The Phrase Without Borders

 

Just bear with me, the voice on the line said.

Your call is important to us.

I don’t know how many times I’ve heard this

Over the past few weeks:

Librarians, telcos, clinics, call centres

In India, Thailand.

A phrase without borders

 

I have always done as requested.

I have borne much.

There should be a medal awarded:

The O.I.P

The Order of Infinite Patience

Whose recipients would be many.

I can imagine St. Peter

Perusing the names of the recently dead

And, on coming to mine, say,

Just bear with me. I’ll be with you in a moment

Before checking my details

& letting me through.

Ghost Galahs

I want to photograph the galahs

clowning on the bare limbs

of the Norfolk pines

but the buggers won’t keep still

 

racing around like particles

inside a Hadron Collider.

Just as you line up a couple

They’d be elsewhere.

 

All I needed was a panoramic shot

But then they’d be off

Across the river, raucous as a footy crowd..

Better off snapping flowers,

blossoms.

In Praise of Slowness

It was World Turtle Day last week.

I was a little slow off the mark

But I’m onto it now penning these lines.

I’d write a little more; trouble is

things are whizzing by , my head is spinning.

I’ve got to slow down, take a pit stop,

Pace myself a little. Whew!

I should be done by next World Turtle Day

But I wouldn’t want to stick my neck out.

The Problem of Pachelbel

I don’t know what Pachelbel would make of it but

When I’m put on hold for a wine club query,

His canon plays. Actually I’m a member of a number

Of wine clubs which may say more about me

Than Pachelbel whose canon plays as on-hold music

For each of them.

 

I would have thought Chumbawamba’s ‘Tubthumping’

would have been more appropriate, if less soothing,

or Roger Miller’s Chug-A-Lug or, for a bit of class,

Mario Lanza’s Drink, Drink, Drink but Pachelbel it is.

 

I don’t know If Pachelbel was fond of a glass

or two in the evenings

Or when he was composing his hypnotic canon.

He may have been a member of a wine club himself

In which case —excuse the pun — he would be tickled

Pink, especially if a Rose man.

 

when you are put on hold, are you annoyed or pleased by the music that is played? 

have you ever discovered a song though being put on hold?

If Only it didn’t Get in the Way

 

I came across a woman who kept tripping over her shadow.

If only it didn’t stand so close, she said, tripping over the shadow’s right foot.

She lifted herself from the ground and before she could hit full stride, the shadow tripped over her.

Fuck! It yelled. She keeps getting in the way.

It lay on the ground, grunting. I think I’ve twisted my ankle.

Here, let me help, I offered. The shadow was tall and spindly and so was relatively easy to pick up.

The sun went behind a cloud and briefly the two became one.

Then it came out again, and the pair went on their slapstick way, tripping and falling.

How they made it home was anyone’s guess.

 

 

 

Poem with a Great Last Line

I have just written a poem.

I read it to my granddaughter.

“Hey! Great last line,” she says.

“But what about the rest of the poem?” I say.

“Great last line”

I go back to the poem.

Read it a few times.

It is a great last line.

So what I do is this: I jettison the rest of the poem and keep

the last line,

I read it a few times.

I read it to her.

She hesitates.

I read it again.

It seems to lack something,” she says.

So I put the poem back together like it was and read it to her.

“Great last line,” she says.

Single White Rolls

You got to feel sorry for single white rolls.

Even in packs they can’t make a go of it.

Maybe they should take a good hard look

at themselves

consult relationship experts like couples

on Married …

or search for roll-mates on Tinder.

There must be someone out there.

If ‘Baked Fresh’ doesn’t confer any advantages

I don’t know what does.

Even when consumed they die alone.

It must be a lonely existence.