The only poetry I write now is song lyrics. But I used to write poetry. Here are a few.
Animal Time
Hold fast your Spartan toes, strange animal,
Cling, and with your bat-like tenacity
Swing forgotten
In the fluid machinery of clock time.
Pond your silly neck upon foreign shores, strange animal
And like generations before you
Cower in your lonely chamber
Jealous of the sun.
Wings for a dungeon.
Kite freedom.
I sit in my quiet corner
And thumb a passive pencil
Dreaming I dreamt a dream
Thoughts jerk uneasy
Like uncomfortable house guests
Seeking expression in an ashtray.
They will not be still.
Mid 1980
Upon a Razor's Edge
What might be
What may have been
As I doodle in these empty cubes of time
Is not for me to know.
The steady pulse of night
Can extirpate with careless hands
The flower it has so laboriously grown.
One second
For he agony of routine words upon the phone
To fill my heart with disbelief and tragedy.
One second
To shatter the illusion of a lifetime
To knife the threads of logic to non sense
To charge with fact
Tranquility to chaos.
Weak with an anger that feeble limbs betray
This belching heart within frail limbs
Is in an instant caged.
Trapped by a knowledge that time will not reverse
My bulk becomes a coffin for my brain
I am a hearse
Until the fog of bathroom tiles
In cubicles of vision
Spills its life without remorse
Upon a razor’s edge
One second
What might have been
Was not;
And I may breathe again.
8.9.80
Pinpoint
I suck the universe into my every crevice
I am not to it
It is to me
I am the pinpoint of all I see.
I am not to it
It is to me
Yet a pinpoint is all I see.
Perspective
(Come- approach the stage, young man,
Your awkward sprawling gait
An edifice to your time and age.
What happens in the end, old man
Will find another label.)
Spread hard against the canvas night
Unstable beads of distant daylight
Dagger diamond wounds.
The cumbersome moon (my host)
Displays his relatives with almost
Routine reverence.
His moment fades
His claim to sky
Evening to morning upon my eye.
The genius of universal compromise.
Stars, I hear you chuckle in your infinite skies
As a human form polishes morning eyes:
‘Is the sun out today?’
So who am I
That I might raise my hand
To pluck a galaxy, unseen
And pen in hand
Upon this microdot stand
Name it for country or queen?
I call myself man.
I label things.
I am unashamed.
I have walked upon the moon.
Late 1980
My Winter Love
When the bitter southern wind
Cuts its teeth upon the razor edged buildings
And the winter children
Scamper with dogs to secret places;
When the brisk Australian air
Hangs in blades about my tongue and throat-
Then I will remember my winter love
And how the tang of that season
Crept in layers about us
As we lay content and lush
In the juices of our love
Exalting within the thin borders of our world.
18.6.81
Without/Within
It is a broken thing
this world without you
A splintered, broken thing
rusty and thin.
A fitful slumber, crazy and wild
Wounded and charging in angry solitude,
Shaking the rotten globe,
Straining in constraint,
Caged in blood and bone,
Dissatisfied; eager; impatient,
Stamping its childish feet for attention
And finding
none.
It is an empty thing
this world without you
Full of an emptiness
raging within.
A crag of crumbling rocks
And ominous, furious, coiling clouds;
Numb and jumperless
This broken toothed hour
without.
Clawing, cramplike, pain in soul
without my drug
my need.
Dead images crawl and are badly seen
in this world without
within
And in this anger, these angers, this love
still lives
To leave me, without you
And when, without you
leaves me totally without
within.
Late 1981 or early 1982
Elegy to an Airline Hostess
Our love has been-
A rose half draped in sunlight
A promise half performed
A trick of day and night time
Half buried and half born
Half fed on hope and wonder
Half drowned in hate and pain
Half over and half under
Half waxing and half waned.
You used to grip my fingers
When I said that I loved you
You used to give your generous mouth
And say: ‘ I love you too.’
You once ached for me truly
As I still do for you
But now when I say: ‘I love you.’
You say, ‘I know you do.’
Our love has been-
A rose half draped in sunlight
Half sunlight and half
It’s dainty petals crushed between
The passages of planes.
September 1983
Untitled
So come with me now
Into skyscape of galaxies
Spiralling Catherine wheels
Countless in suns.
Think with the light
In its numb state of consciousness
Feel with it.
Open your mind.
All is one.
1984
No start
No end
No thing at all
Collective agreement is all.
What of the thing
Which is no thing?
There is no thing
Except the process in between
The no thing
And us all.
