All the Well Ordered Books.
All the well ordered books
behave themselves just like chooks
leaping down with squawk and cluck
and soon begin to run amuck
scrambling around from door to door
for crumbs of knowledge upon the floor
A Playful Panda of a Poem
She glows and she glitters
from sunset to sunrise
she is an all night lady
with tachycardic eyes
She loves the crickets of Quorrobolong
the whimsy of the wind
the noisy cross-eyed mynah
the clatter of rubbish bins
She has a tachycardic heart
and tachycardic toes
and takes herself off
wherever the wild wind blows
She loves the smell of coquetry
the stars, the perfumed black
and when she finally settles, eats
French Fries and Big Macs
*pic courtesy of pinterest
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.
Blowing Rainbows
Maybe if I was a little less lethargic
I could turn to things pelagic
and swim in the open sea
my arms and my legs
could become fin-amajegs
and I could blow rainbows
through my nasal cavity
*pic courtesy of Pinterest
There’s a miniature submarine lurking
at the bottom of the aquarium .
It is smooth and black with feathery gills .
It is an axolotyly .
We call him Axle , of course .
Most of the time he just hangs around
amongst the water weeds .
Perhaps he’s lonely and depressed .
But every now and then
he rouses himself
and cruises around as if on patrol .
The other fish give him right of way .
Perhaps he thinks he really is a submarine
on an important mission ,
keeping the waters safe for democracy ,
for instance .
Sometimes when he cruises past the sides
of the tank
I give him the thumbs up .
It seems to give him a lift .
This is Rumpole.
Rumpole is a plaster of Paris statue of a real dog that wandered away nine years ago and never came back.
We tell tales of where he might have gone, what mischief he got up to and the puppies he might have sired.
We still think one day he will find his way back home which is why we leave the side gate open.
Meanwhile the statue is comforting. We know he’s not really there
But every Halloween he cocks his leg and pisses on the pavers to remind us he still is
John Malone 