Off the Rails

 when I go off the rails

I’ll eat strawberry flan and chocolate cheese cake

wear my slippers to the shopping mall

my pj’s to the mail box

play my beethoven string quartets real loud like I did

my elvis records when I was fifteen

when I go off the rails I won’t be nice to mr fydler
just because he’s a senior

nor put the tv down when my kids ask me to

nor empty the dishwasher when

I don’t eat home at night

when I go off the rails

I’ll leave my newspapers just where I’ve read them

blare my horn all morning just to let my neighbors know
I’ve got one too

say what I really get up to when I “ go for a walk “

change my pass word on the internet so my brother-in-law
can’t sneak on

and when I go off the rails

like tootle the train engine

chasing butterflies

in the meadow

I hope no one puts me

back on track

too soon
 

The Lions

Do I have to tame you?

You’re not lions.

And this little backyard outside my unit

is not a cage

so why don’t you behave?

I only watered you a few times during the week

and you burst out like a prison break.

You leave me no choice.

No, no, it’s too late to plead.

These shears will prune you back

to more modest dimensions.

Don’t worry. The bees will still come.

the yellow-shouldered honey-eaters and wattle birds

still visit

& I’ll still write poems about you.

All will be well.

But such profuseness ….

*pic courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Sailing

In the old days — I’m talking ’95 — I did drafts.

My notebooks don’t lie, Thirteen sometimes of the one poem

and it still turned out crap. There’s something to be said

for inspiration, how it comes light and easy like a breeze,

and if you catch it, you’re sailing.

Protocols for Bon-Bon Popping

There are protocols for almost everything you can think of:

how to behave on a first date, how to address royalty,

whether to fart in public or hold it in, the etiquette of blogging,

BUT WHAT are the protocols for bon-bon popping?

Over Xmas dinner the other night, we couldn’t decide when;

whether, as I thought, at the beginning of proceedings to start

the evening with a bang ; but my daughters were of the opinion

before the main meal but nonna shook her head, no, no, she proclaimed,

it must be after; we checked the box they came in, in the hope

that the protocols were printed there. Google was no help

nor the shop we bought them in. In the end they weren’t popped at all.

Oh well, we said. Let’s hope we can work it out by New Years’.

Start with the Animals

Start with the animals, Buddha once said.

So I do.

The cat wants to go out. It is badgering me to let it out in the balmy evening where all sorts of adventure await.

But I want it to stay inside, settle down like me.

It is so easy to be mean.

I open the door.

I must open my heart a little more as well.

My girl and I sometimes send unpleasant texts to each other. It is what couples who are not quite couples do.

I think the meanness in my texts should be let out too.

I open the door. It dithers.

I give it a swift kick up the backside and send it on its way.

I begin my text message anew.

Yr Fizz

I opened up a soft drink —

You know how it is —

One recently opened

but it had lost it’s fizz.

It had lost its zest.

It had lost its tang.

It had lost its bite

& it had lost its bang!

So hang onto your hat.

Enjoy life’s gee whiz.

You gotta be where it’s at.

Never lose your fizz.

*happy Xmas everyone

Rattle and Ho Hum

 
 I rattle the biscuit tin.

You coming in? I say.

Nah, she says, I’m waiting for a friend.

That mangy old tom I saw you with last night down by the chook shed?

Go easy, she says. I don’t talk about your friends like that.

Look, I say, it’s reaching the ungodly hour of 9.30. I’m going to hit the sack. You coming in?

Silence.

Well, don’t forget. Santa’s coming tonight. He might have something for you. Be good.

She looks at me nonpussed.
 

Mustafa and the Makeover

Mustafa who knew me well was a refugee too: he from Syria, me from the realm of common sense.

How would you like it cut? he asked.

Like yours, I said.

Like mine?

Yes.

He didn’t chuckle. He didn’t comment on the outrageousness of my request.

Apart from the difference in hair color, there was also the disparity in volume though he admitted, even at 27, he was losing his hair.

He cut, he swooped, he shaved, he teased and cajoled but when finished he wrought a little miracle.

How did it look?  Shaved at the sides , but on top what hair I had was swept to the other side of my head and held down by gel. It looked amazing.

Askew, I said, It looks amazingly askew.

Like your writing, he said.

Yes, like my writing.

Writing School

I was in writing school again.

The teacher, Mr. Wiles, was tall and totemic.

He was disparaging a writer that was currently in the ascendant.

‘His prose is loose and lumpen’, he said. ‘It clumps along the hallway of sentences like Lurch in The Adams Family’

*pic courtesy of Wikipedia

The Loves of My Life

 
I love
Peroni pint glasses
Ohio
Blue Tip Matches
& the waifs of light
the sky at sunset snatches
 
I love a cutting comment
but not at my expense
I love Jabberwocky
though it doesn’t make
much sense
 
I love the nonchalance
of cats
who’ve mastered
the art
of just getting on with it
& not giving a fart
 
I love the lilt & lift
of ‘a brown-eyed girl’,
the ballet of a kite
& how we enter
the world
in a rush of light.
 
*what things do you love?