1984
Me Mum’s Birthday
Mum, today you’re fifty-two
And you should know we care for you
Although sometimes you make us blue-
Mum, we really love you.
Although you often scream and shout
If the washing’s not put out
And nothing there’s much ado about-
Mum, we really love you.
Although you worry for no reason
And bash our ears through every season
And though you are devoid of reason
Mum, we really love you.
Mum, we love you
Though you’re wrinkled and small.
Mum, we love you
Though you hassle us all.
Mum, we love you
Though your brain is small.
Mum, we really love you.
April 1984
The Gift of Ra
The rain comes down upon the planet
And all around the trees luxuriate-
Roots delving deep’
Drinking full from the soils cup.
Winter’s dull squat
And the black birds aloft
Crying for moisture.
Light aircraft blink through their windscreen eyes
Above the bitumened earth
Where water bubbles and splutters
And falls into gutters
Which the drains gobble up without protest.
Across the street
A telegraph pole triumphantly holds
His precious, drooping wet cables
And powers the light by which I write.
He rots more slowly than the eye may discern
Beneath the pitiless late winter rain.
Next summer he will bake
Beneath the archer sun
Who will crack his bow
At the parched, enduring wood.
Schools out
And the infants pass in noisy parade
Dodging the droplets
For they are young
And foolish enough
To know the truth about rainy days.
They are the gift of Ra
The God of the Sun
Who provides such days
To keep us washed and spun.
Winter 1984
Bullets, Bombs and Canon Balls
I was hit by a bullet the other day
It must have come from miles away
‘Cos it didn’t hurt much at all.
A passer-by, who heard me yell
Approached me with a tale to tell
About a canon ball.
It seems that he was keeping goal,
A grim patrol, for the day was wet
And he was caked in mud and sweat
When a ball he spied
And so he dived
And it took him through the net.
And then a woman who had seen
What just had been
Said that once she’d been on a trampoline
When a bump she felt,
And the ground she saw,
And when she woke,
Upon the floor,
Beside her there
In two was spliced
A thermo nuclear device.
Unlikely though these stories are
Once a woman was hit by a falling star-
It was of course a meteor
And her leg was sore
But what is more the earth it falls
Like bullets, bombs and canon balls
And if by chance we fell on God
I wonder if we’d wake the sod?
Late 1984
The Bowl
The bowl above,
The bowl below,
If the earth were transparent
And the sun didn’t glow
We’d know
The motion of the heavens from the earth.
The bowl above,
The bowl below,
If the earth were transparent
We’d feel mighty insecure.
The bowl above,
The bowl below,
If the sun didn’t glow
We wouldn’t be here.
The bowl above,
The bowl below,
A crusty earth
And a sun that glows
Is just enough for us to know
Comfortably.
Late 1984
Woodpeckers
The time when a man’s voice could thunder the globe
Is not now. Now is for woodpeckers
Tenaciously pecking the trees’ brittle skin.
Bury your beak in the bark, little pecker
The forest is not yours to view.
Aristotle gone mad in the nuclear lab
In a world when physicists
Conclude with Hindus and Buddhists.
So here is the forest
And here are the trees
And here are the woodpeckers
Each one to each.
Drink from the river
For it will remain
First to sea, then to rain, then to river again.
Philosophy, science, art and technology
All of these rivulets drink from them too
Each in its measure
And conclude what you will
For conclusions are nothing.
Back to your tree, little pecker
But come drink again very soon.
You may not know the forest
But the forest knows you
Your diligent search for an insect treat
Has made many a home for a rest
Or a meeting place for
Tired travelers and feathered families.
When will we know the forest?
When we longer ask.
When the billions of trees
And the trillions of rivulets
Crumble to one common seed.
When will that be?
In death there will be time to breathe.
When the tree and the forest are one and the same
When the dance and the dancer are one
At a time when man’s thunder is needed no more
And all is regarded as one.
Early 1985
The Man Without a Friend
There was a house upon a hill
Above a bay, beneath the sky
Within which lived a man who cried
Because he had no friends.
He’d tap his stick upon the floor
Within his barren corridor
And there, upon his rocking chair,
He’d lose his hair.
Beyond the trees, alive in day,
The restless beauty of the bay
Was evident to all but him
This lonely man without a friend.
And seldom did he move outside
Too often would his thoughts collide
And leave him misty on the street
Where all the living humans meet.
His happiness was all behind
Instead, he sat inside and cried.
And none would enter through that door.
The telephone upon the floor
Had ceased top ring two years before
When Emily had died.
