Oreo

Not a bi-coloured American biscuit

But a lean and lanky two-toned Yankee

First life saved back in the States

When the kids took a shining to him

Or maybe the adults

Who needed a cheap ratter

For their apartment;

Plucked from a Manhattan Cat Refuge.

Smooches up to you

Figures of eight around your legs,

One of the boys!

With a mind of his own though,

Squeezing and wriggling from their hugs

When he’s had enough

To saunter out the gate and lie on the road

To soak up the bitumen warmth,

Oblivious to cars

In the Cul-De-Sac ending in a

Path between the houses

Running down to the bay.

Something had a go at him; maybe a fox.

Chunk out of his throat,

On a nocturnal foray

Hunting rats around the drains and rocks

Of the shoreline

Which he would proudly bring home

Depositing on the kitchen floor

Just out of sight of the Dining and Loungeroom

With their polished wooden floors,

Marble fireplaces and long drapes,

Wouldn’t do at all!

Not that he’d care.

In his mind he was helping

He’s a ratter!

Perhaps paying his way for his lodging

In this elegant house by the bay-

That Day In September

The Doggies are baying!

The Demons are looking cool

They’ve all decamped to Perth

To find out who will rule.

The Demon’s fans are desperate

Despite having so much loot.

While the Doggie’s fans have buggar all

And couldn’t give a hoot!

Yes they’re all facing the great leveller,

The Finals game of AFL

And the only thing that matters

Is having a seat at the game

It’s in Perth!!

Aw bloody hell!

The Demons think it’s their turn

But the Dogs don’t think that way.

They’re out to chew their balls off!

And take their cool away.

It’s going to be a close game,

They’re both looking up to scratch.

Let’s all camp in front of Tele

For a sizzling footy match.

How The Game Of Golf Was Born

Like some ghastly apparition

The novice steps up to the tee.

In a state of deep contrition

He swings and shifts his stance.

Others eye with approbation or unrestrained glee

As the ball sails off down the fairway

Or rockets right and hits a tree.

Only a Scotsman could’a thought of it

Spending so much time with sheep

Who he eye’d with approbation

And a certain speculation;

Get a grip on it! While control he tried to keep.

Which comes with wearing nothing but a kilt

And developing a most perturbing tilt.

Yet the act seemed too unnatural

For further contemplation

So he picked up his crummock

Wacking rocks around the fields.

As he wacked around the paddock

To keep his mind off sheep and haddock,

One rolled and rolled and dribbled in a hole.

“Ha Ha!” he thought” Well I’m a clever soul!”

So the game of golf was born

When the sheep weren’t being shorn

And to this day we love to spend our time,

For it is no matter whether

It is fine or stormy weather,

We’re just happy chasing balls across the lawn.

And that putting on the green

We know, plays havoc with our score

For less putting, putting, putting

But in the hole just puting

Is an open affirmation of that well known situation,

That often quoted fact where less is more.

And what of lady golfers

It seems they are a natural;

With the game of golf it seems they are at ease.

As they grab that shaft in supplication

You can sense their deep elation

As they thwack those balls so far

It makes you wheeze.

You’re just filled with admiration

And perhaps to of castration

As those flying balls, they lob onto the green.

Makes you glad to just retire

And at the nineteenth hole expire

As you reminisce the fairways and the greens

And the shot that almost made it

When you o’er the bunker played it.

Ah well!

There’s always next week so it seems.

The Reunion

• 

Fifty years on and I meet you again.

I recognised you immediately

Knowing you would be there;

Maybe not if I happened across you in the street.

Most of the others were strangers to me.

Platitudes and niceties , recalling what we shared,

But strangers.

I often remember the day on weekend leave

When we went for a spin in your MG sports

On the narrow country roads

Hawthorn hedges flickering the light

Under a clear blue morning sky;

Our lives before us.

Your banjo and my guitar and golf sticks,

What were we thinking?

Although the harmonica did come in handy

on that route march

When we stopped off at Launching Place Pub

For lunch and someone struck up a tune on the piano,

Dancing with the local girls.

We were in uniform and there was a war.

Of course they would.

Made me think of Mary

Who we both knew from Sydney;

The greek girl , so pretty and engaging.

Who you said was once your girlfriend.

I met her decades later in Melbourne,

Her face and eyes saddened by life,

Dressed in black.

Such is the way of things.

The Deep Stuff

The chances that life on earth is the only life in the Universe/Multiverse whatever; who knows?is extremely unlikely, so the likelihood that there is a god or gods who have a heaven or hell in store for us for eternity , seems unlikely to pass the pub test.For if heaven or hell has to accomodate methane breathing, oxygen farting , silicon based life forms, it does not fill me with longing or desire to share an infinite amount of time with them .

As for god or gods based on the human egocentric model; why would there be?There does seem to be a supreme intelligence but without ego or judgement ; is , was and always will be.Look around at the fundamental patterns of the universe, ecosystems and life itself; it’s everywhere you look.

The cost of life is joy and sorrow and realising there may be no tomorrow.

So suck it up and just be thankful for the brief time we get , enjoy it and not stuff it up for others.

Santa

I’ve traded in old Rudolf for a Mazda 2 you see!

It’s got more grunt up the front end

And with the air-con , I don’t freeze

As far as pressies go, there’s more room in the boot

If you fold the back seats down

There’s room for all the loot.

Wasn’t even an option with the old sleigh on me rounds!

Not forgetting all the bloody carrots

I had to carry in me sacks

To feed those bloody reindeer as we went around the traps

And after Chrissie’s over, I’ve time to take a pause

I can fold down the back seats at the Drive-In

And have me way with

Mrs Santa Clause

Depending on the movie

No sense steaming up the windows if a good movie’s on!

