An evening with the Punk Poet
. . . John Cooper Clarke.
Fleeing Chicken Town, evidently.
A National Treasure
. . . if Bedlam was a nation
La Coco Mojo Trobada
Looking for hidden treasure
in the doing of serious leisure
at the most exotic Coco Mojo bar
As that coral sea
just keeps glistening
in the tropical sun
I’m ordering yet another
mango mojito
whilst listening to Mojo JuJu
singing that native tongue
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
Summer Seeking
Summer seeking
somewhere over the horizon
under a foreign sun
The warm neopolitan nights
revealing northern stars
Gazing at a stranger moon
bearing ancient scars
At a loss …
the Southern Cross
even the Milky Way
seem to have somehow
all gone astray?
For Ernesto Che Guevara
At long last
I’ve seen the past
and much like the future
it was murder
Since the beginning
of forever
brother Cain came
with low blows
to impose
a new world order
I thank Christ
some had time to grasp
the hand at task
For chaos never stops
to count the cost
But I blame myself
for a world of mayhem
and uncivil disorder
ever since the canonization
of my dearest friend
Ernesto Che Guevara
Mister Stork
In the lounge room of my childhood
there’s this small box made of wood.
And when I open it’s varnished lid
up pops a finely painted stork.
A cigarette wedged in his beak,
with the promise of something good …
“Care to try a Peter Stuyvesant?
Tailor made for the Jet-Set!
You’ve been on a plane.
And you’re a big boy now, all of nine.
You’ll find the taste most pleasant,
and you’ll soon be feeling fine.”
The Seasons
“It is something to be deep
in the snow in Winter,
to be deep in the yellow leaves
in Autumn, to be deep
in the ripe wheat in Summer,
to be deep in the grass in Spring.”
~ Vincent van Gogh
In the shallows
just below
the translucent skin
of Spring
an opal blue explosion
awaiting
the grand thaw of awe
to begin
The riverbank
in springtime
A chestnut tree
in blossom
dances along
the sparkling spectrum
Under a sky rent by light
on a starry starry night
Is seeing too much
beyond your place in time
ever
and always
the crime?
