Reveries of Frances

Reveries of Frances.

Her flight is two hours late.

It’s pushing midnight.

O, how I wish I had the stamina of Frances,

perched on the balcony of her high rise

in the peppercorn tree hooting for her love.

She’d be at it all hours of the night.

By morning she’d be gone

but back again the next night.

She was welcome as a full moon, the stars.

I know love is as good a reason to hoot

as any other.

Christ, she had great lungs.

Shone a torch up there once

but she retreated to a backroom up there

in the peppercorn tree.

Spring after Spring she’d come

then one Spring, the year of the bush-fires,

she stopped.

The peppercorn tree seems empty now

like a fridge with no food in it.

*pic courtesy of wiki commons

Little Orphan Poems

1. Zing.

What do you want? she asks.

A zing of apricot.

A zing of apricot?

Yes, a zing of apricot and lavender jam

to set me off.

2. Frustration.

Fuss, fiddle,

turn, twiddle,

push, prod,

nup, o god !

3. The Possibility of a Poem.

No sooner does the head hit the pillow

than the possibility of a poem

taps you on the head.

4. My Mother, the Drama Queen.

I feel like the wreck of the Hesperus,

the Lusitania and the Titanic

rolled into one

• pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

The Wonder of You: the Lost Poem

The Wonder of You.

I never got to see Elvis.

I saw the Beatles.

Saw the Rolling Stones

but I never got to see Elvis,

Saw Niagara

Saw three of the Seven Wonders

Saw a rainbow sit like a tiara

over my city

but I never got to see Elvis.

But I saw my baby girl

get born

held her in the palms of my hands.

I never got to see Elvis

but I got to hold my baby girl.

Bella

the breeze is slurping my face

like Bella’s pink dog tongue

when sick, I slumped on the sofa

Third Bite of the Cherry

The ibises have moved along

have gone upmarket

grubbing in the well manicured lawns

of Davis Court.

Something needs to be done.

They look more dowdy than ever.

Reminds me of the time

in the Adelaide Central Market

during an upgrade

when the benches inside Coles supermarket

where I used to wait for my paraplegic friend

to do his shopping

were all suddenly removed;

What the &^%$$%, we all said,

our little community of bench people.

When approached,

management see – sawed for a while

but after constant badgering

a junior manager not yet used to the ropes

of sidestepping,

admitted — wait for it —

the benches were removed to keep

the riff-raff out

Ibises

Phillip Hodgins wrote one.

A great one about ibises.

They were a less scraggly, dissolute lot

than mine. Less louche.

I like the way he described them:

‘They had bodies the shape of caraway seeds,

and long black bills that curved like scythes’.

There is awe in his writing, respect.

He speaks of them flying in great flocks

casting deep shadows over the land

before descending like gods

beneficent as rain

aerating the soil, grubbing for bugs..

The farmer’s friend.

The Sacred Ibis of ancient Egypt.

I think I sold the ibises short.

• pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

I Fractured my Funny Bone

I fractured my funny bone

on the bedpost overnight

got into a squabble with myself:

you’re wrong.

No, I’m right !

when a CRAAACK

splintered my sleep

and a SCREEEEAM

split the night

I fractured my funny bone

on the bedpost overnight.

Now I can’t pull a pun,

or even crack a joke

or wink a double entendre

I’m a sad sort of bloke.

Ibis

They look more like gizmos than birds,

cartoonish cut-outs that flock outside

the house that time has marauded,

freaking out the orange tabby next door;

one gives me a mean-dog look

as I snap him with my camera:

you sneery snake perve, it says ;

‘bin chickens’, ‘dumpster divers’,

they look more like street people

scraggling for scraps than Sacred Ibis

All the Well Ordered Books

All the Well Ordered Books.

All the well ordered books

behave themselves just like chooks

leaping down with squawk and cluck

and soon begin to run amuck

scrambling around from door to door

for crumbs of knowledge upon the floor

Stranded

Stranded.

I don’t want to be stranded

like Robinson Crusoe

on an island

of pain

with no rescue in sight

another weekend;

so, doc,

can you fill out

the prescription again

that one with real bite?