Who Has Written These Poems?

Who has written these poems ?

I say

as I browse through the pages

of this commonplace book.

I have neglected to name their authors.

There’s one about

Tennessee Fainting Goats

which calls to mind

my ‘Cows in a Paddock’ ;

another about women in a junkshop staring through a window

at the rain

‘where a taxi as yellow as a forsythia

is turning a corner’,

and a snippet about snow over Xmas and New Year

hanging around long after

‘like the drunk at the bar

who needs to go home’

Hmmmm.

Could any of these be mine?

But the one about the fortune cookie is Ed’s.

It’s got his mark all over it.

But the others? I just don’t know.

Could I be that good?

I don’t think so.

Petrichor

She loves the word ‘petrichor’

She fondles it like a pet dragon.

She repeats it during meals

and chuckles.

The next morning.

What’s that word again.

I tell her.

Her eyes gleam .

That pet dragon look.

I never knew one could love

a word so much.

*are there particular words you love, just for their sound, their strangeness?

• pic by deviant art o pinterest

That Poem Beth Wrote

I remember the poem Beth wrote

about the 31 cents

she took

from Hillman Bailey 111’s open desk

in primary school

and how she made up for it

over half a lifetime later

by leaving change —31c — at the checkout

for the next person to have who might have had a child

who wanted candy

and I thought , yes!!!

that is what I will do with the $250

a children’s literary magzine owes me

for the reprint of four poems

from the early 2000’s.

i can’t be bothered filling out all the forms

so I told them to donate it to a charity

so it goes back into the universe

where my poems came from anyway

Iron Man at the Gym

 

 

Iron Man isn’t up to it today.

You can tell by the way he slopes around

in his baggy shorts and tee

dazed like he’s been smoking weed.

He dawdles a lot between reps.

Guzzles the urine coloured liquid to replace the energy he hasn’t used.

Plays with the machines like a cat with a mouse.

Jabbers at Stella how she isn’t doing it right,

to anyone really with a loose ear.

Truly he is more motor-mouth than Iron Man.

Sultanas

You are the gin

in gin ‘n’ tonic,

the rum

in

bundy and coke;

the abracadabra that transforms,

the fruity little pellets

that add

zest and zing

to oats

that put the sing

in snap, crackle, ‘n’ pop,

feisty little metaphors

for writing

that needs to lift its lid

let out its Id

roll like a dog

in

the muck and merriment

of language.

Hosannas to sultanas.

*pic courtesy of pinterest

They See Ghosts

I was talking to my rarely glimpsed neighbour who was out the front raking the leaves.

We chewed the fat for a while

and then I asked him about Gus, his elderly Jack Russel.

He doesn’t annoy you. does he? he asked.

Not at all, I said. I’m a dog person.

Well, he annoys the hell out of me, he said. The other day he was barking at the dining room wall and wouldn’t stop. There was nothing there.

Apparently, they see ghosts, I said. Even in the dark.

He stopped raking.

Or he has dementia? He offered.

Wow! I said. That would open a can of worms. Think how many documented ghost sightings could be put down to dementia.

People don’t bark at walls, he said.

Not even in they’re barking mad ? I asked.

We both laughed uneasily.

Inside, the dog began barking again.

My Genetic Flaw

Your canal’s very narrow, he says.

Narrow?

Yes, like the Thai tunnel cave divers had to negotiate to get those boys out. Not  much sound can get through. There are no cave divers small enough to help it along.

Like that film in the sixties? I say.

Which film is that?

‘Fantastic Voyage’, where a submarine crew are shrunk to microscopic size and injected into the bloodstream of a scientist to repair his brain.

Can’t help you there, he says.

Is it hereditary then?

Quite possible. The left auditory canal is quite large. Can carry a lot of sound.

Maybe that’s why I lean a little to the left, I say.

Politically? he asks.

No, doc. When I walk.

• pic courtesy of Pinterest

One Monster at a Time

 

The honeysuckle bush out the back can wait.

I mean, how much more fecund

can one plant get

in 24 hours?

But my sister can’t.

She’s in ICU.

But I need to pick up her walker first

in the maze of streets her house is tucked into.

I just hope the German Shepherds are under control this time.

I’m ravenous but that will have to wait.

the toilet call can’t.

And when I get to the hospital I’ve got to find a park

somewhere in the surrounding street and not get lost again.

My equanimity scrambled like eggs.

So many things to accommodate.

That stobie pole like a Good Friday cross.

Then there’s the vertical coffin-shaped box I have to squeeze into

to get to ICU.

One monster at a time.

Blur

A fog comes down between you and the world.

Words have to scramble through.

A dog’s breakfast of sounds.

Turning the volume up on the TV only increases the blur.

Why does one sense desert you when others

are intact?

Every now and then yr ears pop

and the world of sounds : leaf blowers.

crows caw, the Harley revving up

across the road, the postman’s whistle,

comes rushing at you with all its

clarity and clangor.

Bug Eyed with Happiness

Look at him now

bug-eyed with happiness

evergreen with the springtime

of love.

Remember him bleached & wilting

on that park bench by the bull-rushes?

Well, look who just turned up.

His life is on an upswing.

Whoopee, he says,

as he goes higher and higher,

his love looking on.