Solved

I know what they are now, all huddled together like a close-knit family against

some catastrophe which overtook them.

These are the desiccated remains of the plant commonly called ‘houseleek’ but

more colorfully known as ‘hens and chicks’ because of the rosette shape

and habit of the plant to produce numerous ‘babies’, a colorful brood.

You could almost hear them clucking.

And they grow well in dry, outdoor locations like this one across the road from

Cliff’s Auto Repairs.

Below is a picture of what they would have looked like in their prime.

• pic courtesy of Wiki Commons

The Lazarus Poems

The Lazarus Poems.

I rose it from the tomb of archives.

The dead poem.

It never had much life in it

in the first place.

I love resuscitating old poems

bring colour to their cheeks,

a sparkle to their eyes

and, yes, a spring to their metrical step.

I’ve never felt so young, they say.

Enjoy your new lease of life, I reply.

Don’t grow old and stodgy anymore.

Freshen up. Take care of your appearance

and never lose your kick-ass gusto !

• pic courtesy of pinterest

Lifted

Lifted

Driving home from xmas lunch the car radio on. playing songs with a religious flavour, one of which hits me with the force of remembrance of things past:

Mum is in the lounge-room in the doldrums.

It has been three days since dad died.

I want to cheer her up.

What could I say? I was only a kid of fifteen.

I wasn’t in the Lord then but I was into folk rock and gospel so I put on a song that spoke to me during those dark days:

it was ‘Farther Along’, the Byrds trimmed down version of the rather bloated original that Dolly and Co sang.

I sat down with mum.

We listened together:

‘Farther along we’ll know all about it.

 Farther along we’ll understand why.

 So cheer up my brothers, live in the sunshine.

 We’ll know all about it, all by and by’.

That seemed to say it all. Three glorious verses in all.

Mum cried a little but her mood seemed to lift.

We talked about the words for a while and then I left.

I felt lifted too

Shed

Shed

I’ve shed my attachments

am sunnier, brighter

I whistle when I walk

feel 10 kilos lighter

Barnacles

So easy to get attached

to things

they cling like barnacles

to yr feet and shins

The Greater Kindness

Sometimes the greater kindness

is to let someone go

or to let them let you go

The Beautiful Goodbye

My dog had stomach cancer.

She would suffer no more.

She gently passed away

as I held her paw.

HOPE

Hope.

Where would we be without Hope?

It is the ballast that keeps us afloat.

It’s ‘the thing with feathers’ as Emily

Dickinson wrote.

Where would we be without Hope?

Every answer would come back, NOPE!

Life is a slippery slope.

Where would we be without Hope?

Hope is the beacon, Hope is the light.

Keep Hope in yr saddlebag, you’ll be right,

Hope holds yr hand in the darkest night.

Hope is the beacon. Hope is the light.

So be a tree, grow strong roots.

Always look upwards to the Truth.

Have Faith, Belief. Cry if you must.

Hope is the beacon in which we Trust.

Like a Pillow

Like a Pillow.

It’s billowy, he said. All plumped up.

Like a pillow.

Why, you could even rest your head on it.

Easy, I said. It’s the corpse. Of an ibis.

I know, he said. Just free associating.

Like my therapist told me.

And anyway, he continued, what are you? A ghoul?

You took the photo,

The Night it All Changed

That Night it All Changed.
 
I don’t know where I was
or what I was doing
when Princess Diana died
or JFK or Elvis
but I know where I was
and what I was doing
when Buddy Holley, the Big Bopper
& Richie Valenz died;
we were driving home from the Drive-In,
my mum, dad, sister and I ,
we had been watching James Dean
& it was after midnight
[ ‘Giant’ was three hours long ]
& all the stars were out
when the announcement came over the car radio
that a plane carrying three rock ‘n’ roll singers
had crashed in a cornfield in Clear Lake, Iowa
,during a snowstorm a few minutes earlier.
They were the first rock ‘n’ roll deaths,
I sank into myself.
We drove home in silence.
A little later, long before ‘American Pie’
a tribute song came out called ‘Three Stars’:
‘Look up in the sky’ it sang, ‘towards the North;
there are three new stars shining forth ‘
I can see myself in the bedroom now
playing that song over and over
while my heart gently weeps.
 

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.

Exit

When my dog died

I held her paw

she closed her eyes

slipped through the door

of life. It was

a peaceful exit.

Not like England’s

leaving Brexit.

Red Ronnie: a little splash of Grand Guignol

Red Ronnie.

Grandma looked good in her widow weeds.

She really looked the part of an axe murderer.

She wielded that weapon like a true Viking.

Red Ronnie was getting the chop:

Red ‘coz of his coxcomb, Ronnie ‘coz of Ronnie Corbett,

the gruff and portly other half of ‘The Two Ronnies’

we used to watch Friday nights.

Wham! Down it came.

Ronnie took off around the yard as though looking for his head, crashing into things

‘coz it’s sort of hard without yr eyes.

We ate Ronnie at Xmas.

*pic courtesy of pinterest