Sunset

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.

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

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

I wasn’t standing near a level crossing
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.