Stuff from December 2017

            Hope For The Future? 

There they were

in a supermarket

three 14-or-15-year-old boys

cavorting

jumping around

and dancing wildly but ineptly,

shouting adolescent inanities

to each other.

One of them

plucked a plastic packet

of potato pom poms

from a freezer

and tossed it

in a basketball-style

jump hook shot

smack into the wire trolley

one of his mates was pushing

on the other side of the freezer,

and they cheered and high-fived

before gambolling on their way

down one of the aisles.

I turned my 71-year-old head

to a bloke of similar age

standing gob-smacked

by the frozen veggies

and said,

‘We never acted like that

when we were that age, eh?’

and he allowed himself

a little smile.

Four or five cherubic boys and girls,

about ten or eleven years old,

were enjoying their bicycles

on a little-used driveway

at the park,

calling out to each other:

‘Where you fuckin going?’ and

‘Look out for that fuckin shit!’ and

‘I don’t wanna fuckin mess with that.’

and similar fuckin stuff,

and I thought:

My mode of speaking

has not disappeared

into the miasmic ether

of discarded fashions;

it’s not dying with my generation;

it looks as if

it’s gonna fuckin survive.

      21st-Century Freedom  

Maybe it’s just because I’m old

and therefore insufficiently trained,

but I dislike corporations or algorithms

telling me how to order my life and work;

it’s a constant battle,

or so it seems,

just to try to do things my way –

in ways that make sense

and are convenient to me –

a battle I’m constantly losing.

              Obvious to Him 

When puberty crept up on him,

he gave up on rugby after one season

and started devoting himself to ballet

and classes in jazz and modern dance,

and his mates asked him why?

None of them went to those classes,

which were full of nothing but sheilas!

He was the only bloke in any of them.

He couldn’t believe that they didn’t get it.

He just loved being surrounded by girls.

Contact with boys just didn’t

get his hormones pumping

or turn him on

at all.

          Indifference Tsunamis 

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

to do what people have to do

to defend their sorry arses

from murderous thieves

when they have football games to watch

or blockbusters to rate

or celebrities to envy

or chakras to tend to,

or online strangers to call names

and there’s nothing wrong

with dancing till dawn

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

They didn’t do it on purpose

They just couldn’t be bothered

Her Poca-hottie

and his Big Chief Loincloth

Indian costumes were just fun

I mean, you can’t be political all the time

So they’re oblivious to the nastiness

of sexualised cultural stereotypes

They’d never be disrespectful on purpose

They just couldn’t be bothered

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

They don’t mean to let

those jumbo blood-sucking mosquitos

breed out of control

and come slobbing up to the suburbs

from their diseased swamps

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

to question making sacrifices

and doing without, gladly 

to keep the grey gunboats

cruising up and down the river

They don’t do it on purpose

They just can’t be bothered

She didn’t do it on purpose

She just couldn’t be bothered

She didn’t intend to make his hand bleed

or to destroy his cosy peace

by exposing him to a relentless chill wind

She didn’t do it on purpose

She just couldn’t be bothered

    The Universe, Extinct Species, the Bible, & Me  

The Earth somehow survived

all those billions of years

with no humans present with language

to immortalise time

with observations and speculations and lies,

whilst millions of species

evolved and became extinct

as hundreds of millions of years rolled on,

without one member of any of them

leaving an intentional legacy:

the amphicyonid bear dogs lasted for about

forty-four million, four hundred thousand years

dying out less than two million years ago.

They lived, just as we live now.

And there were the gomphotheres,

related to elephants,

who lived from about twelve million years ago

until just 9,100 years ago,

when humans, who’d been around for about one million,

most likely hunted them into extinction.

Our unquestioningly that’s-the-way-things-are capitalism

has been around for, pish-tush, less than five hundred years,

and eternally immutable Islam for about fourteen hundred.

