Author: David Redpath
Poor Aussie Boy
Summer Venicea
… a hothouse
frozen in time
then suspended
in a saltwater museum
The despised tourists
on the dock
by the boatload
disgorging
Then to queue
for religious relics
and pay 5 euros
just to see them
Once they would’ve all
been led for free
and fed into the Colosseum
Like foreigners
who walk around
saying … “Gidday!”
Barbarians well known
to pisciare in the bidet
Sailing High in Creation
Riding the bounds
Sailing high in creation
Things that astound
on the wing
in the deep
and under the ground
Yet consciousness
hard up against the glass
of this broken existence
Confiscated by the State
as a piece of degenerate art
then sold as a slave
to the black market of fate
I made the big break
for the heights of Montmartre
A spirited defence
yet only token the resistance
at the cutting edge
of forsaken circumstance
Justified and Ancient
A Distant Recollection
Once upon a time
loving kindness
that orphaned daughter
of some forgotten martyr
from a far off constellation
just waiting to happen …
Once drifting so fine
in my distant recollection
a brother lost
distracted by an attraction
to the stranger of danger
and the mother of all crime
Becoming a pawn
in that never ending
murderous game
of worldly power
and territorial gain
the soldier of misfortune
now marching to the tune
of a traumatized mind
On the dirty street corner
sprawled upon yesterday’s paper
used and discarded
“Can you spare a dime?”
scrawled on a sign
The whole Earth is our father’s land
Loving Kindness … once upon a time
Words and Image;
~ David B Redpath © 2018
Two Kings and a Wedding
King Cobra … of the Red Centre
somewhere north of Oodnadatta
From him even the monkeys scatter
The Happiness Report
The Happiness Report
from the pagan haven
of a guarded and gated
sunny seaside resort
Machine tooled
from a block of concrete
Then deposited
upon a mangrove swamp
along a once pristine coast
Now a checkpoint
and a guard tower
cast shadows
across the lungs of nature
dying of tourist cancer
Who Did What!?
An English Rose in the throes
of a Time and Space Wanderlust
As scarlet petals
strewn upon the roof
of a Tardis in full thrust
Where beauty meets the beast
a bad wolf is howling
Waves of gravity rising
from an Eventful Horizon
Rose Tyler, the best of the best
Captain Jack Harkness could never
come between her and the Doctor
Even in the darkness of outer space
Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie
Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie
(edited) ~ by Bob Dylan
When yer head gets twisted
and yer mind grows numb
When you think you’re too old,
too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin’ behind
an’ losin’ yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl
of life’s busy race
No matter what yer doing
if you start givin’ up
If the wine don’t come
to the top of yer cup
If the wind’s got you sideways
with one hand holdin’ on
And the other starts slipping
and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire
needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood’s easy findin’
but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin’
and the street gets too long
And you start walkin’ backwards
though you know its wrong
And lonesome comes up
as down goes the day
And tomorrow’s mornin’
seems so far away
David Redpath 