So I know that may be a shock te yer

But that’s progress don’t yer know

The freezer’s full of reindeer steaks

Bloody good eh?

Ho ho ho !

And we’ve moved down to Australia

Cos climate change is on the go

And cos the Mazda’s seriously hampered

When there’s too much bloody snow

I’ve had to leave the elves behind

The Mazda’s not that big!

And I get all the pressies made in China

I don’t really give a fig!

So kiddies send yer letters

To me mail-box at Uluru

It’s fairly central for Australia

If yer’ve got a Mazda 2

Salvation Creek

A piece of roofing iron tatt-tatters in the breeze

In this god-forsaken land devoid of any trees

Beside the dried-up river bed they call Salvation Creek.

A lizard blinks its uncomprehending stare

Atop a crumbling wall of utter sheer despair

The only thing to move is its shadow on the ground

As the sun slides on earth’s orb , slowly moving round

And oppressive heat of day gives way to chill of night

The lizard waits patiently for dawn

And return of warmth and light.

Sheep Country

Where eagles soar on high, raptors in that vaulted sky

Over ocean-flat scrub-speckled plain

Featureless, except for a ribbon of road

Stretching from nowhere to nowhere ;

A vast emptiness inhabited by spirits and the wind.

A land, devoid of water or oceaned by flood.

Much too much or never enough.

My cousin’s place down there;

Twelve miles from letterbox to door,

One fifty miles around the rim

And miles and miles of fencing

To keep the sheep and cattle in.

My cousin ; blue eyes, weathered face and sun-parched lips

Beneath his Akubra ; cotton drill shirt , once white moleskins

And dusty leather boots, in his Ute ;

A dog upon the tray to help round up the odd stray.

Crotching,drenching, shearing, lambing , fencing, slaughtering ;

A life defined by tasks and not by time ;

Leastways not nine to five.

The town, a Servo cum convenience store , butcher’s, baker’s, Public Hall ,

A mechanic’s yard and shed for the bigger jobs,

Welding metal holding pens and water tanks ,

The haberdashery and milkbar long since gone ,

Now empty husks,

Broken dreams littering the road.

Just out of town past the dry creek bed,

A clapboard church and graveyard where the dead

Can rest peacefully in this spirit land .

While back in town beside a strip of lawn and an empty set of swings ,

An obelisk , with the family names of those who shared the suffering ,

Seeking adventure or maybe escape ,

Here for ever remembered their common fate

As those empty swings sway gently with the wind.

While those who returned, who shall remember them,

With their VD from R and R and their PTSD?

Maybe only unfortunately their wives and children

A shot rings out across the plain,

Another life gone but who’s to know?

As the empty swing sways gently to and thro.

Moondine Joe

Moondine Joe

 

Let me tell you a story about a fellow I know 

A lovable natural borne looser, named Moondine Joe;

Moondine ,after the bunch of Aborigines he is said to

 have hung around with

 And Joe; you know short for John

 

Yes Moodine ! reputedly a bushranger

 More a harmless thief with a peculiar ability to

 Antagonise authorities than a stick-up man.

 

 A man of mediocre sense!

 

He probably would not have been transported

 And received a lesser term if he hadn’t

 Mouthed off at the judge so much

 Protesting his innocence

 

 

So in Western Australia he resorted mainly to

  Duffing cattle and sheep

 Once when caught with a stolen horse

 On which he put his  mark

He got caught out and he ended up in gaol

But no gaol could hold Moondine Joe 

 

He escaped from his cell,

 Rode off with the horse and the

 Magistrate’s saddle and bridle as well

 Killed the horse and cut off its brand

 So there was no evidence ;

 Resulting in  a much lesser sentence ,

 with only the saddle and bridle

 To  hang on his head.

 

His continuing stints in gaol

 And repeated successful attempts at escape

 Proved to be an exemplary example

 For other prisoners  to try to emulate

 

This made him the darling of the public and the press

 Much to the chagrine of the screws;

 So much so  that his security was severely tightened

 And the Governor Of Western Australia;

 John Hampton , who wasn’t the brightest of chaps,

 

Challenged “If you get out again, I’ll forgive you!”

 

 He did,    and he was;

 -was free again

 

How did he do it you may ask?

 

I can give you one example:

 

 They put him in the gaol yard

 In a corner breaking rocks

 Which he built up in a heap

 While swinging occasionally at the wall.

 You can imagine their despair

 When they looked behind the heap

 And he was no longer there

 

A sizable escape hole

 Had been dug right through the wall

  And Moondine must have felt pretty good

 When through it he did crawl

 

 He spent a few more years in and out of the can

 Until he married a widow named Louisa

 And on the straight and narrow

 Thanks to a good woman

 Spent his remaining years fossicking for gold

 

Unfortunately Louisa died in her forties

 And that unhinged him

 He ended up dying in the Fremantle Lunatic Asylum

 Leastways , that’s what I’ve been told

 

Yes

 

 Even in the asylum, he managed to escape.

 

Really!?

Sheep are tough

 They can sense weakness in dog or man

 And yet are too brainless

 For a man to ken what’s on their mind

 

 

Sheep looks, man looks

 Sheep feints and charges off

 

Man whistles dog

 Dog advances gingerly from behind

 Full of stealth and purpose,

Really looking the part,

 With eyes only for sheep;

 

Whistle goes again

 Dog , blank , eyeballs man,

“Really?!” 

He’s failed to ken

 What sheepman’s on about;

 

Brain in overdrive

 Until it clicks!

 And he sets quickly to his task.

 

 Dog knows this game of chess

 ‘Tween man and sheep;

 Two equal partners really!

 Him in the middle, trying to press

Sheep to man’s will,

If only Dog can guess.

 

 

It can take a long time

 To train a man with a whistle in his hand.