the way to silence

a very noisy clock
in this room
 louder than the cars
on the highway

and the dark
it whines a tune
 like static
electricity

my body
petitioning me
 on all its old aches
and concerns

sitting.

chuckles rising
 alongside farts
 reeking with the absurdity
of my condition

Bungonia

i took a pen and paper
to take things down
but fell a fast asleep
into the long night drink
spinning onto the dark tack
like a water boatman
chalking the surface
with rippled moonlight

i was going to write
about Bungonia
the state's oldest recreation
area--a stamp of bush
argyle apple and peppermint
their soft caramel bark
and silver leaf melodies
pouring into a gorge
of grass trees
and limestone faces
conversing around a bend of sand

but i lay there under those trees
and slept instead
and the holy ground there it drinks
it steals the rivulets
deep into the soil
where yellow caverns
make foul aired tombs
and domed chambers to decay
the final vestiges
of visitors from upstairs

like us (me and my three boys)
with head torches
breathing hard that morning
as we corkscrew down a crack
and land with the detritus
washed down in a rainfall
among lost bugs and white bones
or wood that's grown a white beard
the modern corpses of the daylight
returned to Precambrian silence

the Earth here is drinking deeply
taking down the bruised bodies
of the sun's creation
inhaling all his creatures
she digests them all
into a profound slime
mysteriously deep, beyond
where even well-equipped cavers go
the dark dreamy water lost
somewhere between absorption
and an eternal efflux

but she didn't get us
we chimneyed out
and lay on flat rocks
warming ourselves like dinosaurs
plucked out of the mud
my son lost a wobbly tooth
and i restored with this pen
a memory from oblivion
to withhold it for a day
or a week or even ten years
or a century from the night
but never forever

new year post

perhaps the pantaloons poetry is too expressive
or nonsense or computer generated—whatevs
I cannot keep up with it
But do enjoy the mostly invisible feeling
 (as my friend she sits near and taps)

41+ years on,
the perspective has changed alright
is it just noise?
or just faster (and faster) cars ?
Dylan's Welsh tidbit biscuit fare..

I used to know myself
the flow of words seems so absurd now
seems the end is night
every morning in bed about 3am
the dark thinks crowd around and stare

trying to locate some grommet of certainty
or a pleasure node somewhere there in the abyss
or inside another person or inside me
a hole to comfort, an escape hole
a latch hole, a hidey hole, a pocket of tricks

oh God the slightest movement of a chair
imbibed in silence, contains all the secrets
the pathetic secrets, oh God the pathos

boiling down the year to its end
the essence is sticky, sweet, ugly
little dead insects in it
dark burnt umber in it
it's a useless sauce, nobody is surprised tho

reaching for certainty sticks with the mind
but the mind doesn't stick—dump the mind
dump the mind
dump the meandering mind
the careening animal mind

find the fool
there they are in the corner,
recognisable in that old party hat
ask them for a dance
see them rise slowly and come forward
an opening dance
for the new year [2019]

A tail of two roosters

we had two roosters too many
just black balls of fluff
tumbling around the chook yard
in the beginning

they soon grew into two beautiful big boys
with red red combs, orange and black flecked
feathers fingered through their long tails
long horny spurs

their coming of age
brought a reign of terror
to the yard

they fought of course—
with each other,
with their dad
(who was a nice subdued old bird
we kept him 'cause he never attacked the kids)

worse, they constantly molested our ten hens
as they tried to go about their humble business
of pecking, finding grubs, laying the odd egg,
turning our quiet yard into an endless scene of commotion

so last night after dark
I took the first rooster
quickly from his perch
without any real struggle

and out in the yard
I held his legs in one hand and his head with the other
and pulled hard, and long, so all the little neck bones cracked
like a busted necklace
and he groaned and quickly died

when I carried the second rooster out
his old father flapped down from the perch
and made a low croak, as if to say:
“No—not my son!”

but I didn't hesitate
I had made up my mind
and I broke the second rooster's neck too
though he was stronger and took longer to die
letting out one last crow unexpectedly

I carried the limp bodies down to the creek
laid them down
threw some green grass over their orange feathers
and left them there as food for foxes

there was no crowing in the morning
and the yard was peaceful
everyone going about their business
of pecking, finding grubs, and laying the odd egg

none minding the long orange tail feather
floating like a flag in the water bowl

the visitation of the black cat

beware of failure
failure is a lean black glove
clutching at the heart
it folds us into ourselves
in the gloomy crush
of fatal introspection

its stink starts to creep
into all the things you touch
the faces which you see
the voice with which you speak
hate curls from the wound
like a thin white wire of smoke

those so confident
smiling, laughing in their luck
are cool and at ease
above the mincing machine
slicing up the hearts
mowing down all us poor fucks

beware of failure
which enters by a thin door
oh, but in my house
a black cat has come to stay
and i suppose i'll ope the door
in case some more
purr in from off the motorway

rising smoke

reading the poem that won the prize
a pleasant feeling brushes my mind
like popping candy in the neurons
and an inner warm glow assures me
that I am in the hands of a master

I grip it for a while in my hand
then put it down and get on with my life

dissolutely flick down through Twitter
let out the cat let it back in again

there must be something left unsaid
if only I could forget all those words
i just read—

out on the compost heap I rake up
the poems into drifts dozens deep
and set fire to the verbiage pile
the smoke rising in a tall tower
a message to the sky, a rocket ship

but even this act of surrender
is a theatre, a dishonesty
for there never is a final act
the show is endlessly revolving
playwright, actor, audience—all in me!

meditation on darwinism

evolution co-exists with conservation
evolution aims to conserve itself

the most ancient thing which can be conserved
is also the simplest

even destruction may only be obtained
at the cost of preservation elsewhere

in the very end, all has been preserved
and all has been destroyed at least once

this is an example of divine līlā (play)