Saturday 28 January 2017

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.

Monday 9 January 2017

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.