TODAY'S NEWS

Where will we go after the rain?

Will we have strength enough to remain

Here on a grisly shore that pulses with pain

As storm surf spits waste on a plagued coastal plain?

Where will we go after the drought?

Will we again know what trust was about?

Can we ever rebuild the faith we outgrew;

Or will we be refilled by pride in our virtue?

Another war rages across bleeding stages

Described in pages copied from dark ages.

The rich count money bequeathed in belief

Support can be bought and funded by grief.

Useful idiots holler so loudly that all must hear;

But no one listens and fewer understand.

Profanity so grand emits visions and glistens;

But no one sees and fewer perceive.

MY LA NIÑA SUMMER

The sky is always grey,

Pallid, like ashes.

It’s just another day

Of this, my La Niña summer.

And the rain on the roof

Patters, it seems, as chary proof

Of an untested chapter of truth.

No one really cares

About faraway floods

And their remote victims —

They are, they say, mere symptoms.

And, yet, I could relish the rain —
The sumptuous sound of it

On my corrugated canopy;

But, I cannot.

For my life is a despised irrelevance.

So I can only lament

The demise of my culture

And the desert of hostility

That burgeons all around me

In this, my La Niña summer.

The photograph of the 1961 Hawkesbury flood
is part of the Riverstone Historical Society's collection.

REVIVIFICATION

When I saw the shadow of death
I had not realised I was in a valley.
Yet all around me were savage mountains
And a river of curses coursed the lowest plain.

But, I hear you say, valleys teem with life,
While mountains are soaring wonders
From which the rains run down
To fill rivers with bounty.

All that you say, I know.
So a menacing shadow did not scare me.
Instead I was afraid of what would survive
What was required to keep me alive.

ARCADIA

Uncomplicated childhood games,
Climbing the mulberry tree on summer days,
Reaching the ripest fruit,
Careless consumption — the crimson juice
Staining bare arms and dripping
On to shirts and dresses.

Fibro and weatherboard houses —
Proud behind picket fences and flaking paint —
Fronted a dusty road
With edges of powdered clay
Bordering a grassy strip
Dotted with clover, paspalum,
Dandelions and daisies.
We shaped miniature highways in the dirt,
Racing our replica cars
And arguing which was the fastest.
Sometimes the girls would make mud pies
And offer murky water from plastic teapots.

BACKGAMMON

Here are the dregs of summer days
Locked away like solitaire,
Euchre, chess, and backgammon,
In a mind
That’s trying to recall
The bluff of someone blind.

Walking, writing, reading, strumming —
All the windows' strobing lights
Irradiate the crisis coming
And set us all up in their sights.

Sunsets run away in glum greys
Rendered clear by humid air,
Water colours drip on architraves
Of true views
That appeal to us
To turn off the lying TV news.

Trending, surging, bursting, swelling —
All the numbers make a wave
That never crashes, all impelling
Like a madcap’s laughing rave.

And when did the dream go up in smoke?
And why didn’t I get the joke?

(With acknowledgements to the music and lyrics of Syd Barrett)

THE OMICRON RIDE

“I am Alpha and Omega,
the beginning and the end,
the first and the last.”
(Revelation 22 : 13 KJV)

Trip to
Heave and ho
Up down
To and fro
Mask and hide
For the omicron ride.
QR code
Smart phone upload
Check in
Check out
We know where
You’re all about
We will fine you
If you flout.
Trip to
Heave and ho
Up down
To and fro

Mask and hide
For the omicron ride.
Casual contact
Legal contract

Endless testing
Much less resting
You’ll get it right

Mandarins' delight
We’ll let you out
Don’t hang about
Trip to
Heave and ho
Up down
To and fro

Mask and hide
For the omicron ride.
Variants
Experts’ rants
Tidal waves
Leaders’ raves
Slippery wet
Worst kind of threat
Close the borders

Sack the porters
Repel them
Expel them
Trip to
Heave and ho
Up down
To and fro
Mask and hide
For the omicron ride.

With acknowledgements to ‘Octopus’,
a song by the immortal Syd Barrett.

ONE OF THOSE

It’s one of those days
That comes for no reason,
No matter what the season,
When the tears come,
And come, and then some.
It’s one of those days
When the pallor stays
From the night’s slow creep
Through hours of no sleep
In the dark’s baffling maze
Lit only by a bitter blaze
Fuelled by pages of regret and shame
And dossiers of failure and blame.