Living in Melbourne in the early eighties, I became obsessed with the poet e.e. cummings for a while … this is my stumbling attempt at his style.
captivated
by smiles gestures and rubbings
he was
funny
when it happens along
i thought
when you least expect it
and
straightens your back
with a spring
in your step
into spring
Re-worked this timeless oldie … images and observations from a northbound road trip to join a hippy sports day in a distant valley.
I made it up about the hob-nailed thongs!
Day-Glo spacy waistcoats
white overalls hobnailed thongs
modern rural highwaymen
armed with stop/go signs
bright pink earthmovers
make a night-bright sight
stunning moonrise on the full
achingly cold mud puddles
Day-Glo orange Frisbees
scorch the long emerald grass
From the days when I drove taxis in the Sydney nights. When mikes were live and we talked to the operator. When we didn’t wear grubby uniforms and cash was king.
Skirting another peer group,
Avoiding another clique,
The party round continues as he left it years ago.
Manic panic weekend living,
Crowded driving solitude,
Cruising the neon nightscape.
Ferrying the stranded and the loaded,
Taking their money with a smile,
A quick-change conversation to the meter’s ticking tune.
Two-way voices static his dreams,
Wrapped in the smoky cockpit,
Trapped behind the wheel.
Visions of urban mansions,
Myths on the edge of town,
Peopled by frightened ciphers jogging home in gloom.
Faced with traps of security,
Lighting another smoke,
He cracks a crooked smile and cruises vacant into the night.
Another gypsy driver chasing the moon.
Here’s one for my mates in the old neighbourhood … Bondi Disfunction.
Eastgate they call it
But that’s just a name
Down home and funky
Where real folks roam
Not like its neighbour
Smarty pants Westfield
Upmarket and spunky
Where names are chains
Chrome gloss enticement
On levels and floors
Flashy visual excitement
In half-empty stores
_______________________________________________________
An attempt at a poem in the referential academic style.
You know, like the consumptive poets of previous centuries who seemed to have to make classical allusions in their poems. Taking the piss, really.
But it is a kind of love poem.
Returning home to no Penelope
I’m no Agamemnon
Armageddon leaves me for dead
Again the observer
I watch
Time’s myths unwind
Sad smiling Aphrodite
In limbo from Thebes
Homeless and humbled
Caught in Love’s plot
Down from the mountains
Lost to the sea
Facing the jungle
Bluestones of steel
Tiresias is learning
The price of sight
Razor sharp options
Limit his choices
Blinded for truth
A snake in the grass
Feels for his breasts
Gets it all wrong
