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 Doing Yoga
I was watching ants filing back and forth the other day
When two pulled ovef for a chat; and I wondered how it was
They knew each other seeing they all look alike; and I
Concluded they must have individual features like us:
Hooked noses, for instance, bushy eyebrows, little pot bellies
And carry nicknames like ‘Shorty’, ‘Ginge’ or ‘Spike’
And further ants must have little to say seeing they say it
So quickly, but mostly I wondered where ants are off to
All the time; it is hard to imagine them doing yoga, or chilling
Out at the cricket or at the beach in a deckchair or moshing out
in a mosh pit to Adam and the Ants. So where do ants go?
I was in bed with two Venetians, a long black
and a sleazy paperback
by Suzanne Pleshette
when an angry text erupted like a boil
on my iphone:
where were you, it said, I looked for you
& your floozy
everywhere in the cinema?
It was my old mate George.
Please don’t call her a floozy, I said.
We couldn’t make it. Sorry.
Sorry !!! Couldn’t make it.?
To see my new film, my best yet.
‘Ticket To Paradise’.
We’ll catch it on DVD, I said.
It’s not the same, he snapped,
sounding peeved and pedantic.
I don’t like hanging up on George
but he can work himself into a lather.
I dipped a Venetian into my long black
& carried on reading.
Is it okay to take a post down?
I took a post down the other day
but no one noticed,
said anything.
Look, it had its chance.
But no one came up and asked it
to dance.
It slumped, sad and neglected on the page,
loudly weeping.
You can’t have that on a public forum.
It’s like that Philip Hodgkins poem, ‘Shooting the Dogs’.
I had to take it down to the basement,
put it out of its misery.
I just hope no one was watching.
This is Shrek.
Say hello to Shrek.
As you can see this Shrek is NOT a fictional character
but real flesh and blood.
Nor is he green or ogre-ish.
Shrek works at the Stunned Mullet,
the best fish and chip shop in the suburbs
cooking and serving customers.
His real name is Srikanth and comes from India.
Workers at the Hilton near the airport where he used to work
contracted his name to ‘Shrek’ in 2016.
Srikanth loves it and has been called ‘Shrek’ ever since.
He is warm and amiable and has a wicked sense of humor.
When you get served by Shrek it brightens your day.
But What If I ….
I don’t think I can run anymore.
What?
I run out of puff. I can walk fast though. Does that count?
But you’re a running joke. Can’t you push yourself?
But what if I damage my hamstring?
Then you’ll become a lame joke. Get it?
Hey, I’m the one supposed to be cracking the jokes here.
Then run, for god-sakes, run.
*pic courtesy of pinterest
To the uninitiated , mysterious as
the moon monoliths in 2001 ;
pensioned off light-houses ? a giant’s
apartment house or a giant
phallus set in cement , a reminder
to the young colony —
populate or perish ? they come in
all shapes and sizes ; rise
suddenly from the landscape like
mushrooms with their long
stalks and caps yet exist singly —
it is houses that cluster
around them ; scattered around the
countryside they are tall
as wheat silos though their bellies
seem full of water
but why windows — for fish to peer
through ? or doors — what if
someone should break in ? only the tops
hold water , I am told ,
like a water tank on a stand ; largely
redundant , now they are
being sold off like unwanted churches ;
yet I consider them ,
their brief reign ; for me they always
held more than water
They’ll say, he doesn’t read the books he requests we purchase.
He just flits through them
Why does he even bother?
And I’ll say, ‘coz the book reviews were inspiring
or I read an extract in ‘The New Yorker’ or ‘SMH’,
But when I went to read it I got bored: the characters were flat, the plot rambling, the writing uninspired.
A bit like some of your posts, a snide librarian might say.
My Friday friend once said, I had the attention span of a gnat.
Ouch!
I don’t know what’s wrong with me.
I did finish a book a few years ago.
That was a book of short stories. Does that count?
Anyway, they’ll blacklist me soon, and everyone will be happy.
Sometimes when I’m driving along
the window down, wind winnowing my hair,
the sun giving me the thumbs up,
I break out in spontaneous whoops of joy.
No, I don’t have Tourette’s.
I haven’t won the Lottery.
I’m just laughing zebra happy,
turning cartwheels happy,
walking on my hands happy.
It’s infectious. I whoop some more.
You wouldn’t want to be a passenger.
John Malone 