Compare all this with the countless forever of the cosmos,

and here I am feeling bad, ridiculously,

because of stuff that others in my species,

particularly the few whom I know,

either do or don’t do.

No wonder the young-earth, myths-are-real crowd

pathetically refuse to accept that they’re not the reason

that the universe exists,

as if it needs a reason,

especially one that puffs up people’s egos.

  Visualisation Limitation

I have a friend

in the rowing business

and so I see

the facebook view

of the rowing community.

One rowing-world photo

captured my attention

because of the complexity

of the story it told,

as all fine photos do:

it depicted a rower

receiving some award;

a champion rower,

a young woman,

accepting the silverware

in a glamorous frock

with a short hem

cut higher at the sides

at the middle of her

massively muscular thighs …

At which point,

as I was describing this,

Stan called out,

‘Stop! Stop!

‘It’s too much!

‘I can’t take any more!’

Stan must have

a highly visual

and suggestible

imagination, eh?

             Big Junior’s Flunkies

It’s not getting out

It’s not staying in

It’s why we never get to win

Twisting things beyond a doubt

It sure is the way it only is

listen to the paid spin whizz

It may not be what we’re ready for

We’re not backing down any more

It’s not rising up

It’s not staying down

It’s just a failure to get outta town

while drowning in a white café cup

No time to retrench

Just breathe in their stench

It’s a futilely fought alchemy war

We’re not backing down any more

Big Junior’s flunkies

own personal island retreats

Domination junkies

sending out cruel tweets

jingling their trunk keys

in their corporate box seats

They’re standing over you now

They won’t let you see how

you can possibly run away.

It’s not cutting through

It’s not circling around

It’s grinding your face into the ground

Big Junior smirks to you

that you choose it

you can’t refuse it

His game is deadly when he scores

We’re not backing down any more

            Spider On A Mattress

Spider, who’d once been a hammerhand,

said that he couldn’t sleep

in a bed all by himself.

Not that he went to bed all that often,

amphetamine being what it is,

but somehow, hanging out on the street

in Toronto, of all places,

in 1967, of all years,

and with long, tangled, unwashed hair and beard,

being quite a hairy arachnid,

he always managed to crash,

whenever and wherever,

with some hippie chick beside him.

        Only Human

It’s life, is all it is,

and My Lord, that baby

was life all by himself,

a compensation

for the horror of that rape;

so bright and sweet,

filled full of tomorrows,

not what’s done and gone.

Mary forgot her baby’s father –

he was only human, after all.

It’s life; it’s how it goes

Her cooking skills

outweighed her shame,

and Missus kept her on

despite the fatherless child

who grew to be a hard worker

around the big house’s grounds.

His name was Walter;

they called him Boy

and paid him a dollar a week

after room and board:

a one-room cabin

he and Mary had to share;

forget the damp –

they were only human, after all.

It’s life, so it isn’t fair

that Missy had to take a shine

to Mary’s Walter, who knew better;

even when she flirted at him

with her she-devil’s sugar-voice,

he kept his eyes to the ground

and his speech to ‘Yes, Miss’

and ‘No Miss’ and ‘Right away, Miss’,

but Mister, and Brother Eugene,

and a wagonload of nasty white men

murdered him in public

for messing with her anyway,

hanged him from a tree –

he was only human, after all.

It’s life, and nothing more,

and they never thought twice

about keeping Mary on

after lynching her boy.

She was a good cook, after all,

and a well-trained crow mammy,

with the fear of God and white men

sure to keep her in line.

Except that she began to add

certain herbs and powders

to their soups and gravies

until they all became painfully ill,

and greedy-guts Brother Eugene

wound up half blind in a wheelchair,

which is when Mary disappeared,

some said on the night train

to California,

or Seattle or some such place –

she was only human, after all.

             Chocky Birthday To You!

For your birthday I’m gonna make you

the chocolatiest cake you’ve ever eaten,

with three moist, double-chocolate layers

and my sticky chocolate fudge between them,

all covered with my chocolate ganache icing.

