Sunday, September 30, 2018

BIG QUESTION




Dear old Parramatta
is full of Big Data:
much digital matter –
on a ‘lectric platter.

Not just one at a time
but a zill on a dime!
Bits in a paradigm,
ten billion re a crime.

So, will they help to solve,
progressively evolve
skills to then resolve
problems that won’t dissolve?

Now, are these data real,
or cleverly conceal
what’s true within a deal
inside a frame of steel?

One day they will control:
when they are on a roll,
we’ll be on the dole.
Be worried for your soul!

IN PRAISE OF PANCAKES



They may not be capable of developing
new drugs for rheumatoid arthritis
or given to existential dispute,
but their ability to bring joy to taste buds,
and, in fulsome quantity,
fill the tummy with fluffy calories
for breakfast, with bacon and maple syrup,
is second to none.

They are not staple enough
(like bread)
to have been part of the Last Supper
but when I consider
how my Last Breakfast might be spent
I favour it being among family and friends,
each comforted by the sheer delight
of a generous serve.

Saturday, September 1, 2018

VALE


Rosewood.  The silver handles
will be removed before the fire
but the flowers on the lid,
dust of incense, drops of holy water
will remain, keep his body company –
our final, inadequate benediction.

Now the process is anonymous –
the coffin sinks:
the men who light and they who stoke,
who slide it into the oven,
are without names
and they don’t know his.

We knew and he knew the cancer’s name:
it was devilishly clever,
relentless, finding its obstructing way
around stents and into lumens.
It declared conquest over his unconscious form
last Friday.  Pyrrhic, it seemed to me.

After the mass and committal, we who are left
assemble outside in the winter wind
view one another’s wrinkles
take note of obvious infirmities
count ourselves lucky to be alive –
well – sort of.

de Chardin said as we grow old
we are increasingly penalized
for a crime we did not commit.
But the punishment is for our original sin,
of being born, of our temerity
in playing gods for three score years and ten.