And so he cried and cried and cried
Until his feeble body dried
And then he died
Within the house upon the hill
Above the bay, beneath the sky.
A note was found upon his chest
Which smelt of death
And read:
I have known the best
I have seen the rest
The best has left
What is left
Is the rest.
Poor poetry on which to end
Sad, lonely man without a friend.
Late 1984
The Truth of the Matter
Little stars down thar
How are you?
Who is the master
Me or you?
For the truth of the matter
Is that nothing is true
And the sun doesn’t shine for the day.
Little ball I fall
On top of you
Who is the master
Me or you?
For the truth of the matter
Is that all is true
And the sun does shine for the day.
There’s a diamond in the middle of a big yellow star
Bigger than a breadbox
Bigger by far
That’s not true but some things are
And it really doesn’t matter anyway- Hey!
Little black box skies all in a row
It’s so cold tonight that the stars won’t glow
Once we know what we’re doing here
We’ll all go ‘Poof!’ and disappear.
You are a silly boy
Yes you are.
Bigger than a breadbox
Smaller than a star
For the truth of the matter is that nothing is true.
For the truth of the matter
Is that all is true.
For the truth of the matter is that matter isn’t matter
And it doesn’t really matter anyway- Hey!
And the sun doesn’t shine
And the sun does shine
And logic can only explain.
Late 1984
Other Planes
The other planes of consciousness
Of which we have no notion
Are hid beyond the tumbling sky
Beyond the sense which we employ
To analyse their motion
And if we could
T’would be no good to us
We sluggish atoms
Who formed like cloud in empty sky
Then fell like heavy frozen light
Within the freezing solar night
In sub-atomic patterns.
Friday the 13th
A peal of thunder
A sprinkle of rain
Which runs into big blobs of thick heavy rain
Which turn into hailstones
That jump up and down
And frolic about on the green sod ground.
First rain to hail
Now hail to rain
Now thunderclouds
To hail again.
You wicked sky
You punish us so
You bring us hail but never snow.
The ground must be hot
For the hail jumps around
As if Dante’s inferno were under the ground.
The motorbike sits
In its squat little way
An eight sixty Ducati- all wet from the rain.
The peg bucket shivers
All yellow and cold
All full of the deluge this afternoon holds.
Two towels on a line
And a sprinkling of pegs
(These pegs are all grieving their poor drowned friends).
Two pegs are unlucky
And must each bear a towel.
One says to the other:
‘Who ever heard of a big towel
And only one peg?’
‘Especially a wet towel,’
The other one says.
Now the calming of sky
Now the ceasing of rain
Now the glum froggy tone
Of a cowardly plane.
Poor washing machine
You’re all humble and wet
You’re outside because you’re all rotten and dead
Dark clouds linger on
And won’t let you forget.
Our bent barbeque
Our tall, noble gum
All bathed in a shower of afternoon sun.
Soft rain? And the sun?
So I walk from my house
And turn to the east
To a rainbow and clouds.
I have just seen a friend
She has filled me with love.
In this early spring evening
There’s a rainbow above.
But still, ‘tis not still
In this wet heavy sky
There is thunder about
And the heavens must cry.
13.9.85
The Abyss
Where is the girl of my soft winter passion?
Where do you wander my lost winter love?
Too many seasons have passed in between us
The abyss below and the abyss above.
Where are you woman whom I loved so dearly?
Where are you woman whom I dearly loved?
Too many seasons have passed in between us
The abyss below and the abyss above.
We spiral through time in a dumb easy motion
On opposite sides of the star wheel we spin
Memories frozen in photograph albums
The abyss outside and the abyss within.
If it be that to separate futures we hurry
So be it for what is to be is to be
But I want you to know that my heart is still open
I think of you often, Miss G.
So where is the girl of my soft youthful passion?
Where do you wander my lost winter dream?
There’s an abyss below and abyss above us
And too many seasons between.
February 1985
Los Angeles
Los Angeles found us once again as lovers-
A brief sojourn far from rusty shores.
The evening took its leave
The morning spread around us
And I loved you as I always have
Maybe even more.
You by my side in a hotel room.
I cried when we loved
For the beauty was too great.
Now, one year removed,
Under twelve empty moons
You have found yourself another mate.
14.3.85
Timelines
Seekers of symphony
Lovers of light
Answer this question for me:
If I think of the past
Was I in some sense present
When the past was the present to me?
If I dream back to Manly in bitumened spring
When the rain held my lady and me
If I sniff in the fresh road
And see us together
Was my thought there as well?
Or could it be
That the past comes to present,
The present to future,
But only one way does it flow?
