THE GREAT DIVIDE

Where is the man

whose clothes these are?

‘You’re him,’ you say,

but these don’t fit.

‘Because you’re fat,’ you say.

‘What have you been doing, or

for exercise, not doing?

You’ve spent ten years

using food to compensate

for your many failures.’

It doesn't make me feel good,

your speaking like that.

You don't know much

about the dynamics of my life.

We’ve not discussed

money, kids, my work,

the poor performance of the Eels,

relatives I could do without.

Anyway, who are you?

‘I’m your alter ego.

I am the right side of your brain.’

So bloody much, I think,

for the corpus callosum

that is supposed to unite us.

‘It degenerates with age,’

you tell me smiling

in that superior way

I’m coming to loathe.

THE AMALGAMATION

The grinding of the barista’s beans

reminds me of  the dentist’s high-speed drill:

both crush structure to a powder,

grinding, drilling, paradoxically

provoking anticipation of pleasure,

deferred until the brew is done.

or the dental cavity filled.

After shouting and wailing

the baby is born,

after terminal  rattles and gurgles

peace returns as the old man dies.

Bombs cease to fall when the siren stops:

rabbits emerge from their burrows

when the crashing and fires are gone.

No coffee without the grind,

no newborn without blood

no filling without the drilling

yet it is thrilling

when Beethoven, stone deaf, elegantly

composes a symphony without a sound

entering the music room in his head.

STAY RIGHT WHERE YOU ARE

Half-light of five a.m., I reach,
grasp a handle, bring the article to rest,
add a spoon of instant coffee,
start to pour hot water.
Rude awakening:
it’s upside down.

What sadist designed this thing? 
The handle loop’s symmetrical:
you can’t tell top from bottom.

Back to bed –
I’ve always thought, as Churchill did,
rising much before midday
 is a mug’s game.

MOVING ON

Shut the door: no point

in wasting heat –

but if you wish

leave it ajar just in case.

He may return, of course.

We understand. 

Bed made.

window clean, blind drawn

lamp on desk

asleep for months.

Be a dear:

check that it works.

You can see he's been.

That’s his chair.

His clarinet in its baby casket     

needs new reeds –

his books …

The economy, a failed relationship,

wanting to save, back from Afghanistan,

Trump and Brexit -

any one of these may bring him back.

The battery in the clock is dead.

WAITING ROOM

Wait. 

Let my eyes accommodate.

I peer:

shaded forms loom, a chair –

but I can’t be sure.

This has been my journey now for years.

The lights are dimmer

in the rooms beyond.

The switch

from cones to rods -

takes time.  I see

purples, browns,

twilight tones –

a Lloyd Rees painting

from his last days.

I wonder with each move

from one room to the next

how many more there are?

I can only wait and try to see.

THE WAYSIDER

Nine, and time to feed her:

a regular visitor, partial to apple,

this evening we are trying banana – 

whether that is beneath her dignity

time will tell.

Rodent-like, she sits on the deck

each evening waiting for her meal,

a supplicant at our chapel:

she could be homeless, displaced,

she leaves no gift, no fee,

grabs what she can.

Actually I’m not sure she’s a she:

perhaps he committed domestic violence

and is on the run, or stole stuff

as he now is skilled to do.

Officially we are told don’t feed him or her –

to keep the numbers down –

Hmmm. 

Yes: maybe as I consider it

she/he does have the look of a refugee.

MT TOMAH IN THE SUN

Sitting on the deck of the café,

an ocean of eucalypts,

valleys and peaks formed millennia ago

and the autumn sun wash away my infirmities. 

I can read in the brilliant light

without glasses. Today it’s warm 

enough to have bare feet. 

No need for hearing aids:

the songs of birds and breeze

are audible and I understand. 

The tree ferns speak of times when gums were not 

and the now long-buried volcano 

dispensed larva like words in an argument,

when dinosaurs with tiny brains and big feet

crashed and crushed their way to dominance –

although none was a match for evolution. 

I ask the Wollemi Pine to interpret

but there is no response. 

I’m left in the silence

to consider contemporary America.