Sunset.
Fascist yellow
sun,
barking mad,
see how the sea breezes run
from you,
your rabid red breath
stoking
the ovens
of night;
four days of heat
ahead.
No mercy expected.
Sunset
horror
Is This How it Happens
Is This How it Happens?
He drove down to the Tobacconist to buy her some cigs.
There was someone new there today.
Yes? he was asked.
That’s when it happened.
20, 20 …..It’ll come to me in a minute.
But it didn’t.
He had forgotten the mantra. The words that come one after the other. He had forgotten the first word. If he knew that, the rest would come.
He had to drive back home and ask.
What an idiot, he thought.
It wasn’t as bad as forgetting the groceries in the shopping trolley then driving off without them.
That was ten years ago.
But it wasn’t good.
She told him.
Then he drove back and said it: 20 Classic Gold Signature, thanks, Red.
It felt good like rattling off a formula for the chemistry teacher in Year 12. Or a soliloquy from Hamlet.
He was on top of things again.
Crack
Crack
Not the crack in the cosmic egg
Nor the crack addicts smoke
Not even the crack in crack, snapple, pop breakfast cereal
but the bum crack
of Mr. Hairy
at the Eye Clinic
when he bent over to pick up
a form he had dropped
his shirt rolled up,
his jeans slipped a notch or two.
Everyone copped an eyeful.
I cracked a smile.
Some tittered.
Mr. Hairy was oblivious.
*pic courtesy of pexels.com
Ants
Ants
1
Like angry black hairs
the ants scatter everywhere
when I discover them
under the hem
of the water drum
2
They are like
runaway exclamation marks
on their side
their heads
the full stops
3
A year after the gulf war
I stayed with a friend in the states
who suffered a home invasion
of ants .
He sprayed , stamped , stomped
on them
till his house was clean .
That’s what Bush should have done
with Saddam he proclaimed
4
There are no ants in heaven
a priest explained to us at school .
Some how they got beneath the creator’s gaze
like cockroaches , rats and spiders .
They have no souls .
Kill with impunity
5
Smidgins of black , dashes.
a black din of limbs
an amokery of midnight slivers
through a crack in our world
they got in
*pic courtesy of pinterest
Guillotine
Guillotine.
Who devised you?
You look so cute
so placid
so trustworthy
warm wooden seat
on the toilet rim
but when I lift you up
to pee
you don’t stay up
like other toilet seats
but drop down
heavily
like something medieval
a guillotine
ouch !
Lady Bay
Lady Bay
Molly and Tom are sipping G & T’s on the porch of their third room apartment overlooking the golf course.
“It is so peaceful here, “ Molly remarks.
The main road passes the links where cars pick up speed after leaving the confines of a 50 k zone but their roar is swallowed by the distance from the apartments and the vastness of the course.
Just then Tom’s eyes lift as he notices a vehicle driving over the green. It has just come off the road.
It slows down and stops. Two figures in dark blue uniform dash out.
“It looks like a police van,” Tom remarks. “What are they doing on the course?”
Just then three shots ring out. Then silence. There is a scuffle of some sort. Within a few minutes the van drives off.
Later at dinner Tom and Molly learn from their waiter that a king ‘roo had been hit by a SUV and wandered onto the course, broken and bloody, “scaring the bejesus out of the oldies”.
That it was the night before Halloween did not go unnoticed.
Siberia
Siberia
We arrived late at night. That may have been the reason.
Or maybe our reputation preceded us.
Either way we ended up in Siberia, Room 313 , the furthest most room from the front desk, next to the storage area.
Adele, the desk clerk, wasn’t much help. In her effort to be genial, she often hit the wrong note.
Eventually, we got our keys and lugged our baggage down the long, long corridor, the shadows across the carpet hulking and ominous.
By the time we got to our room we were stuffed,
We stripped off and hopped beneath the covers of the king size bed.
That’s when I realized we had company.
The figure beside me shifted uneasily
Stunned and Panicky
I wake up suddenly
stunned and panicky
like a ‘roo caught in the headlights
of a big rig
an eighteen wheeler
tunneling thru the darkness.
My senses are all rinsed.
I leap out of bed
into the hysterical light of morning
pour myself a coffee
settle back into my little
skew whiff home.
- pic courtesy of pinterest
Interloper
I was doing yoga
when
I heard it fall;
that cranky cat, I thought
but when I got up
to look
it was the photo of poor late Milly,
our beloved Burmese,
she had knocked off
the cabinet;
I know what she was thinking,
that interloper,
her photo all over the house
but not one
of me,
the new kid on the block.
Something Stupid
being eaten alive by tiger mosquitoes waiting
for the train to pass when
I could be at the River Bar drinking with my buddies
under a cool fan
but I was stuck in the emergency ward of the RAH
waiting for the medicos
to attend to my heart attack or whatever I was having
and I had a killer thirst.
So just like George did something stupid —
stepping over the carriage links when the train lurched forward
so I discharged myself
so I could be at the pub by 5pm with my mates,
I had to sign a waiver though.
Nothing happened to me like losing a leg
but it could have, It could have.
John Malone 