Caution: the odd poem may contain swear words.
I’ve got worms!
The Earthworms in my lawn, are simply bloody amazing!
No catcher on my mower, my clippings they’re a-grazing
By dead of night they surface, to sloppy-poop and feed
Their golfball-size muddy casts must make their arses bleed.
But ‘Oh!’ the realisation: a declared imported mutant pest
Under Scomo and DudSpud’s, great big shouty border test
Now a plague from Trump’s USA, their nightly crap confirms
Squelching ‘tween my toes, full of shit, must be LNP worms…
The real rule of law
I’ve never been troubled by the law
Not even a traffic or parking ticket for…
Plain folk like me rely on justice assumed
State, Federal, council laws, process presumed.
But what is written, enshrined in constitution
Is constantly flouted, by professional prostitution
Enabled by wealth, status, religion, presumed privilege
Patriarchy, politicians, and networks, the winning edge.
All manner of criminals: rapists, corporate cheats, politicians
Corruption, rapists, fraudsters, tax-dodging practicians
Buy silence, hush police, self-proclaimed assured innocence
And the media monopoly’s selective protective fence.
Promotion of stooges as high-level public servants
And to Administrative Appeals, compliant sycophants
Investigative commissioners, THE right judiciary
Rigged Terms of Reference, fudged legal fiduciary.
The call to arms when a ‘mate’ is threatened
Close ranks, deny, obfuscate, blame-shift reckoned
Invoke Cabinet secrecy, public interest immunity
What hope for poor minorities, women, with such impunity?
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.”