You’ll love it!

          Well, actually, I’m not all that fond of chocolate …

I don’t believe you!

I’m a chocoholic myself,

because chocolate is, well, everything good:

it’s like a love affair

it’s a guilty pleasure

it’s full of antioxidants

it’s hedonistic comfort food

it’s pleasingly bitter

it’s dreamy

it sparks up the serotonin

it lightens the spirit

it’s the most luscious luxury

it’s good for your heart

it connects you with your higher self

it’s an aphrodisiac

it’s the answer to every question

it is life.

How can you live without chocolate?

           Cinnamon.

What?

           Can you make my birthday cake cinnamon?

           – made with a spiced rum batter?

           – topped with butterscotch icing?

           Please?

No. I still don’t believe you.

It’s gotta be chocolate.

You deserve the best.

  

Stuff From October & November 2017

                                Blessings 

He lounged on the deck of his upmarket beach house,

gazing out at his private dock, his sailing yacht,

and the ocean beyond, and said aloud, ‘I’m truly blessed.’

          ‘Oh?’ she asked, ‘who or what blessed you?’

‘God, of course.’

          ‘Of course.’

‘I do work that I love and my children love me;

I’m truly blessed.’

          ‘And you grew up in a warm, supportive family?’

‘It was a golden childhood.

I really was blessed.’

          ‘And you were popular at school?’

‘Captain of the First XI!

I tell you, I’m blessed.’

          ‘Why you?’

‘Why me what?’

          ‘Why has God blessed you

          and not the billions of suffering people 

          who languish in poverty and misery?’

He shrugged and smiled charmingly.

‘I guess that they just made poor choices.’

         ‘Y’know, I once saw an aerial photo

         of a nice, suburban subdivision

         in Oklahoma, or some such place,

         after a tornado had ripped through it, 

         and all the nice, upmarket houses

         had been destroyed, except for one,

         and it had a big sign painted on its roof

         saying, “Thank you Lord for saving us!”’

‘Well, it’s only right to give thanks. So?’

         ‘Do you think that house’s neighbours

         just made poor choices, too?’

   Agricultural Environmental Aesthetics

He was big boy, a farm boy,

thick of shoulder and thigh,

more likely to shine at rugby than basketball,

but he gave high-school hoops a go,

despite being one of the few Pākehā on the team,

his size only partially balancing out

his lack of grace.

He volunteered to help me put in a fence

along the side of my section,

which I’d mentioned at training

that I’d dreaded doing.

Whilst working on it he glowed with pride

and told me that his dad expected him

to do jobs like that right,

and that was that.

He also told me how his dad and uncle

had cleared out a few hectares

of dark, ugly, useless, bush on their land

and replaced it with

nice, flat, green paddocks.

Beautiful!

         Beyond Superficiality

The people we meet –

and we meet people every day

on our twice daily expeditions

around the park

and the neighbourhood footpaths –

often stop to oo and coo

and give a pat and a tickle

and otherwise bestow attention on him

(except of course for those

who assertively or even aggressively

flaunt their Muslim dog aversion,

and their wish-I-could-but-I-can’t children).

The Little Fella loves it.

He is, undoubtedly, in the upper reaches

of any scale of cuteness around.

He doesn’t seem cute to me anymore, though.

We spend our time at home together,

and I live with his quirks, his attitudes,

his wilfulness, his inconsistencies, and his eyes,

eyes that study what’s there to see;

eyes that communicate;

eyes that project an unbroken line

to his familiar but unfathomable brain.

We joke; we negotiate;

we try to understand each other

the best we can, a best that usually

comes up hopelessly, inadequately short

on both our parts.

Cuteness is a superficial category

that condescendingly depersonalises

and implies inconsequentiality.

He doesn’t seem cute to me anymore.

Well, rarely.