And that what is behind us
Does not contain us
In any sense as we are now?
What exactly is now?
And what is a minute?
And what is all manner of time?
But a record of passing
By all those who pass
Which can later be graphed on a line?
So here is the timeline
And here is what happened,
It was fate and it all had to be.
Tell me how can you argue?
For the timeline that stares at you
Tells you that it had to be.
It had to be simply because it all was
And is, as the timeline makes clear.
So the past makes the present,
So the present the future
And the future?
Well, that makes us here.
So we prod at the timeline
Which ends prematurely
At this day (whatever that be)
All the past is spread out like a tramline behind
But the future is not ours to see.
For is it not so that time’s uniform flow
Is the same everywhere
As for you and for me?
What rubbish I say
That’s the white western way
That’s the view of a rat in a cage
That’s the idiot truth
Of the analyst’s goose
As he lays out his eggs day by day.
For surely, in some sense,
It all happens now
For ‘now’s’ only the egotist mind
As it carves up and plans
From where it now stands
Relatively it rules and defines.
So fate is a matter
Of judgement from future;
And random chance
Judgement from now
And if what will happen
Has already happened
Then what has once happened
Contains, in some sense,
Now.
September 1985
The Loyal Dogs
What loyal dogs, these ugly men
Who fix to endless bayonets
To kill a man they do not know
Because their country told them so.
What simple, sloppy, dog-like tricks
To slobber and sprint at passing sticks
What loyal dogs, these ugly men
By land, by air, by sea again.
What silly creatures, docile and dumb
To plough behind the latest gun
To shoot at those they do not know
Because their country told them so.
What fools to waste their fertile lives
In anti-population drives.
What loyal dogs, these ugly men
This lemming flock for governments.
How ill-informed, these dogs of war
Who do not come here any more.
How ignorant, this fallen line
Who fell upon another time
Before the west had TV screens
Aghast with international scenes.
What loyal dogs, these men for war
This missile food, these capitalist whores
This numb parade of mothers’ tears
Oh, that the loyal dogs were here.
Attack? Defence?
Good reason? Plain fear?
Oh, that the loyal dogs were here.
23.10.85
Colin and the Rat (Oversized Mouse)
Colin has gone to America
There’s a rat in the roof of my house
Colin is out of Australia
And I’ve got this oversized mouser.
Colin’s extended horizon
Reveals tiny miles far below
While the width of this rat blocks my vision
(I hope like all fuck it don’t grow.)
For Col, there’s the ultimate fancy
Of shaving cream clouds far beneath
While for me there’s the worry of whether or not
The bastard has nasty sharp teeth.
Or whether one night I will wake with a jolt
To the sound of this hideous bulk
Which might run at my face
In a mad rat-sac rage
The ultimate vermin- Rat Hulk!
While Colin descends top mysterious lands
Where rock bands get laid and snort coke
I’m off, down the shops to get rat-traps and cheese
(Until I remember I’m broke).
So Colin is going to parties
And living it up like a prince
Whilst I, having looked in the cupboard
Discover rat faeces and prints.
While Colin’s controlling the world’s biggest band
I’m inside controlling my fear
On the floorboards the scuttle
Of rats’ feet on rubble
Tells me that baby rats are here.
When Colin returns to Australia’s shores
To this land where we grew side by side
I’ll be bashing small rodents with heavy blunt objects
Whilst kicking cockroaches aside.
Now Colin’s returned from America
I’ve enough rats for several houses
He’s lookin’ ‘real fine’
While I’m worried and lined
For a plague has come down on my house, yes
He’s looking’ ‘real good’
And I’m wishing I could
Get rid of these oversized mouses.
I forgot to mention that Colin has got a broken jaw.
He’ll be wired up for another few weeks and even then
He won’t be able to eat solids for quite a while.
Several weeks perhaps.
5.5.85
Wedding Bells and Graves
When the soul is mad with pleasure in its youthful years
And enthusiasm gallops broken-reigned;
When the master is asleep, his house attended not
And his children unattended in their play;
When the babes crash o’er the woods like kites on broken strings
And their world is full of marvels unrestrained,
Plays full or broken stringed within their maverick hearts
Both in their equal measure- love and pain.
Then an ugly, brittle voice about the canyon walls
Echoes like a bullet in a name
And each whose name is heard must tread the piper’s path
To pass from magic night to broad clear day.
Now, all at once the passion of its youthful years
Is spent like desert wind and in its place
Are erected routines sensible
In fortresses impregnable-
A metred life of wedding bells and graves.
6.7.92