Charity

Twenty-five dollars a month.

Tax deductible?

Now you’re talking.

To put a face on a smile,

 yes, I did see it on TV,

in an African village.

A personal touch.

Yes, I’m sure we can afford it.

Oh, I have to write to them as well?

Maybe the kids can do that.

Good for show and tell.

A cheque will do?

Ah, direct debit from my account.

Excellent. That way,

I won’t even have to think about it

any more.

Animal logic

Does a bird think

I am bird

or a dog

I am dog?

Or does the bird

just live birdness,

the dog

dogness?

Does Jasper think

I feel sad?

No, he just stands there

dog-eared,

tail drooping,

attentive,

until the next

good thing happens

and wags his tail.

Please do not reply

as this mailbox is not monitored

this is a message from the department of human services

you have a new centrelink letter available online

you should view your letter as soon as possible

by going to the inbox in your mygov account

if you do not have one you will need to create one first

by going to the website and then linking it to centrelink

or one of our express plus mobile apps

if you do not have an express plus mobile app

you can download one to your smart device

from the app store or google play ™

or the australian government department of human services

and logging on to centrelink services online

if you do not have an online google play ™ 

app mobile smart device services account

call lifeline or the black dog institute

whichever you prefer

Doyle's maxims

Sing for your supper.  Howl for your dessert.

Always get up on the wrong side of the bed.

Don’t gossip.  Loose lips are too attractive.

Plant the seeds of discontent and water them daily.

Don’t grow up.  It stifles the imagination.

Try, try, then try to stop trying.

Don’t eat your heart out.  Become a vegetarian.

Don’t tell anyone about your worst habits.

Pretend not to notice the dirt.

Take one disaster at a time.

Don’t forgive bastards.

Never look a fascist in the muzzle.

Keep one foot in the grave.

Bridges

Eduardo showed me photographs

of him in the Guardia Civil

with his handsome moustache

on a bridge in Peru

holding a mortar

aimed at distant terrorists.

Eduardo has spent the night

at Fairfield hospital

with his sleepless little girl.

I love her so much,

he says with a sad smile.

Eduardo is learning English

to get a job as a security guard.

I see him now

in front of a bank

with his handsome moustache

thinking of his daughter

safe in her suburban home

and the weight of the mortar

and the bridge.

Hanoi

spatters of night rain

on Tue Tinh Street

a woman walks her bicycle

loaded with plastic bags

I watch her patiently sort

through rubbish

turn away from the streetlight

to pull out my money

find a suitable note

not too big

turn around

with inner generous smile

the woman and her bicycle

have dissolved into the dark rain

Long Reef in winter

You hear the roar half a mile away.

Giant rollers unfurl white banners on the reef. 

Closer in, fish-scale light on curving shimmers.

Ears back into the wind

Jasper does a mad run on the clifftop,

dream material for a twitching afternoon nap.

Two whales, mother and calf, loll in the swell.

Now a southerly churns the water sprites,

the horizon jagged with distant storms.

No visa

The strong young man

who trained Olympic athletes

now watches daytime TV

in a Sydney suburb.

Refusing to fight for a dictator,

he vaulted a virtual queue somewhere,

was deemed unworthy

of our way of life

and now lives in a no-mans-land

of shadows and uncertainty.

Some days you may see him

feeding ducks in the park

like an old man.

Olympic aspirations

I want to kayak up your river,

shoot your raging rapids,

dive below your surface,

swim across your channel

and surf your every wave.

I want to climb your every mountain,

rove along your tracks,

jump over your chasms,

lope beyond your plains

and explore your hidden valleys.

I want to swing on your vines,

ski your slopes forever,

map your every moon,

race your fastest pulse,

cycle all your circuits,

lift your biggest barbells

and push my luck too far.

Treasure Island

Within our happy harbourside retreat

we celebrate a life that’s rich and free

as round the barbie with our friends we meet

or watch the footy final on TV.

Our leaders stop the boats, turn back the tide

of those who seek to storm our country’s gates,

to let them know that God’s not on their side

nor will we ever count them as our mates.

The people smugglers cram them in the hold

of boats that are already overfull,

so join the queue, no need to bribe with gold,

and get a proper visa in Kabul.

Or if we must, illegals to prevent,

we’ll just excise the whole damn continent.

