Boy on a scooter

Boy on a scooter

See you fast forward fearlessly

Face to the future

Twenty-first century boy

Projection

A dream of all our possibilities,

Tomorrow's tomorrows

See your small feet

Modelled on my own, my mother's too

Genetic after-life and fast forward

Fearlessly

Twenty-first century boy

19th February, 2011, Bondi

Bondi gulls

Bondi gulls

Enacted on the canvas canopy

A show in shadow

Black starfish feet are dancing

Soft shoe shuffle

Seagulls in silhouette

But on the grass, in prose

( Not poetry)

They dart and skitter, flat on fingered webs

Pursued by boys with glee

Cinematic cliche

The silent movie chase

18th February 2011, Bondi

Will you little Bondi boy?

Will you little Bondi boy?

Will you little Bondi boy

Yearn for southern sun

Sound of the surf

Ever an ear, subconscious

For the fall and the rise

The cries unholy

Cockatoo and lorikeet?

Will you little Bondi boy

Seek the Southern Cross

By night, the sun-bleached days

The deep unbounded blue

Wish for the wind in the shoreline trees

For the gasp of an ocean pool

Hot sand

A land where a boy runs free?

13th February 2011,Bondi NSW, for Zachy with love

Perhaps we all were sleeping

Perhaps we all were sleeping

You ask, confused,
What sense there is
To pay one person millions
An annual salary, weekly
For someone with a simple skill
A talent in his feet
In hope of certain goals to come
Team victories, corporate riches

See here’s a case to ponder
Questions begged
A toddler’s stamped ‘Not fair!’
As millionaires evade their tax
Fail to condemn the fattest cats
All glossy coats and sleekness
But will not rest, will do their best
To trap those welfare scroungers

When did the scales of justice tip
Or was it always thus?
Now licence lent, unfettered
To monstrous grasping greed
No need to fret for poorer folk
An undeserving class
When was the fight for fairness skewed
Our value system twisted?

You ask, confused,
What sense there is
Perhaps we all were sleeping
When selfishness became the norm
And caring just a cause for scorn
So superficial matters most
And thin is good or thinner best
And winner takes it all

So pity then our populace
And all our blessed planet
If no one cares
For equal shares
And all our world’s distorted

February 2nd 2011, Brighton, for Jude, who asked, confused

WeightWatching

WeightWatching

Early Tuesday morning, right after ten
I’m standing in the judgment line, nervous again
I’ve run from the bus stop, been to have a pee
Now it’s time to face the weighing scales fear-less-ly
I’ve tracked every mouthful, logged all I’ve eaten
Those three extra stones of fat, have to be beaten
What about the glass of wine, the sticky toffee pud
Italian at Carluccio’s, maybe not so good?
The weekly assignation, moment with the data
Will it show on the dial that I scarfed those roast potata?
All along the queue we’re skinny sorts and fatter
All of us anxious, chat chat chatter
I’ve inched my way forward to the front, with miss
What’ll be the verdict, despair or bliss?
I’ve taken off my watch and shoes, worn my lightest things
Now I’m praying for a good result, to give me wings
Tread very lightly, softly on the scale
In the battle of the bulge, lord, don’t let me fail
So this is the lot of the WeightWatching crew
Tuesdays at ten o’clock, how will we do?

January 27th 2010, Brighton

You two stood waving

You two stood waving

You two stood
Waving
And I lurched from the slow train
Stop stop stopping
Head full of buzz in a seethe of mad drones
My chest in a vice
For I had been long hours locked
Blasted in an information-overload
( My Saturday newspaper of choice )
I was battleground and fierce the fires burned

Can you hear the people sing
Singing the song of angry men
Where the hell to put the outrage
Should we build the barricades?

You two stood
Laughing
Seized my luggage, took my hands
And I counted all my blessings
As your loving held my heart

24th January, Brighton, for Pam and Jude, two who stood waving, with my love

Identity

Tenuous
A fragile necklace strung
Or Larkin’s frail travelling coincidence
The stuff of dreams blown in a pipe
Dandelion globes
Our little life, bounded with a sleep
Though once it seems
We all were stars
Not dust to dust
But debris, shining shower
Fallout from celestial bang
Now plaited in a double helix twist
Blueprint mapped
Look there the chin cleft, curly hair
Or tendency to fat
But where the particle poetic
The heart and eye, hand to hold the pen,
Love’s lilting soul?
Ego superego id
Unfathomable mystery
Hid

11th January 2011, Brighton