BECOMING SERGEANT PEPPER

There are interesting people

Down at Centrelink.

Some are just out of the clink.

Others, like me, are beginning to sink

Into some sort of financial oblivion

With little or nought to be living on,

Short of a dollar even for a drink,

Glad of a handout,

Hoping not to stand out.

But staff interview you

At an open desk

Or across a counter

And bystanders join the fray.

They hurt with the things they say.

How is it that even a poor fool

Has it in him to be, simply, cruel?

Apply for twenty jobs a month,

The employment agencies bay,

Because that's the rule by which we play.

Sadly, it's rejection after rejection for you,

But it makes politicians feel good.

Who cares if each knock-back hurts

So much it makes you

A little madder each day

And leaves you certain

You are surely unemployable.

It is also quite enjoyable

For senior bureaucrats,

Backed by slack administration,

To see their "clients" crushed

By obligations and frustrations

Instead of being flushed

With success and good vibrations.

The decline is much more entertaining

If you're old and beyond retaining

For the most basic task.

All of which leads me to ask:

Now that I'm 64,

Will you still need me?

Will you still feed me?

Grudgingly, if at all, it seems.

There is no such thing now as hope,

Even in my sweetest dreams.

COMMERCIAL REALITY

I understand why you won't read my book.

I get it that you will not take one look.

No one has told you that my yarns are bright

Except me - I've dared proclaim it’s all right

To waste some time rambling through rippled prose,

Seeking delights in another's warped throes.

But you'd rather trust bland commercial thrusts

And let your mind fill up with windy gusts.

I see shops' shelves stacked with chic-lit's stories,

Politicians' lies about false glories,

Histories rewritten by media hacks -

A sorry waste of trees put to the axe.

So I’d rather stare at starry night skies.

You can’t make me don a trickster's disguise.