Even the Zucchini Cake

Even the Zucchini Cake.

Even the zucchini cake

didn’t lift him;

all our thoughts, poems, stories

we thought

so scintillating,

he mused:

second hand, dead wood,

old hat

stodgy as a stale

haiku

Short Shorts

Breathe.

I watch the shirts

On the line

Breathe in and out

Letterboxes.

They line up along

The footpath mouths open

Hungry for mail.

Exercise.

That black bug

Stretching wings, legs

Doing tai chi on the page.

Trigger.

That rustling in the hedge

A short story

Stirring into life

Egg.

Bald and black

As an emu’s egg, the helmet’s hatched

A biker’s head.

Coffee Shop: Quartet

Coffee Shop Quartet.

that quartet of oldies, cosseted in their cardigans,

smugly commiserating the homeless

and Wheatus raps rancidly over the radio

‘I’m just a teenage dirt-bag, baby’

Billy Collins on my screen reading his poem

about Goya’s chandelier hat

lighting up the gloom of his garret

and the fusspot next to me

picking at the frosted icing on his fruitcake

as though it were a scab

* pic courtesy of pinterest

Bella

the breeze is slurping my face

like Bella’s pink dog tongue

when sick, I slumped on the sofa

The Perfect Tea Spoon

It is the perfect tea spoon

small

slender

stubby handled

like the pen

I write with

snug as a haiku

in my hand

ready to stir

the sullen brew

to life

• have you a special piece of cutlery or a small everyday item that is dear to you?

How I Like It

Short,

sharp, snarly,

tight as a a haiku

assured.

amped,

giving it to me straight

like a track

from

Amyll & the Sniffers

• pic courtesy of Wikimedia

Nursery Crimes

Waddle waddle

toil and twaddle

the cat’s in its cradle

the boy’s in the bubble

The king’s in the counting house

counting out his money

the red back’s on the toilet seat

in the outdoor dunny

Old Mother Hubbard’s

in lockdown at home

 the poor little dog

still hasn’t a bone

but the cow’s over the moon

the sun’s in the stubble

and Basho’s feisty frog

plops in the puddle

There Must be Some Nice Things I Can Say about You

Let me see.

There must be some nice things

I can say about you.

I get to hang out with my inner hermit again.

Where you been? he asks sullenly.

Busy, I say, busy. But hey! It’s good to see you.

Can we, you know, have a beer together? Bring in a Pizza? Watch ‘The Farmer Wants a Wife?’

Sure, I say, sure.

We hug each other. It’s like old times. There’s a tear in his rheumy eyes.

I got time now.

I go to the old bookshelf. It’s pretty dusty. Don’t get much reading done when you’re out and about.

And I grab one, that big Collected Graham Greene

and we settle into ‘The Quiet American’.

There are some stories you can’t read enough.

You could do with a shower, I say. So could you, says hermit.

We give each other a playful punch. It’s like old times.

I watch his hands, his fingers twitching. He pulls back the curtain, peers outside.

Do you reckon we could ,,,,?.

Why not? I say. It’s the season for it.

We stoke up the fire, sit side by side, writing our shivery little three liners, haiku on wind, frost, ice, hailstones.

Winter, you’re not all bad.

I Wonder if Spiders

I wonder if spiders

in their webs

at night

spin poems

‘bout me & you

nattering away in the moonlight

in neat little haiku

you with your cigs

me with my brew

of jasmine tea

spinning our memories

wishes

of how things might be

or would they instead

taking a jaundiced view

spin snarky little

senryu

True Colours: the Story behind No Sympathy …

When people ask me, did you have any inkling in all that time you knew him, I say, not really, then I think of the incident in the restaurant,the one that slipped beneath my notice in what was meant to be a piece of devilish fluff in ‘No Sympathy ….’

It began in the third line: Hey! Is that a glass of water you threw over me? That’s when autobiography took over and followed us out onto the sidewalk where I was shoved to the ground when my back was turned and my mate who had turned rogue did a runner.

So did I know? Did I suspect? I sure did: in those moments he unleashed diminutive, haiku-sized bursts of anger, I could feel the embers of a conflagration 18 years before that the forensic squad, armed with new evidence and methods of detection, were sifting through and building a case.

His mate, Dale , who let him stay on his property at Second Valley in a caravan while he got his life together, fell victim to Adrian’s wrath.

All that time Adrian proclaimed his innocence, He was the only suspect. He lived at my place for a while, He rode a bike, did the gardening, spoke to the kids, Everyone loved him. A top bloke, they said. Then the night ….

Once my friend was charged with the cold case and sentenced, he finally admitted to us: Just think, he said, 15 years for five seconds of madness.

That little haiku of a revelation warned me that of all the affairs we have to manage in life, our temper comes first.