Shells

in memory of Andrew McNaughtan, 1953-2003

Over the harbour coves today

the air feels thinner.

On the sand near Castle Rock

I pick up a faded purple shell,

its outer ridges gnarled

as an old boxer’s knuckles,

the inner surface

smooth as a sigh.

I’d put a note on his door,

“Call me urgently”,

but the house already felt like a shell.

He had no children

but the children of Timor.

It hadn’t rained for weeks

then, at the funeral,

torrents burst.

It won’t feel the same

going down to the bay.

I rub my finger over the shell,

comforting as Andrew’s smile

even when our despair

was deep as the harbour.

Geography

How distant I am from your suffering.

Why, it would take a long plane ride

to get there

or for them to get here.

I mean you.

The tyranny of distance, someone called it.

Well, thank god for geography.

Nothing wrong with distance,

good fences,

even the door between us,

even the skin.

Iraqi moon over Sydney

like the face of a damaged child

this full moon

climbing through angophoras near the zoo

will also rise over Baghdad

good for Iraqi gunners

not for our side

we like to bomb in the dark

so the kids can’t see our faces

Circus family

Between heaven and hell

we walk a tight wire.

We leap into the air

hoping to land

on some safe and distant platform.

We poke chairs at tigers,

try getting bears to dance,

elephants to tiptoe,

dogs to stop barking,

monkeys to be wise.

We juggle weighty clubs,

breathe fire,

choking on kerosene,

balance on fragile pyramids of chairs

trusting their thin legs.

We spring, we vault, we soar at times,

rebounding off the frayed trampoline.

We gamely dive through hoops,

leap over a dozen barrels,

sometimes colliding with number twelve.

One day the animals escape their cages

leaving the ringmaster

and the clown

to slug it out.

First bite

My father retired almost deaf

after decades of fixing metal presses.

He took me to the factory one day as a kid.

He wasn’t ashamed of the work he did

to feed his family.

I was frightened by the violent clash of metal

but never let on.

He was in the metal workers union,

read their paper,

the Tele and the Mirror too

but had a healthy suspicion of the headlines.

He grew up in the dark terraces of East Sydney

and ran errands down Palmer Street

for women of the night as he called them.

He was a bastard, legally,

and my mother never let him forget it.

Ten years after the final mortgage payment,

the garage door wide open to the sun,

he drinks DA from a pony glass

he pinched from the Forest Inn,

puts on a silly smile and says

“Ah, that first bite!

Glass of amber fluid, son?”

Warm wind, a song, February 2003

I feel a warm wind blowing

And it feels like peace

And it feels like anger

Against too long injustice.

I feel a warm wind blowing

From wintry Berlin, Moscow and Paris

Blowing across deserts and forests

Across oceans and continents

Across borders and border posts.

I feel a warm wind blowing

And it’s the breath of millions

It’s the breath of people in every nation

It’s the breath of ordinary voices

Speaking out strong and confident

The breath of hope and the human spirit.

I feel a warm wind blowing

Growing in fury and strength

And it’s building to a heated hurricane

That will blow down the citadels of war.

January, Balmoral

summer solstice has come and gone
without a fuss

three kookaburras are making
raucous satirical comments
on the status quo in Mosman

I go down to the harbour
enter the barely ruffled water
sun spearing through clouds

and floating on my back
look toward the south

the sky turns black

a sudden shower

Forecast

Mothers keep churning us out

like there’s no tomorrow

and maybe there isn’t

for us

I see mammoth cockroaches

picking over the rubble

nonchalant

waiting to evolve into something

more photogenic

Call me cynical but

this radioactive dust

they’re putting in warheads these days

couldn’t be playing up with the weather,

could it?

Memorial at Kuta

Gaudy flags

draped over flowers

and in the background

a pile of burnt shoes

shoes that will not dance

nor be flung off in abandon

or slipped under the bed,

will not wear down on one side,

be left to dry on the verandah

or spattered with rain

from running

through a summer storm

Talkback

a riot broke out

at the radio station

police were called in

to quell the listener response

nursing home residents

addicted to their man’s

frenzied fricatives

voluble vowels

garrulous glottal stops

dubious diphthongs

nagging nasals

and crazed consonants

surged out of their recliner chairs

and headed there in mini-buses

when a stand-in for their man

dared to let a caller ask

why