‘Ditherers’
There’s a place at the slow end of town
where the fussy and fastidious
can’t-make-up-their- minds go.
It’s called ‘Ditherers’, a little hither
of Yon.
It’s where you mull over the menu
menacingly slow.
And dishes are consumed at a pace
only snails know.
Where anecdotes meander for miles
while the night nods off
and the moon hangs low,
There’s a diner called ‘Ditherers’
where minds to and fro.
Unstable Cliffs, the sign reads. Stay Clear.
And I think of the unstable Cliffs I have known:
The deputy that has a meltdown whenever I call in sick:
my cousin’s boyfriend who punches holes in the wall
when he is denied,
and the glue-sniffing Cliff I taught in Year 11 who fell asleep
on the tracks coming home from a party and was run over by a train.
They should have come with warnings too.
It’s okay being a caddie
tagging along with the team
light as a butterfly
nothing to prove
floating along the lazy rhythms
of the afternoon,
the dappled sunlight,
the bodyguard gums,
the cheeky creek bed waiting
to gobble up golf balls;
you’re nimble on yr feet,
jovial as a parrot
keeping the banter going
handing out irons
as a waiter would drinks,
planting the flag after putting is done
like Neil and Buzz on the moon
*pic courtesy of Wikipedia
Every now and then
I clear out the belfry of my brain
of nuisances and nits.
Does it pang my conscience?
No, not a whit.
It keeps my train of thought
from being derailed,
from being snailed
by useless baggage,
I’m unattached as the cabbage
on the shelf,
and the best part —
I’m free as a fart.
I get to be myself.
John Malone 