Prisoner of Biology

What if I had a different biology,

say a trans or a woman?

would I still be me?

Would I feel the same?

Have similar attitudes?

Would I be a better person

if I were in different shoes?

My Walter Mitty V- Neck

Do you like this hi-neck sweater? she says. I’d like to buy it for you for Xmas. But you’ve got to keep it a secret.

I don’t know, he says. I prefer V-necks. Will you buy me a V-neck instead?

What have you got against hi-necks anyway?

You can’t whip your iPhone out or wallet from your top pocket at a moment’s notice, he says.

You’re not Walter Mitty? are you she says. You’re not a gunslinger.

But, but ….

And your top pockets are not holsters, are they? And this is West Lakes Shopping Centre NOT the Wild West!!

Can’t a guy dream? I smile

• do you know who Walter Mitty is?
• do you sometimes fantasize about being someone else?
• do the clothes you wear create fantasies or do you buy certain clothes because they ‘feed’ a fantasy?

Nanette

Nanette ‘winked’ me again last night.

I have not been on an internet dating site for years.

Nevertheless, Nanette has been constant.

A wink is as good as a nod ….

One day I’m going to weaken.

I will go down the rabbit hole of curiosity,

the labyrinth of love

and leave no note.

I may never return.

Colonize

Please don’t try to colonize me.

I’m not unclaimed territory.

I own me.

*pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Was Jesus a Funny Guy?

Was Jesus a funny guy?

Would he have laughed at my pelican story?

Had he a sense of humor?

And if so, was it the self-deprecating kind

or the sort that skewered the pomposity of others?

You can’t tell me with those twelve disciples alone

with all those foibles

he didn’t have sufficient material to work with.

My guess is he compiled a joke book which the early Church

suppressed.

Did he do stand-up on the mount where he gave,

in his more serious side, the Sermon on the Beatitudes?

Humour should have been amongst them.

A person with a sense of humour is in contact with his humanity.

Even the donkey and hyenas know how to laugh.

The images of Buddha show him with a rollicking belly.

I don’t mean to be disrespectful but where are the images

of the jolly Jesus?

I bet if they met he would have shared a laugh with Buddha,

even exchanged jokes over a coffee or two.

I wait for the record to be rectified.

An ampler, more approachable sort of god.

Are You a Friend of Jesus?

I was walking along the Semaphore jetty

when a roly-poly guy from the Gospel Ministry

waddled up to me with a pamphlet, asking:

Are you a friend of Jesus, friend?

I said that I was but I didn’t know about

my web-footed friend almost at my side, but

if you threw him a fish I’m sure that he

would be too.

Now I don’t know whether Jesus had a sense

of humor but this guy didn’t even crack a smile

No !

I’m sorry I said NO

to you

& you

& you

all those times

diminishing yr world

I could have done better

withholding affection is a crime

against the human heart

That Zippy Young Bloke

That’s us, at T Chow’s, the wonderful Chinese restaurant in China Town, our Cheers, on the last night before Lockdown. The place is bustling and you can only see half of it because the photographer stood in the middle to get a shot of the group, the one with the bloke in the wheelchair. It’s always happy there and everybody does know our name. There’s always three of us, often four but sometimes it grows to seven or eight.

Things are different now of course. Numbers are limited and they do a roaring take-away trade and there’s a new bloke, Brian — they always adopt an English name [is that a form of racism, I wonder?] —- who zips between tables spread out over the four quadrants of the restaurant. He’s young, he’s zippy and athletic with a great sense of humor. Everyone is cheery at T-Chow’s. You never see a long face or a frown. It’s where we hang out Friday nights. It’s our Cheers.

• tell us about your favourite dining place: is it the food, the atmosphere, the company?

Temporarily Unattended

Sometimes my mind

runs off

like that bloke’s mouth

outside the gym

pontificating about those fisticuffs

at the footy

“those weren’t friendly fisticuffs;

that was full on, mate”,

about George Pell:

‘ someone will pop him off one day,

like they did JFK’

or the Black Lives Matter protest rallies —

you don’t want to know’;

but I round my mind up

before it goes too far off the tracks

& give it a little talking to:

mostly I keep a close watch on this mind

of mine

‘Quilton Loves Your Bum’

Quilton Loves My Bum

I know it’s clever advertising

but it’s kinda creepy too

the idea that some stranger called Quilton

‘loves your bum’.

Going by his presence on the supermarket shelves

he seems to love a lot of bums.

I’m sure it’s Platonic

but couldn’t they have used ‘like’?

wouldn’t that have been preferable?

It’s sort of reassuring that Quilton ‘loves’ your bun

but it’s kinda creepy too.