Have You Ever Noticed?

Have you ever noticed how placid an ad becomes

when you put a cow in it?

Farmers too when they milk?

All my good ideas came to me while I was milking a cow,

the American painter Grant Wood

declared.

Have you ever noticed how much more pleasant

‘The Farmer Wants a Wife’ is

compared to the bitchy, sniping

‘Married At First Sight’?

We should all pat a cow in the morning, hug a tree

if we are to start the day right.

Riot-prone areas, prisons too should be equipped with cows

their melodious moos

soothing the seething masses.

Bovine Buddhas

emblems of placidity

a state we aspire to in these troubled times.

Loose

My mother always warned me about loose women

to avoid them at all costs.

But what about loose lemons?

That’s a whole new ball game.

And I need one for my fish tonight.

Do I risk it?

And what about loose thoughts?

Isn’t that where creativity comes from,

thoughts that amble along like a jazz tune that’s lost its way?

I posted a poem last night about an invisible dog

that turned out to be a bit of a lemon.

Talking of which….

I’ll take one loose lemon, I say to the check-out girl,

and o, excuse the loose change.

No Fairy Tale Towers

There are no fairy tales in these Tower Blocks

of Melbourne

No Rapunzel leaning from a window

to let down her golden hair

for some prince to climb up,

no balcony for a Juliet to stand on

and gaze out at her Romeo romancing her

from below

no Dire Straits song to celebrate

their desire

no tower of hope and dreams

no clambering prince

only a vicious virus climbing

the tower walls

*pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

Tower Haiku

trapped in this box

frightened as a fox

staring at the cops

The Nine Towers

While I was sleeping

the nine towers rose

in my head

from the TV news

the night before;

They were nothing like

the Eiffel Tower

or the Burj Khalifa

of Dubai

not even the Tower of Babel

though their residents spoke

in a multitude of tongues,

Instead they were the nine

po-faced Tower Blocks of Melbourne

ringed by police

like a besieging army

in ‘hard lockdown’:

a term we had never heard before.

They looked more like the Grenfell Towers

though the fires consuming them

were a virus and fear

Nice Bag

Nice bag, she says as I place it on the chemist’s counter.

Thank you, I say.

Yes, she says, admiring it.

Good looking.

Compact.

Square-shouldered.

Sturdy.

Not likely to topple over.

A bit like me, on a good day, I reply

She smiles, the sort of smile that says, I better humour this guy, he might be dangerous.

On Being Compared to a Gnat

You have the attention span,

he said,

of a gnat.

I thought [briefly]

about that:

the skim

the look;

the review

not the book;

the single

not the CD;

a movement not

the whole symphony;

the single poem—

a story won’t do—

especially if short

think haiku.

Life’s short.

Try this, that.

Stay light,

says the gnat.

What’s Coming Down the Pike

You don’t know what’s coming down the pike.

No one does.

Covid-19 showed that.

Now there are rumours of something else.

It doesn’t have a face or name

but the word ‘China’ is often invoked.

But no one knows.

But something is coming.

You can see its shadow.

Hear its footsteps.

Feel it breathing down yr neck.

And I feel like the poet Mark Strand

who always saw something coming down the pike

which is why he always slept, he says,

with one eye open.