                 Soul Central

The way we’re used to aint gonna last

The smoke’s taking up the whole room

Searing our nostrils with ash and perfume

Standing Rock’s not really past

The way we’re used to aint good enough

Malls’re going vacant; cars are gonna rust

roads and bridges crumble; big business going bust

Standing Rock was not a bluff

The way we’re used to will be no more

Masses migrating without destination

Millions sentenced without commutation

Since Standing Rock we’ve known the score

The way we’re used to’s in for a shock

Easy Street’s going muddy, mired in a rut

a place where brutal, ugly bullies strut

Our soul’s home is back in Standing Rock

                   Surf and Turf 

It was the seventies in sprawling suburbia.

He wore fuchsia or magenta shirts

with the buttons undone

down almost to his navel

and off-white trousers tight about his basket

and flared from the knee to 26 inches at the hem,

just covering his five-inch platform shoes.

He snorted as much coke as he could get.

He did all right with the ladies,

the shiny ones at the glitter discos.

He was an entrepreneur,

with his late daddy’s money,

publishing a throwaway

dining-and-entertainment guide,

selling ads and printing stories that were really ads,

to people of his own cultured tastes,

so he wrote his own restaurant reviews,

expecting advertising revenue in return,

as well as free dinners for himself

and his always provocatively attired dates.

Knowing that his readers’ idea of class

was pretty much the same as his,

the second paragraph of almost all his reviews

began, ‘I decided to order the surf and turf

in order to test the range

of the kitchen’s abilities’,

which were always up to snuff.

A plate of sirloin steak and lobster

with fried potatoes and an uneaten salad,

for free once a week,

as regular as shepherd’s pie in a boarding house,

then unencumbered sex.

A crème de la crème kind of life.

     A Cultural Oddity

She told me that her uncle,

a white American Christian

country-music person,

whom she adored,

had told her never to show her teeth

when she smiled,

but I don’t remember her telling me

about his explanation

for why.

I imagine it was probably

because he believed that

toothy smiles aren’t

polite or well-mannered,

or maybe just not nice,

or that people who are

polite, well-mannered, nice,

or all three

just don’t show their teeth when they smile,

but these explanations beg the question

of why it isn’t and they don’t.

Maybe he thought a show of teeth

is a sign of aggression –

the bloody fang, and all that –

or maybe it’s because where he came from

rural white American Christians

tend to have rotting and discoloured teeth

that are unpleasant to look at.

Maybe something else.

I sure as shit don’t know.

          Incompleted Goal For Hugging 

I remember that when people described my daddy

they often used the term ‘heavy-set’,

but to me he was just big and round,

with a round head and a round face

and glasses with round lenses,

and I was just little,

so when I hugged him,

my cheek against the ribbing of his undershirt

and the smell of his tobacco filling my nose,

I couldn’t get my arms

all the way around him;

he joked that he had to lose weight so I could,

but he liked sour cream or cream cheese

on it seemed almost everything but meat,

and lots and lots of fatty meat,

and he drove himself entirely too hard,

and my mother’s nagging and scolding

stressed him out, so in search of comfort

he ate more animal fat and worked longer hours

and couldn’t stop smoking.

Maybe he was waiting for me to get bigger

so that I could eventually

get my hugs all the way around him

without him giving up his cream and pork chops,

but he died when I was still too small,

my mother’s nasty, querulous scolding

the last thing that he heard.

    American Presidents Since The Last Good One

      Ronald Reagan:

a prime example of the Dunning-Kruger effect,

     a genial dullard with a seductive baritone voice

     who left most things to venal ideologues,

     who behaved like pigs at a trough.

      G.H.W. Bush:

a bland, faceless billionaire

     who blandly and facelessly promoted the interests

     of other bland, faceless billionaires,

     occasionally with a twinge of conscience.

      Bill Clinton:

charming and full of shit,

     the best Republican president since Eisenhower,

     the banksters’ buddy

     with a passion for punishing poor people.

