EXOPLANET

Rolling in deep space

in billions of galaxies

circling quintillion stars

are planets that Hubble has told us

are like ours, hospitable to life,

eyes and lips,

oxygen and nitrogen,

carbon: maybe fish and chips

and a Labor Party.

China may as well be such a planet

with its inscrutable bureaucracy,

values and script so foreign,

seeding Beijing clouds with silver

to bring rain, but

making snow,

polluting as though

its prime mission

is to set the world on fire.

But I need not fly

to China, or teleport to space

to find life forms that baffle

with their foreignness.

I can turn to you, so close,

whom I think I know and then

discover by accident one day

that all is not, very not,

as it has seemed.

Why did I not see

in those early images from space

the touch of your airbrush

or sense that your desire for fame

masked by your Oriental calm

eclipsed sound judgement.

Exoplanet?  A cosmic flare of truth

led you up the stairs

to jump and end it all.

CICADIAN RHYTHM

Summer sunrise, and the Blue

Mountain valleys, those

not on fire, doze

under fine white sheets of smoke

that settle them in comfort –

a slow start to a hot day –

but further sleep won’t come.

Already the orchestra is playing

a requiem of distress  –

for the Titanic or Hiroshima –

a million singing cicadas

displaced, they that survive

burning forests

they that escaped

the inferno,

hoping in their dim

sense of loss

that their friends

who didn’t make it

were at least intoxicated

by the eucalyptus fumes

smoke curdling their tiny minds

or that frenzied birds

wild with their own fear seized them

for a quick in-flight meal.

They buzz in languid loops

like Wirraways,

searching through the haze

for a runway

after the Japanese had gone.

Green Grocers,

Black Princes – I have never seen

so large a force –

they circle without purpose

for all is lost, no home,

shells so recently vacated vaporised,

compasses smashed

by gods that first lick

with orange tongues, then eat.

But take comfort, dear cicadas –

there is a rhythm:

               you are not alone.

SERVO

The man with the key to my cufflinks

told me, “The earth is flat,”

and that I’d better believe it

or I’d be toast.

Toast is not a bad thing to be –

when cooked well it smells

of warm milk and evenings at home –

but this guy was not being funny.

I took him to mean that

I’d burn unless I changed my view.

If he wants the world to be flat then OK:

no-one’s likely to fall off the edge.

So I say to the man with (he says) the key

“Hey, mate, the world is flat.”

“How can I believe that?” he asks,

I say, “Well, you’re the one who just told me.”

I could see complex processing going on

behind his face.  Was that a shadow of doubt?

Not likely.  So am I free?

No, bugger me: he’d lost the bloody key.

LOVE IN THE TIME OF CANCER

Jesus loves me

this I know

‘cos my mummy told me so

in the sun and on the snow

right up high and way down low

with me everywhere I go.

My mummy died

a year ago:

I miss her and I’ve cried

a lot:  but she’s still with me, too.

just like Jesus, at the zoo,

at school and if I fall and graze

in happy times and on sad days.

but it’s different in some ways.

Now I can’t remember

what her face was like

can’t feel her touch

and I miss Jesus’, too:

Yes, it’s her smile and eyes I’ve lost,

her arms around me now …

EARNING MERIT

Each thousand miles I fly

accumulates a Frequent Flyer point

and when I’ve earned one hundred thousand

I can, other bookings permitting,

use them for a one-way flight from Sydney

to Melbourne so long as I leave

before five a.m. and do not return –

ever.

This mighty effort to win points

produces ‘sweat of the brow,’

a fluid regarded highly in many religions

and sung about in hymns of praise

as pleasing to the Lord, a consequence

of Adam’s sin capitalised upon

by industrialists and planters who own slaves

declared as such or otherwise.

QANTAS therefore should feel free

to place small squares of gold leaf

as Buddhists do in Thailand

to acquire virtue

on the skins of their planes

making it obvious to all who fly

how attuned they are to

heaven being within reach at 30,000 feet

and that the preparation of its passengers,

through the currency of Frequent Flyer points,

with sufficient merit to land there is

their real first priority.

THE POLITICS OF DARKNESS

Winter solstice and things pick up

from here, more light and fewer

dark mornings, less toast and lukewarm coffee

taken in the gloom accompanied 

by dire warnings

and forebodings in the Herald

about federal politics’ lack of vision –

it’s hard to see the truth

when the sun

 is taking northern holidays.

But the days will lengthen now

 and politics will warm.

The season of longer days

provides relief, the earlier dawn

dispelling half-awake dreams

with their disconcerting slogans

and the shouted untruths

of bankrupt ideologies.

CHOOSING YOUR MEDICINE

At Grahame’s once-was pharmacy

coffee customers now sit at small tables,

discussing in the half dark

perennial problems of time and space,

boat people and global warming.

This place, empty for several years,

was once full of upright Grahame.

He dispensed medicines

with happy chat

for old and scared.

Now an enterprising barista

serving with no fuss

doses of organic juice

has wooed commuters inside

who were waiting for the bus.

Now, coffee is dispensed –

no script is needed – that’n

the cost being three not thirty bucks

distinguishes the cappuccino

from a cholesterol-lowering statin.

MAGIC MATTERS

This big case

has lots of things

we’re taking

to Paris –

clothes for Mum and Noemie

and Sarah and me

and probably

for Daddy.

It’s almost as big

as me!  It weighs

the same.

Now it has to go on the plane

with us so they’ll put a ticket

on it, like the ones they’re

giving us, to make sure

it comes on board.

So now the bag

is being weighed at the place

where they stick the tickets.

It has to shift a bit

towards a moving mat

that will take it to the plane.

But now it’s stuck.

Never mind!  I have big lungs

and I can take deep breaths

and like blowing out the world’s biggest candle

on a huge cake I can blow the case!

Watch me!  Big breath in…

And I’m going to blow in a minute

so big you could not believe.

OUT! !  SEE!  The case is on its way!

FISHSCAL’ POLICY

Depression was rife on the tropic reef.

The Coral Bank threatened to collapse

because of the inflationary pressure

of water heated and acidified

by climate change, eroding soil

and overpopulation with small fish

demanding constantly to be fed .

Plankton prices were rising

and krill was in short supply.

Several fishenomic schools proposed solutions

ranging from restrictions

on the supply of marine nutrients

and dissolved oxygen so that

rates of unemployment among highly prevalent

parrot-fish and epidemic rays

would decrease to manageable levels.

The octopus was asked

to shut down three of his tentacles

and whales and dolphins to seek employment

in marine parks where alternate sources of currency

might be found,  taking pressure off

the monetary pumps.

Takeover bids for sectors of the sea bed

were made by predatory sharks

who considered individual survival to be all.

But rescue came in the form of

new taxes invented by rainbow fish

based on the count of scales upon a fish’s skin.

Scales served as proxy for piscine wealth.

and a policy of fishscal’ tax saved

the marine economy from collapse.    

      

EXECUTIVE ORDERS

I was surprised

how mundane the institution,

impervious to conversation,

inexorable, impersonal,

preparations and transport

were for my execution.

Led in cuffs  to a jetty,

then into a small boat

with four handlers

bound for an island,

my escorts studied

paper forms, not me,  

doing their job

in a bureaucracy.

The firing squad kneels in front,

stands behind.  “Take this target,

pin it to his chest,”

the corporal says.

Orders followed.

Over in a minute.