Wolf

two lorikeets

flash across the windscreen

electric green

like that funky

waitress with the wolf-cut hair

& blood-orange eyes

I’m Good at Last Lines

I’m Good at Last Lines.

‘Yr last line is a real zinger’ is a comment I often hear.

‘Bravo!’ someone else applauds.

“The wait was worth it!’ a third one chips in

as though the gruelling wade through the swamp of the poem

has finally paid off.

It makes you think.

Why bother?

I’m getting lazy in my senior years.

Why not just write last lines and scrap the rest of the poems.

Here’s my last lines on a puffer jackets poem:

‘the stitched sections of insulation

like the raised ribs of grandma’s old washboard.

Rub-A –Dub Dub’.

*pic by pinterest

Hope is the Helium

Hope is the Helium.

I was down in the dumps when someone praised

a poem of mine.

I know we should be immune to Praise

and Criticism

but it’s hard not to be lifted

like a hot air balloon

and to bask in the warm sun of appreciation.

knowing we’re getting there,

we’re going to make it.

And the oncologist saying,

you’re doing well;

he doesn’t need to see you

for a few months;

hope stirring like the intimations

of Spring;

prayers too for all those with cancer:

that their burdens be lifted.

And that lottery win just around the corner.

Hope is the helium that keeps us aloft.

An Act of Faith

An Act of Faith.

I saw a slip of paper

on the floor

outside Coles

with writing on it

going down the page.

It looked like a poem

so I bent down

& picked it up.

It was a poem

a list poem

of ingredients for a meal.

A happy poem

of plenty

for a family to share.

It’s an act of faith to make a list.

You’ve got to believe in the future.

I pictured them at the table

that evening

tucking into that wholesome dinner

contentment all around.

I just hoped the writer

had a spare list in her pocket

or remembered what she wrote.

I wouldn’t mind a cup of camomile tea.

Covid’s Silver Lining

Covid’s Silver Lining.

I get to wear a mask across my face without people wondering why I’m wearing it.

They assume I’m just another covid kook instead of someone trying to hide a hideous scar

from a skin cancer operation a few days before, hideous mainly from the dried blood from the bleeding which coffee accelerated

and which I could have avoided except I’m a five cups a day man and going without coffee is like asking a druggie to go without heroin

and anyhow aren’t scars supposed to be sexy?

I Missed the News Today, Oh Boy

I Missed the News Today, Oh Boy.

I missed the News today, oh boy.

I missed it yesterday too.

The world may have shifted a little

but I never felt it.

Instead I watched ‘A Man Called Otto’ where grumpy Tom Hanks

mellows into a beautiful human being.

Then I settled back with Rick Stein in the sunny blue Aegean

lost in the spice markets of Istanbul

rhapsodizing over a feast of roast goat and fennel with locals.

Plenitude and goodness.

I felt the sun on my shoulder

the wind at my heels

no longer mired in the muck of the world.

The Bridge

The Bridge.

I took myself for a walk

past a corner I had not turned before.

Ahead of me was a bridge.

It was not a bridge too far.

Nor a bridge over troubled waters.

It was just a bridge.

It hobbled

from one side of the river to the other.

It shook when you stepped on it.

Swayed from side to side.

Had planks missing.

No way! I said to myself.

It was just another thing I could not get into.

Like lifts.

I stood back while others crossed.

An older man

With a border collie could not cross either.

The dog

Would not move.

I thought of the old saying, You cross

Your bridges when you come to them.

Not always.

*pic courtesy of pinterest

Coffee with Bo Derek

Coffee with Bo Derek.

I’d like to have coffee with Bo.

I could empathise with her.

I’ve had my share of flops too but none to equal

her collection of ‘Golden Raspberry’ awards

for worst actress.

I don’t know what that does to a person’s self esteem.

I like to think I could be someone she could lean on.

Buddha too.

I could listen to him all day

become placid as a cow in a paddock

though he might be fussy about the sort of coffee he’d like.

I don’t know about Jesus.

He could get a bit prickly if he knew I’m back to drinking wine occasionally.

But only with my meal, I’d say, only on Friday with my mates and only one glass.

I don’t know if he’d buy that.

I don’t know if he’d approve of coffee either.

There’s nothing in the New Testament about that, far as I know.

I’d like to hear how he came up with the eight Beatitudes.

His Sermon on the Mount, is for me, the gold standard of sermons.

Having Jesus, Buddha and Bo together would be a hoot.

Heaven knows what stages of Enlightenment we might reach.

Who would you like to share coffee with?

*pic courtesy of pinterest

The Reader

The Reader.

What is this man serenely reading

the passers by blissfully unheeding?

Is it maybe some political thriller?

or the merry memoirs of Phyllis Diller?

or something caustic, quite contrary

like that blockbuster by Prince Harry?

or some expose that doesn’t tiptoe

over the truth like ‘Flawed Hero’?

Or is it more of a weighty tome

a book of essays , a posy of poems

by that erratic reprobate, John Malone?

The Other Side

The Other Side.

I was walking past the Slavic Pentecostal Church when I thought about Mick who was Serbian and what he had said after having died twice on the operating table and been brought back.

“There’s nothing there,” he said.

Of course, this only confirmed his status as an atheist.

“What if it’s all a con?” his son said.

We dove into our scriptures to confirm our faith.