You Can’t All Be In It

 
You can’t all be in it, I say.

It’s not like a clown’s car. See how many you can cram in.

It’s a poem.

But they don’t listen.

A simple poem about a change in weather and everybody wants a part:

the tawny frogmouth clacking in the crotch of the peppercorn tree,

the palm fronds all a fluster, the shed door banging like castanets,

the Scrabble tiles flying off the board, all peeved,

the sky itself wearing its overcoat, grey and squally —

it’s rather proud of that;

no, no, no I say,

as I drive off, everyone hanging on for dear life
 

Mustafa and the Makeover

Mustafa who knew me well was a refugee too: he from Syria, me from the realm of common sense.

How would you like it cut? he asked.

Like yours, I said.

Like mine?

Yes.

He didn’t chuckle. He didn’t comment on the outrageousness of my request.

Apart from the difference in hair color, there was also the disparity in volume though he admitted, even at 27, he was losing his hair.

He cut, he swooped, he shaved, he teased and cajoled but when finished he wrought a little miracle.

How did it look?  Shaved at the sides , but on top what hair I had was swept to the other side of my head and held down by gel. It looked amazing.

Askew, I said, It looks amazingly askew.

Like your writing, he said.

Yes, like my writing.

I Am Not Chernobyl

I am not Chernobyl.

Not Three Mile Island.

I am not about to have a meltdown.

That steam coming out of my ears? That?

Just me letting some of the pressure out.

That growl?

Don’t worry. It’s worse than its bite.

That string of expletives I’m about to utter?

Just my inner Tourette’s airing its dirty laundry.

. A meltdowm? Nah. Now what is it you’ve been trying to tell me?

*pic courtesy of Pinterest

Out of Time

Sometimes I wake up in a room

& don’t know where I am.

My partner’s?

My daughter’s?

Home?

Sometimes I walk into a room that isn’t

even there.

carrying two cups of coffee,

one for me, one for her

and a Sunday Mail under my arm

but that was yesterday.

I’m in the 4^th dimension now.

Somewhere in the distance a crow caws, a cat hisses, an old CD

is playing, ‘You’re out of time, my baby’.

I scratch my head, my balls.

How do I get back Where’s the exit door?

The entrance?

Help.

The Man in the Box has a Few Things to Say

He had a rough time as a kid, a tough time as a teenager, and did hard time as an adult in maximum-security, an ideal upbringing for a Coffin Confessor, a calling Bill Edgar, the author, pioneered.  

You need balls to be a coffin confessor, a job, if you’ll excuse the pun,  he fell into. A coffin confessor gatecrashes funerals, and reads out what his client, the deceased, discloses to him on their deathbed. He is entrusted to let the mourners know the bitter truth that has been largely hidden from them all this time. There is always at least one of the mourners who receives a right royal drubbing, a public flogging by the lash of truth.

He3re is his spiel: “Excuse me, but I’m going to need you to sit down, shut up or fuck off. The man in the box has a few things to say,”

You gotta read this book. Every chapter is rivetting.

On the Shortest Day

On the shortest day

I take the longest run

between one jetty and the next

and back again

rest myself against the rump

of a dune

listen to the sea shanties of the waves

while a mermaid appears, rises above the waves

swinging her wild, wild hair

in the sun-drenched breeze

until spotting me she coyly slips

beneath the water.

The jetty wades a little deeper into the sea

to catch a glimpse.

On the shortest day I tell

the tallest tales.

That Little Imp

When my writing ‘seizes up’ like my laptop

when it gets too stiff, formal, clunky

I call in my little imp

that firecracker of mischief

to get in amongst the words

like a dog

amongst the sheep

to shake them out of their torpor,

their locked in state,

nip a few ankles if necessary

give them the run-around

so everything’s loosened, wide awake,

shifted,

moving again

then ,

I can call him off

& when the dust settles the poem settles too

into something like

normalcy

relaxed, loose, easy.

The Sedate Life

I lead a fairly sedate life

but every now and then

I do something wild

just to feel really alive

like the other day I’m on this long stretch of road

through the Adelaide Hills

& I don’t know it at the time but my daughter is a few cars

behind in her little blue Subaru

and there’s this sudden roller coaster stretch

where the road steeply descends for a kilometre

then shoots up, the long climb to level

& my daughter thinks, God, how is dad going to keep up

with those cars once they get going?

but I just let out a whoop, push the pedal down

and go for it,

eat my dust, I say to the other sad saps as I shoot ahead

& my little charcoal Cruiser is the the Batmobile,

and I’m tearing up the bitumen on an assignment in Gotham

a dragon in my blood

& I keep going, going wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

but as the road levels out, I slow,

letting the other donkeys catch up,

then sit on the speed limit the rest of the way home,

little old sedate me.

Supermoon in a New Light

And I know there’s a supermoon out tonight

& all i have to do is go out and look

above the treetops

and exclaim, Wow! Wow

& the stone dog will be pissing on the pavers again

& Mad Meg reeling ’round the birdbath freaking out

the other chooks

& the thoughts in my blood skedaddle like a cat

over the page

& I can barely keep up

& I know I’m going to be crucified for what I say

but hey! it’s Easter, the season to be crucified

but a rebirth is coming, a renewal.

I just don’t know what it’s going to look like

on the other side

Inside the Panels

Reading when one person dies the whole world is over, a bleak and beautiful scratchy black-and-white graphic novel. It rains a lot inside the panels. Even for Melbourne. Even when it isn’t raining, the sky is dark and broooding. After a while the pages become soggy; the panels leak into each other; water begins dripping on the floor. I go to get a bucket but it rains and rains. The bucket overflows. In the end I have to close the book and take it back to the library before the house gets flooded.