Fork.
There’s something special about a small wooden fork.
Small, slender, artisanal.
Things just taste better with them.
Apple and cinnamon muffins, for one.
Strawberry shortcake.
And this explosion of a pavlova my daughter made,
the slice I’ve just eaten,
mango and whipped yoghurt
which gave this poem its prod.
The Butterflies of my Mind.
I was out among the fields, here one more time
Vigorously out hunting the butterflies of my mind
All the poems, the stories that had given me the slip
And would it seem once more; I had to be quick.
All the bright, beautiful things just beyond my net
Any moment now I’ll snare one; damn! Not just yet
Snip
Snip
Snip
Like scissors
Snipping hair
Your
Swift
Little beaks
Snip bugs
From the air
You are furry like a dog
sit at my feet like a dog
follow me around like a dog
always under my feet
but you don’t woof.
You are my slippers,
a handsome, friendly pair.
My ex never liked you.
She said I’d be wearing
a dressing gown next,
smoking a pipe,
reading cozy murder mysteries
in front of a log fire
but now it’s just you & me.
You often hear the phrase
‘let me slip into something
more comfortable’
as a prelude to sex
in steamy novels
but comfortable to me
means something else.
You can’t get into much trouble
wearing yr furry friends.
If you come across a poem that looks unwell
a little wan
tape it to the window
let it soak up some sun
bring colour to its cheeks
let its eyes feast on the great outdoors:
the tall cedars tapering to the Xmas tree skies,
the yellow-shouldered honey eaters bouncing on boughs
like kids on a trampoline
cobwebs in their silvery finery draped
over the gate that no one enters.
Invite some other poems over, maybe
Too much navel gazing is not good for a poem.
Offer it a coffee.
a sliver of Mrs. Kipling’s peach and vanilla slice.
a jaffa cake for zing,
Take it for a workout at the gym.
.It’ll soon be better.
And so will you.
When I drove my daughter to her friend’s new place
in the Adelaide Hills
she turned on her phone’s GPS system
as we took
one branching road, then another,
scores of roads branching up, down, across
that went on for miles
deeper & deeper
into
the dark woods
& you said, we’re getting closer, only a few miles now
& I said,
Christ, how do they ever find their way out of here
each morning
& you laughed
but eventually we found it, we got there.
You be okay finding your way out, dad without the GPS?
& I said, sure, how hard can it be?
then I took off
winding my way back and forth
for miles,
there were so many possibilities,
almost running out of fuel & patience
till I stumbled upon multiple forks any of which looked good
so I took one
& that’s when I learnt the difference between
a labyrinth and maze:
a maze is multicursal [ many branches] while a labyrinth
is unicursal [one branch].
I was in a maze.
A labyrinth is easier.
I wonder how often they make love out there in the garden?
It gives a new meaning to the phrase ‘hard on’
I wonder is it a man and a woman?
I creep up to get a better look but they turn on me with a stony gaze.
I just hope they are discreet when the grandkids come over
or disengage for dear old great grandma.
A sight like that could finish her off.
I must say though they do have a marmoreal presence
and no unseemly sounds come from them.
Perhaps they are conscious of passers-by like me, voyeurs
and let it all hang out at night when only the stars and the big white eye
of the moon are watching.
I just hope they don’t get too rambunctious though:
that tap on the right looks a bit dodgy;
it wouldn’t take much to snap it and water come spurting out
like … like …
Discretion forbids me to extend the simile.
I was driving to the clinic about my disintegrating blood
thinking about the riots in Washington,
the four deaths,
when Barry McGuire came on the radio, singing his anthem, from the sixties
‘Eve of Destruction’. You know it?
And I thought:
it must mean something, a message maybe but could something
written that far back, sixty years,
speak to the present?
Barry thought so, his voice just as urgent,
just as polemic
as it was then.
Sure, the finger on the nuclear button seemed shrill,
a little hysterical — it’d be more measured now, wouldn’t it? —
but the hate in Red China and the riots in Selma, Alabama,
seemed less so.
He was really getting worked up.
I thought his passion would pulverize the speakers.
I was getting a little scared, feel my blood fretting.
Just as I pulled in the car park,
the song came to an end.
God knows what apocalyptic anthem
would confront me on the way home.
pic courtesy of Wiki Commons
at Barry’s Burgers
at Semaphore
on the esplanade
they’ve put up art work
on the walls
to keep customers amused
while waiting:
drawings
fresh, inventive, zesty,
a little wacky
like Barry’s burgers
themselves
John Malone 