SIXTY PERCENT

Poor poets prate in cliches
Of rivers that run to the sea
Of streams winding down to the harbour
Where the weary find sanctuary

Such writers align men's souls
With the flood of the incoming tide
The sailor, the hunter, the lost ones
And all of those who have died

They write with well worn metaphor
How beloved dear ones will be
As one with the great heaving ocean
The stream, the lake and the sea

And the scientist in me wonders
Where the truth of the words may be
For we're at least 3/5ths water
And our tears match the salt in the sea

As matter cannot be destroyed
our water will always be here
Whether streams or steam or clouds
Floating high in the atmosphere

And the poet in me rejoices
When I've quit my mortal plane
I shall still be here in some form
Mayhap falling as sweet gentle rain

Cooling at first the dry dusty earth
Raining down from on high
Sliding along the lightning's tail
Drenching the lowering sky

Dousing dust from the gum leaves
Flooding hard on the plain
Gurgling down dirty gutters
Filling streams and creeks again

A continuous cycle of water
Life giving rain I'll be
At one with the streams and the rivers
As we flow to the endless sea

DRIFT

Young folks rush to the city
for fun and gaiety

Parents move to suburbs and towns
To raise up their family

Retirees drift to the coastline
To live 'neath the azure blue sky

Old folks retire to swim and fish
Play golf, relax and die.

SEA DREAMS

May has fled and stolen my father
June creeps by on wintered feet and Spring has yet to show
Hoary frost ghosts the ground
And blasts lingering leaves from the trees
Through Summer and early Autumn my father waited
Eyes fixed on horizons not visible to us
Conversation was hard, his breath nearly spent
Sucked out by his dreadful, beloved smokes
I cannot see him, even now without one
Eternally in his hand, blue haze drifting.

Poetry was his joy in life, his gift to me
I looked through his books the other day
A marker showed some favourite lines
'I must go down to the sea again'
He's gone, my sea-dreaming father
On a voyage we all must travel.
He cast off one morning whilst we
In our ignorance, tip-toed softly to let him sleep

He set sail for places more distant than time
Without a backward glance for those on shore
He left behind the shackles of a worn-out body
And a family to mourn and grieve his going
My father is dead. he is dead.
His chair is empty, a book unfinished nearby
His coat and hat hang yet by the door but he has gone

Winter will lift and Spring will come once more
Grey, lowering clouds will part on azure tinted skies
And I will still be here
I am here and as long as I live and read and dream
My father lives

FLIES…BLOODY FLIES!

Tired tourists tumble down QANTAS steps

Gaze enthralled at our azure blue skies

Then out come the hands, here come the nets

To fend off the foraging flies

We’ve got green ones, house ones, fat old blowies

And little ones that crawl in your mouth

We’ve got flies so invasive that some folks have even

Sold up and gone back down South

And if you dare to walk outside

They’ll quickly smother your back

It may seem from a distance away

That your t-shirt is totally black

They swarm in the house whenever you’re cooking

These buzzing, maddened wee beasts

They imperil themselves in the long-legs’ webs

Are cocooned for arachnid feasts

Their mummified husks fall from above

Join the t-bone and mash on your plate

The live ones spit on the last bits of food

Gourmand guests who never come late

And if you try to shoo them away

They’ll come back with countless cousins

A few, pesky, kamikaze flies

Soon become dozens…and dozens!

So we’ve got to learn to live with flies

Because they’re not going away

Remember to wear your daggy net hat

And carry some Mortein spray.

They’re as Aussie as our Sunday barbecues,

As welcome as a lover’s lies

They’re the house pets nobody got from the Pound

They’re flies…BLOODY FLIES!

Songs without music

HE DIED WITH THE REMOTE IN HIS HAND

(Chorus)

He died with the remote in his hand

Wedded forever to t.v. land

So unexpected and so unplanned

He died with the remote in his hand

Twenty years he mouldered in his easy chair

No-one to mourn him; no-one to care

Whilst out in the kitchen a frying pan

Burnt his last meal of fried eggs and ham

As he … (chorus)

By and by, the gas went dry

All the smoke disappeared in the sky

And none of the neighbours ever wondered why

They never again saw the old guy

But he had … (chorus)

His rent fell into awful arrears

A tramp broke in and drank his beers

His elderly van was repossessed

And still the neighbours never guessed

That he’d died … (chorus)

Dogs tipped over his rubbish can

The tax man sent a final demand

The gutters in winter ran waterfalls

And rising damp covered his walls

As he died … (chorus)

Mail overflowed from his old mailbox

His windows were smashed by well hurled rocks

His power disconnected by a government van

Which drove off quickly, not telling the man

Who’d died … (chorus)

The Council ordered his house pulled down

His block of land was reclaimed by the Crown

A letter was sent, there was no reply

And nobody ever thought to ask why

But he’d died … (chorus)

And in the rubble they found the maggoty chair

Where the man had decayed for twenty year

And no one thought it the least bit queer

Not one of them shed a single tear

For the man who’d died … (chorus).

