Factory Settings

I spilt coffee on the keyboard of my laptop.

The screen went blank and then a tiny message –

I am your hard drive: I am dying:

Good-bye.

I wept and raged. All those emails, essays,

yes, and poems, many less than brilliant, drowned

in a puddle of lukewarm cappuccino.

I called the computer doctor.

I expected he would suggest

assisted cremation: he lacks a laptop manner.

To my surprise he offered hope: he could take us back

he said, to a time before the spill.

No promises, but he might

restore the hard drive, fool it to imagine

that the cappuccino did not happen,

and give us all a second chance.

Some things would be lost, he said, or all,

if radical electronic lobotomy was required.

Then it would revert to when it left the factory womb

prior to entering the brutal world of commerce,

when Trump was just a tower,

when Fred was offered experimental therapy

for his cancer (he declined - in every sense),

when Ruby was still a happy mum,

before she backed her car over Josh,

when Max moved out,

before he took his life, before Tom and Annie

made bad decisions in their business.

Years ago I saw Kingsley Amis interviewed

on television, propping the bar of an English pub,

together with his current wife,

a friend, and a former lover.

The interviewer asked him –

were he able to live his life again –

would he do so differently?

Amis peered into his pot of ale.

“If I did,” he smiled slowly, looking up,

“it would not be my life,

would it?” holding his glass

so as not to spill it in his lap.

END GAME

When the chips are down,

when the fuel’s gone,

when the sun has set,

when the planet’s dead,

then the deepest cold

of the universe will claim

the remnants of our planet

for a convenient black hole.

Graffiti on a wall,

weapons so immense

to wipe out Mars as well,

loos’ning bonds of sense,

dogs and gods of war,

rabid presidential men

bent on taking out

all others than themselves.

Is this Eliot’s whimper?

Will it make a noise

when tokens are cashed in?

We won’t be there to see

all this intelligence destroyed

art, music, all the animals,

trees – so will we care?

No, not at all.

WIST YE NOT?

Spring juice has spiked the drinks of the wisteria.

Baby buds betray their deathly origins

and fling forth unexpected blossoms - 

no one would guess that parental branches, 

tangled and conservative with age,

could produce such children

even under the influence of spring.   

This is ridiculous, this riot of new life

flying in the face of entropy. 

Things are supposed to slide 

to chaos and disorder.  

But myriad pathways

of regrowth confront us

as we seek to come to terms

with limits of our lives.  

Spring defies our understanding

driving artists, singers, poets

to seek out ways

beyond the limits of cognition

to describe miraculous events.

And, dear reader, are you implicated

as you listen to or read

this, another poem, about spring?

Hybrids

Who are these ghostly figures

that levitate towards me

from the shadows

on the lunar landscape

of my dream?

They resemble people

that I loved, hated or ignored,

blended characters,

several hybrids of my mother.

New Guinean highlanders believe

the spirits of the recent dead linger

and on starless evenings of torrential rain

pipe in the quiet voice of small birds

at the doors of thatch huts of the living,

gently seeking food and maybe warmth.

I heard them in 1968

one black-ink night at Baiyer River

when enjoying hospitality of our doctor-bois.

I asked about the cheeping

I could hear above the rain:

‘Simunks!’ they told me –

and I felt unafraid.

Perhaps I should take food to bed

to feed the figures

who meet me in my dream?

The Lump

A year ago, when washing my face,

I noticed it on my jaw,

a small animal I thought,

clinging by its teeth,

then my owner found it,

and took me to the vet

who stuck it with a needle,

but it didn’t hurt.

I’ll speak to Felix:

he’ll know what to do.

He’s much travelled,

has seen many things,

throughout his nine lives,

has accumulated much wisdom.

I chose Felix because

he is an expert in feline herbology,

knows which grass to eat for fur balls,

which leaves to lick to counter a toxic mouse,

how to feign sleep when humans fight,

when to reject food out of pique.

“This is not good,” he said.

The lump is such

that surgery can’t be done,

that chemo like my mistress had

would also make me sick

as would x-rays.

Now, at least I am still eating

and in no pain.

“You’re fifteen,” Felix said,

“and have lived a full life

of prowl, skirmish, purr and sleep.

Sometimes doing nothing is the best path

and your owners will help you die.”

I thanked him for his time and love;

he licked my lump as I left.

The Unfortunate Case of the Conservative Bollard

My god, you’re still here

guarding that tree.

Think of all the damage you’ve caused

to cars and trucks,

a decade of cyclists capsized?

A fine mission, but there’s no escape.

Your lock is rusted shut.

Yes, I’ve stood my ground.

I’ve paid no heed to passing fads,

impervious to new ideas,

unmoved by talk of climate change.

I’ve stood despite my wounds,

loyal to those who see change

as the work of the devil.

I see, but did you know

that the tree you guarded all those years

has died?

Living Together

by which was meant

they slept in one bed,

shared a bank account,

placed possessions in the apartment just so

according to the rules of trade of horses,

at times with delicate, or other times hot,

negotiations,

including over the canary.

One partner sneezed each time

he passed within a metre of the cage;

the other found it irksome

to keep the bird on the balcony,

favouring daily intimacy –

he was not deaf

and he’d forsaken allergies

at the age of five.

Within a month one tripped,

broke a hip, the other struggled to lift,

stroked, both then trucked

to the local emergency. 

They survived

but I can’t tell you

how the canary died.