  discredit,  derail

Countermine, constrain, cripple, curtail

 

       Fawn,         grovel,          lick,         suck

 

       Flounce,         flout,         flirt,         fuck

 

       Bully,  brown-nose,  besmirch,  brag

 

       Whisper,  white-ant,  subvert,  slag

 

       Fake  it  ’til  you  make  people  sick

 

     Personal quals of an ambitious prick.

 

 

                      Cancer

Word or sentence? Supportive suggestion when diagnosis made

Cautious optimism, born of cure-rate and progress displayed

By surgery, immune stimulus, chemotheraphy and diet

But high expection, promise not met, raising hope’s disquiet.

 

People have long organised as social groups reacting to environments

Sensing both threat and opportunity, storing knowledge, for future events

Specialised in tasks, sharing, communicating, making decisions for common good

With genetic variations, lurking, to survive new changes, arise, as they could.

 

Imagine the awe, when researchers saw, the same characteristics held

By cancer cells, tumours NOT monoclonal, but sameness now dispelled

Multicellular complexity, in ‘dumb’ cellular clumps, while

Seeming nefarious, same survival tactics, and smart human guile.

 

Tumours are multiclonal, with differentiation of tasks

Actions programmed, reactive, proactive, not random asks

Like humans they choose, to live in locations, organ Bethlehem

Cause genetic changes, and helping behaviours in other cells around them.

 

And Fusobacteria, cancers also cunningly recruit

On their surface, their own protective flack-jacket suit

Whose enzymes break down, Chemotheraphy drugs

On metastasis, with them go these antibiotic-prone thugs.

 

Tumour cells are epithelial, they proliferate, stay put

Receptors ‘sniff’ the blood, detect threats, trigger survival output

They also morph into mesenchymal cells, and in the process transition

Via hybrid-like stem cells which can evade, reprogram drug rejection.

 

Chemotherapy no match for newly resistant cells

Some mesenchymals leave, as the tumour re-swells

Via lymph and blood, hitch to other tissues which endear

Then send back signals, “It’s good too, over here.”

 

So the cancer metastasises, spreads, like humans do

To form new outposts, new resources, opportunities to view

But their cunning will be, their timed ultimate demise

New knowledge to trick them, lull them, then fatal surprise.

 

Meanwhile there’s diet, gut bacteria, our microbiome

Antioxidants, the right microbes in their colonic home

They tweak if present, our immune system to a prime

To detect/destroy new cancers at formation time…

 

          You a girl or something?

Pity poor females, with tresses and curves

Their ‘inherent weakness, hysterical nerves’

Rated on looks, not skills nor brains

Sexism rampant, and period pains.

 

Married as girls, no education

Disrespected, bashed, no hesitation

They mother, nurture, clean, cook and slave

Who remembers, what they selflessly gave?

 

Just one percent owned, of the world’s wealth

Most often victims, of the poorest health

Burdened and bullied, with childbirth and sex

Sold into slavery, to please Mr. X.

 

Misogyny reigns, (denied by most men)

Despair versus hope, (decided by men)

Oppressed and repressed, (mostly by men)

Guise of religion, (invented by men).

 

The caring professions, they fill the ranks

No high-paid finance jobs, in cushy banks

Low paid, lesser paid, unequal pay

Even science research, contracts day to day.

 

Two steps backwards and one step forward

Countless examples of careers cornered

Pregnant, childcare, or boys’ club glass ceiling

Need empathy, help, for girls, with feeling.

 

Female astronauts, trained for Apollo

Not one went to space, yet aced men hollow

On psych tests, trials, yet deemed too much risk

Might go to pieces, if things get too frisk.

 

So to the future, as global risks rise

Narcissists, DV, morals amortize

Neglect, abuse, inequality, lies

Funds for help cut, despite desperate cries.

 

So artificial wombs may be of help

Free of the burden and health risks pre-yelp!

And android ‘partners’ for unworthy men

To mistreat at will, we’ll care not when.