THE SUN MOTEL

(yes, it is based on a real life experience!)

(Chorus)

I took my wife to a whorehouse, cathouse

By the hour house, what a louse!

But I swear I didn’t know it at the time

I was blind; I must’ve been blind.

Well, we left Nawlins in the morning light

Drove all day, reached Memphis that night

Feeling kinda sleepy, feeling kinda tired

As we cruised on down the Elvis Boulevarde

Pulled into a motel, first one we saw

I parked the car then knocked on the door

And a Pakistani fellow said, “Room for an hour?”

I said, “Whoa, that don’t even give us time for a shower!”

I said, “Sir, we want it for the whole damn night.”

And he shook his head as though something weren’t right

He gave me the key saying, “Maybe you look

And if you like it, then you can book.”

So I took a peek, said it’d have to do

And he signed us in without further ado

I unpacked the car and said, “Dear, you know what?

We’re the only ones in the parking lot!”

She’s looking round the room and her face is all red

She says, “I never did see such a king-sized bed

And none of them mirrors taking up the wall

Are any good for someone who’s tall”

And you know, I’d took my wife to a whorehouse house, cat house… (chorus)

“There’s no closet to hang my clothes,” she said

And there ain't no Gideons in the drawer by the bed,

There’s no spare quilt nor blanket too

If’n we get cold, what we supposed to do?”

And she looked in the bathroom and said, “Honey, that’s rude,

The way them taps is shaped is kinda crude”

She said,” I never seen a place like this before”

And that was when I knew for sure

I’d taken my wife to a whorehouse, cathouse…(chorus)

And by midnight, every car lot was taken

And by one a.m. all the walls was shakin’

And we neither of us got much sleep that night

Till all the cars left just before daylight

Yup, I took my wife to a whorehouse, cathouse…(chorus)

(Spoken)

Oh, did she give me hell!

"Ain’t I worth more dan dat?

What sort of man are you?

Take yo’ wife to a whorehouse

I never heard of such a thing

Wait till I tell yo’ mother

She shore gonna be impressed wid her son!

Whorehouse, indeed, humphh!"

Political Poems

WHEN AMERICA TALKS TOUGH

When America talks tough
Gaddafi rattles his sabres
Arabs and Israelis ignite
Hitler's shade begins to roll
And I am biting my nails

When America talks tough
Nations listen, Aussies say
'All the way with LBJ'
Where will that take us now?
Tied to the typhoon's tail

'World war Three' said Einstein, allegedly
'will be fought with nuclear weapons,
Four, with sticks and stones'
Bush is talking tough to evil-doers
And I'm laying in a store of rocks

'There's an axis of evil' says George
'That's got Americans in its sights
Pre-emptive strikes, that's the way
Hit 'em first, hit 'em hard'
And we're all going bush with George

The President says, 'Touch us who dares!'
And I'm amassing an armoury of pebbles
I'm whittling sticks and breaking up boulders
America's talking tough
And I'm getting ready

Cos when America talks tough
Generals gather together their huddled masses
Admirals accrue their crews and cruise
Flyboys flash by, armed and deadly
Whilst neutral nations watch and wait

And gather together their sticks and stones

The Environmental Poems of the Centre

THE TODD RIVER

Last night the Todd flowed again
A bullet of mercury shooting
Down the wadi at reckless speed
Roiling, roaring waters
Sweeping all before it
Happened in '83
They tell me
Last century
A twenty year flood
Devoured the bed
And all fled
Before it
Roads ripped up
Spat out
Todd Street under water
Waves lapping at the library wall
For the flood plain is wide
A little Fair
Washed up in the Eyre
Some flow!
What would a fifty year
Run be like?
A hundred year flood?

The Todd flowed again last night
Muddy waters, surfing debris
Kids on bikes
Crossing the flooded causeways
Sprays of water
And laughter
Camera clicking
Tourists jostle
Locals who stare
At the sight
Of the open vein
Running red and bloodied
Chains cage the beast
Enter who dares!
A cool cat surfs by
Surfing! In the Alice!
Crazy.
And more water comes
And more
It's raining in the headlands
Say the locals, they know
Wise heads bob
There'll be more
They opine
It's coming, like the line

The Todd flowed last night
See it three times
And you'll stay forever
Folk lore, wisdom
Of the ages
Sagely uttered by the sages
Does it wrap you in its lustrous coils
And squeeze?
Seductive, slithering serpent
Biding your time
Two died last night
Shafted by the undertow
Dragged down into the snake's lair
No air
No light
They'll stay
Memories yet when the water's gone
Do you remember...?
There were these two guys...
And those who looked
And searched the banks
And lanced the water
And despaired

The Todd flowed again last night
It flowed through my dreams
Wrapped its tendrils 'round my heart
Coursed through my veins
And washed me free of city ties

The Todd flowed
And I knew
I was home