THE GREATEST OF THESE

Our lives are built on sand.

And, yet, I am sure,

Love remains,

Hope persists,

Faith sustains.

The shimmering cross

Shines like a distress beacon

On an everstanding rock.

But, oh, so few can see it,

Amidst the toxic garbage

And the sickly flowers*,

Masking permutations of manipulation,

As postmodern clichés fill the hours,

Verbalised by imposters.

* With apologies to the late Leonard Cohen

THE BEAT GENERATION*

After cold Winter’s colours of nothing,
We now survey purple jacarandas,
Set against the sky blue backdrops of Spring,
And best loved from shaded back verandahs.
Calmed, I watch the petals drop and settle -
Cool carpets that will soon fade with the heat
Of Summer days - boiling like a kettle -
When daylight saving drains us, burned and beat.

* “The beat characters after 1950 vanished into jails and madhouses, or were shamed into silent conformity.”  (Jack Kerouac)

A DAD JOKE

Do you want to bleed me dry?
If I was a stone you would still try.
And an old white man is easy game,
So hurl your harpoon at my undefended frame.

There might be a time
When you will shake and sway,
Full of the fear
That makes me tremble today.

Then you will falter,
When you yield your youth -
That brief season of waste,
Burned beneath a blanket of smoke,
Trivial, like a Dad joke.

AFTER THE RUSH

I see there are no more dreams,
No more schemes to fail,
No maiden voyages to take.
I see someone else’s seas.
I am no longer
Fit and well to sail.
I wonder whether those days
Of grand ventures
And unfounded hope were ever real.
They seem part of senseless mythology -
Those days when I was strong
And trained to tackle before benches;
When I was new and made of steel,
Blind to the bleak and slippery slope
That waited beyond the wrong.

Spring blossoms blossom

Before blanching in summer,
Then winter will come.

I climbed a mountain
To find it offered a view
Of less than nothing.

Life insured is a truly a worthless thing
Once value dead exceeds merit alive.

FREE DELIVERY VIA AMAZON AUSTRALIA

Now that Amazon has opened in Australia, there's free delivery on all my books for Australian readers.  Check it out here.

WITHERED

Summer seasons
Bring back old lesions
And dubious reasoning.
It gets so humid,
It’s so hard to sleep,
Regrets theme dreary dreams.
The last of the blossoms
On jacaranda branches
Recall withered chances -
Countless changes in midstream.

Yet nothing stays the same
While the heat rolls in
And the afternoon promises
The pounding of pouring rain
That washes regret’s reminders
From the ponderous air
But fails to wipe away guilt
In the daylight saved for despair.