 

 

                        Good bombs? Too right…

The black basalt boulders, jutting from the rough red road

Shattered the tyre, ten plies, no match for the heavy load

Fitted a spare, checked boat, trailer, other vital supplies

Hundreds of Ks bush-bashing, minus one spare, patently unwise.

 

So pulled into Laura, hit the pub, quite late in the light of day

Two blokes said they’d fix it, to their shed, make yer way

One Indigenous, one ex-German, they were dressed in their very finest

Sat’day night, at the pub, on to-do list, importance, the highest.

 

They worked their arses off, slide hammer to break rusty bead

Sweat poured off them, new tube, used tyre, that I’d certainly need

When fitted, not one spot of dirt, on white shirts, that I spied

“How much?” I asked. “Gis forty bucks eh?” to which I replied,

 

“Mate, I’d pay thirty bucks at home, just for the re-newed tube”

But not a cent more would they take, just happy with gratitude

So I said, “I’ll sleep on the ground, behind the pub tonight

And I’ll shout you beers all night, OK…? to help to see you right.”

 

So we had a drink or two, and then some more… and some more

The German asked, my fishing target, my secret, what’s the score?

When I told him, he said with disdain, descriptive, dangerous display

He fished with bombs he made, and, “You know you’re going ze wrong way!”

 

He said he’d stand on safe high banks, and spot wary fish

Then light the bombs, throw them in, with a silent wish

Said with a laugh, but certain smug aplomb

“We Germans may haf lost ze war, but we make a fucking good bomb!”

 

Fifteen years, I reminisce later, when telling this story to a bloke

Who a year before had passed through country, of which, I had just spoke

Said he met an old German man, said sounded like my old mate

His right arm to the elbow, missing, a bomb, his reputed fate!

 

 

                     Inheritance tax

If it’s clapped-out, worn-out, broken and non-functional

It’s time to get a new one, nothing there unusual

But when it comes to planets, the market’s very slim

Youngsters must make do, inheritance clearly grim.

 

Three hundred trillion, world debt and increasing

Government, mortgage, credit, uni fees: rises never ceasing

Lost job security, wage theft, zero hours contracts, casualised

Politicians complicit, their donor-cronies’ wishes realised.

 

Our government for a pittance, sold our gold reserves

Squandered the proceeds, buying vote-self-preserves

The looming financial crisis, prolonged economic collapse

Will hit young’ns hard, their chances will elapse.

 

Political stability: flaky, hijacked, dodgy and dangerous

Even ‘safe’ democracy, owned, corrupt, outrageous

The permanence of terrorism, born of confected wars

And ‘collateral damage’ nonfeasance, revenge’s festering sores.

 

The real weapons of mass destruction: polluting fossil fuels

Sea levels rising, mass migration, climate-denying fools

Eighty percent of people, living in estuarine cities drowned

Abandoned, inherited costs, of rebuilding on higher ground.

 

And speaking of oceans, as they increasingly acidify

Future recipients, ripped off innocently, angry, will ask, ‘why?’

Expanding giant deadspots, where everything living has died

Greed, pollution, exploitation, extinctions, wanton ecocide.

 

As toxic waste, fracking for gas, destroys aquifers, water supplies

Future wars over safe fresh water, will come as no surprise

Looming epidemics, mis-used antibiotics, now made useless

Despite warnings for decades, made to the uncaring clueless.

 

So millennials, it’s time to realize, on which side your bread is buttered

Wake up to the lies, by old farts constantly uttered

To vote for change urgently, so you don’t end up toast

Or inherit a planet like a charred weekend roast.

 

We’ve lived the best years, bequeathed the worst

Greedy old elites putting their wealth first

While sleepwalking induced, by addictive social media

Mass perception, easy deception, mortal mass acedia.

 

Time to counter my generation’s, selfish old duffers

The ignorant, the bigoted, as not one of them suffers

The threat of a future, burdened, taxed in every way

Your future, not theirs, with no future price to pay.

 

 

                     Evolution’s conundrum

The chicken and egg had just had sex

Chicken: head pillow-propped, discarded latex

Cigarette smoke ring, blank-stare expression

“Guess that solves that age-old question.”