Midas And The Golden Wall:

It has taken me some time

to understand that the gold

Midas saw had nothing to do

with greed, rather he saw

what he fully expected

and so it has come to this

we bar the refugee

from our borders seeing

what we most dread

and in the construction freeze

ourselves into that image of Midas – hand

outstretched, the apple uneatable, golden;

water, air and food ruined

in the face of our unfounded fear

and no matter how high we build

the wall and whom we demand

pays us for it, the fear will always
enter into us free of charge.

Another Funeral:

(For cousin Terry)

There are no lessons in this,

He was Terry known as George to his family,

He was my cousin, the only son

Of my father’s only brother;

I do not know his children, he and my days

were years ago before women and girls and alcohol.

Bright days when Terry filled me with his ideas,

His facts and his thrill of adventure;

Yabbying in the old lake at Moonee Ponds,

Turning lights off up and down Airport West streets,

Sinking in a raft he built and I floated in -

Terry was older and wiser than me

In those faraway times of our childhood.

And now he has gone

And the many times I thought to catch up with him

Are in ruins but his memory runs strong

Through all that I do, especially in the words

I write and the stories I love to construct.

He was Terry known as George,

He was my cousin and in the years of my childhood

When the sun shone bright and the rain always left us,

He was my friend.

Nanna's Grandfather Clock:

It lived in the shadows of her bedroom, hers and Pop’s,

Though in my memory Pop is gone

Except in that room he wasn’t – a memory I guess

Like the distant ringing of that bell

He clanged every Christmas at Bid’s

Walking the street as Santa Clause for the kids,

The many of us who sat, brothers, sisters and cousins alike –

Although this memory is not mine – like that clock –

The clock that sat in her bedroom, the clock, tall and proud,

Silent mostly, a soldier, a testimony to secrets I did not know

While sometimes it gonged, an eerie sound

But Nanna liked eerie – like the picture she kept

Of Jesus that glowed in the dark, especially his red, red heart

That she saved for us at Christmas, when she turned it on

When we were allowed inside

Though usually my sister and I were not,

Cousin Terry was, and Steven too, just not us

And to this day I know not why that was -

The memory sits there, like that clock, in shadow and myth

Filled with the terrible shaking of legend and mischief.