      G.W. Bush:

a privileged, slow-witted, befuddled

     instrument of the oil industry

     and a cluelessly genocidal war criminal.

      Barack Obama:

a warm, classy, intelligent, smooth-talking

     purveyor of corporate dominance and military imperialism

     with a human face.

      The Donald:

in it only for himself, of course,

     corruption his passion,

     dickheadedness his guiding principle,

     and if you don’t like it he’ll call you names.

       Rhonda On The March

Some poor sap with mental illness

was looking up at a bridge

contemplating suicide

when some poor woman tourist

strolled by enjoying the riverside,

and he killed her, instead.

A political-activist friend of mine

organised a march

from the riverside to the city centre

to Take Back The Night.

I happened to be walking

my late fox terrier, Rhonda,

when our route crossed that of the march.

My attitude toward taking part in marches

has always been what you might expect

from a shifty-eyed introvert,

but my friend saw me and waved,

so Rhonda and I went with the flow.

The chant was call-and-response:

‘What do we want?’

‘Safe streets!’

‘When do we want them?’

‘Now!’

Being less of a chanter than a marcher,

I just walked,

but Rhonda got into it,

and for several blocks it was:

‘What do we want?’

‘Woof! Woof!’

‘When do we want them?’

‘Woof!’

        Neither The Problem Nor The Solution 

Capitalism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Socialism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Globalism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Parochialism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Anarchy is neither the problem nor the solution.

Communism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Consumerism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Naturalism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Religion is neither the problem nor the solution.

Atheism is neither the problem nor the solution.

Personal freedom is neither the problem nor the solution.

Group solidarity is neither the problem nor the solution.

Sex is neither the problem nor the solution, well sorta.

The problem is people –

people being stupid,

people being venal,

people being assholes,

people being dickheads,

people being wankers,

people being shits,

and I can’t think of anything to do about that.

I’ve been an asshole far too often myself to judge,

more so when I was younger than lately, though,

and although I’ve tried my best to desist,

mostly out of shame from realising

I was being the kind of person I dislike,

ingrained childhood cultural conditioning

has let me down from time to time.

I suppose that the only solutions lie in wisdom,

which is difficult for people to recognise,

hopeless to organise and mobilise,

ridiculously easy to crush,

and almost always attainable only too late.

                        Hole 

I dream that I live in a hole

dug out of the side of a hill,

beneath a peeling-paint old wooden house

with three floors cut up into cheap flats.

I know none of those living above my head.

A section of exposed pipe

on my hole’s uphill earthen wall

leaks water constantly

down a clay sluice

to an irregular opening

at the far end of the dirt floor,

which is where I piss and shit.

I enter and leave, but mostly look out,

through a narrow opening

no higher than my knees,

that I sometimes obscure

with an armful of twigs and brush.

I spend most hours lying on my belly,

my head facing the entrance,

observing the world outside,

which is at its best from dusk till dawn,

and during steady rainfall.

Often I lie there with a gun,

a magazine-fed sniper’s rifle,

my eyes alert for justifiable targets,

whose kneecaps I shoot from time to time,

before obscuring my entrance

by pulling in that garden rubbish,

and easing back into the darkness

of my hole.

                          Porfirio and Sven  

He was tall and broad-shouldered and generally burly,

impressively strong and physically commanding,

with a bushy, reddish-blond moustache

that drooped down on either side of his mouth to his chin,

and thick, shaggy, strawberry-blond hair down to his shoulders.

His name was Porfirio.

He was lithe and finely proportioned and of medium height,

olive-skinned and uncommonly graceful, an intuitive dancer,

with flashing dark eyes, and flashing white teeth when he smiled,

and smooth, dark hair, a dark, two-piece, pencil-thin moustache

that he occasionally stroked with his long, thin, gracile fingers.

His name was Sven.

People don’t always look like their names.

They were born on the same day in the same obstetrics unit,

if that makes any difference.