Tag Archives: writing

City Style

Posted on by

Midday,

it’s lunching,

suited in boardroom sociopathy

By 3pm, its black sartorial

boredom hangs

in downtown coffee bars

The city, at 6, loosens silk ties, casts lustful

stares across crowded pubs

Its throaty, pashmina’d laughs drift

over footlights at 8,

Around 10, it’s sporting fusion-cuisined

energy and scent of MSG

Overtimed road-crew neon reflects

stumbling stillettoes,

come midnight

And at 2am, it’s pyjama-shuffling

its drug-coma’d streets,

mad-haired, in the darkness

But you’ll find it

just before sunup,

reposed against periwinkle sky,

at its naked

best

 

 

 

Angel of The Gap

Posted on by

He looks out at the sparkling sea

and drinks his morning cup of tea

But there’s a shadow to his left,

the darkness of a soul distressed

He knows now he must move with haste

to stop a life from going to waste

“This time, this one, perhaps,” he thinks,

“maybe, I ‘ll pull back from the brink”

The Angel of  The Gap, at dawn,

heads out once more across his lawn

to offer balm, a light to see

a way out from their misery,

to coax them not to end it all

and save them from that fatal fall.

 

Lost and Found

Posted on by

Deep within caliginous soul,

I lost it, broken-hearted,

 

braced against the winter’s chill

of life’s great joys departed

 

And long remained it out of sight,

I could almost it forget,

 

but for dreamscapes late at night,

its engrams in my head

 

But journeys lit that which I lost,

dispersed its shrouding mists

 

If I were to believe in ghosts,

I’d see your hand in this

 

Microcosmic Stupors

Posted on by

“Charlie Sheen files lawsuit”

Who gives a rat’s?!

“I’m desperate to get on the field”, says Benjii Marshall.

Oh, who cares?

“Hawkins hot engagement…”

Blah, blah fishpaste

“Triple M woos Matthew Johns”

Ho hum

“Brendan Fevola…..”

Yaaaawn

“O’Farrell promises to dump home buyer’s tax”

Zzzzzzzz

“The main island of Japan moved 2.4 meters in yesterday’s quake”

?? !

“Quake shifted earth on its axis by 10cm”

WHAT?!

Travelling Dogs

Posted on by

On the 600km journey –

 

she looks at flowers and clouds,

he computes mileage per litre,

she ponders the secrets of cows,

he remarks that it might storm later…

 

She sees the wire-pig mailbox,

he spies a snake on the road,

he surveys flood-plain paddocks,

she wonders if cows talk in code…

 

He thinks perhaps ‘Box of Frogs’,

she’d prefer peace for a while,

both laugh at the travelling dogs,

their windblown ears and their smiles.

 

Synaesthesia

Posted on by

This perfection:

deep indigo of the blueberry,

saturated primaries of the King Parrot,

ochres painted by the setting sun,

is exquisite pain; I want its DNA,

to become the silence of the desert night,

whisper of quarks in the inky blackness,

nocturnal song of the African bush,

to inhale sensation of crushed silk,

embody cool water on skin,

synthesize oblivion of deep sleep.

But these are lambent shadows,

intangible ticklings

of some ancient sense –

when observed, they are gone.

Disconnect

Posted on by

She wanders not lonely as a cloud

but angry as a dust devil,

with judgement cloaked in blaming shroud

slowburn of anger, febrile.

 

What fate befell that sweet, sharp mind

now plagued with thoughts of violence

to spawn sensibilities so unsound

and increasingly mere silence?

 

What confounding ills did rear

this sullen, raging presence?

A once bright light, no longer here,

her love, an evanescence.

 

Sky Wars

Posted on by

Storm ions mass,

stir up old injuries,

swelling cats’ paws,

silencing cockatoos mid-screech.

In the particle zoo,

darker the light

settles stillness unsettling

like a spine tingle…

Then

an electric spear is thrown,

punctures the tension.

Fat clouds, slow on the uptake,

grumble to rain

to wash it away.

I’ll have what she’s having

Posted on by

There’s one in every suburb

posing as a bestie, but beware

for it is said

this creature is a beastie

 

Rent-a-husband is her game

and yours is in her sights

when darkness falls, she’ll come for him

so don’t go working nights

 

“Can you help me with my …”

(stick WHATEVER in the blank)

ain’t his boy scout skills she wants

Girlfriends, let’s be frank

 

With all-consuming envy

she’s competing for your life

she wants your house, the car you drive,

to replace you as his wife

 

So, good women everywhere,

keep friends you know are true

but guard against the frenemy

lest her prey is you

 

Desk Daydreams (inspired by the 4minutewriter)

Posted on by

Reduce waste, improve service levels

I’m sailing down the Mekong

implement LEAN techniques

lilt of Mandarin in my ears

reduce bottlenecks, manage cash flows

building schools in Vietnam

forecast seasonality peaks

to the sound of children’s cheers

filming critters in the Galapagos

giant tortoise and marine iguana

orangutans in Borneo

and Amazonian flora and fauna

dining in the Shanghai Bund

cycling through rural China

catching Tokyo no kabuki-za

and jazz in a New York diner

capturing Northern winter snows

ancient men in Parisian alleys

icebergs in Antarctica

vineyards in Chilean valleys

Optimize

camping out on English moors

Streamline

for some creative brooding

Synchronize

writing that novel in my head

but right now work’s intruding!


Read the 4minutewriter here

Eternal mysteries

Posted on by

With the ring back on your finger

you sighed and slipped away

but forever it’s a mystery

where you went that day

Did you see them watching you

and whispering in your ear?

When you took your final journey,

did you know that they were there?

Did you sense that we were not?

No-one can ever know,

yet child-like we still ask ourselves –

that day, where did you go?