betterdays

betterdays Dec 2016

we have an echidna
dining on ants
in our garden

the little devon rex cat
tuxedo boy is perplexed

it is the first echidna he has seen
and tux is not sure if it is
a toy, food or a future nemisis
so is watching it from the deck,
neck stretched out so far
he has lost his wrinkles.
eyes big and nose twitching
his ears swivelling like radar dishes

the echidna,
is placidly eating
little nose snuffling,
and spines shaking as he moves
he is done now
and makes his way
to the hole in the fence

the cat, now bold,
goes to investigate
nose to ground, but not for long.
the acridic smell of dying ants
give him cause to sneeze and sneeze
before hustling back to the safety of the deck

another lesson learnt
echindna's are no cat's toy...

betterdays Dec 2016

Seven minutes spare....

twenty minutes to write a poem
to stop and think and scribe
to create an etude, a vignette
from daily life,
minutea

teapot sits
still warm
rendolent
of terraces
of camelias
in foreign lands

crumbs sit in clusters
on the worn pine table
survivors of the toast and jam war

underneath the tuxedo cat
basks in a sliver of stainedglassgreen sunlight
hopeful of something wonderful

the clattering of the boychild
can be heard, akin to rollerblading rhino's
as he prepares for another day of learning

I sit, running fingertip around teacup lip
as I contemplate procrastination
with regard to all things domestic

outside, the world reverberates
as some one begins to cut grass
and the the Beach Boys sing Kokomo

betterdays Dec 2016

no longer

no more does my mother knit
half finished scarves, tea cosies
and tiny shell like booties
sit in forlorn piles
awaiting a hand that
is no longer deft
or interested

her conversation is now not
accompanied by the soft rhythmic
clicking of needles, tapping away
we are no longer halted in questions
by the phrase"just let me finish the row"

now, pattern books are filed away
wool paased on to others for their projects
groups of women no longer gather

my mothers hands lay idle and listless
in her lap, finger bent and curled
in painful submission to age

she is some how smaller, diminished
as tho the k itting needles gave her strength
to battle to stand stoic, against the tides of misfortune
that battered the island that was her life...

my mother no longer knits
and in me that creates a sadness
that is deeper than words explain
and often as I sit with her
I long to here that rhythmic clicking
that was the back ground to my childhood

knit one purl one.....

My mother who has knitted since she was eight years old, is now unable to....at age 86...
and in declining health....I find this so sad

betterdays Nov 2016

at last......

the cicada's have begun to emerge
after seventeen long years as a dormant miner

they arise, pushing through seveteen years of dust
and compounded muclch, breaking out into a brave new world

and for seventy two hours, if they are lucky
they seek to mate, to consumate to extend their species

some become garish decorations on truck windscreens
some become exhibits in a small boys jam jar zoo
some become waylaid and sing their cacophonial opus
on barren concrete patio's
some become Sunday dinners to peckish nestlings

some succeed gloriously, then die happy
some don't...succeed...and die wondering

but apparently seventeen years ago...
a lot succeded...
if the booming base opera being performed
is a gauge of the primeval drive of the cicada

it is summer eve in the burbs
and the living is..... noisy....

betterdays Nov 2016

blind freddy speaks....

i want to write clever and bright
but everything comes out
mundane and boring

and i know my daily grind
may well be a window
into the abstraction of  joy for others

but i feel i am writing blind, groping for words
in the hopes that they will be courteous and kind
enough to show their beauty to my walled in mind.

it is in this reality
that the fact most ungraciously to be given prominence
pertains to the phrenic frictive dissadence..

i have been swimming laps  in a pool of academic jargonese
and as i breastroke and butterfly through grant after grant appeal,
the reality becomes more and more surreal
as  beggars and funds unreel
and dance and swerve and dive and wheel
like birds in enraptured murmuration
causing unceasing surseration,
a whispering mindless meditation
of factsand figures
ad fintum
beating, beating
like a broken drum
bending, bruising
mind and soul
as  I swim on
down through the rabbit hole

but soon this madfly mendicant season will be done.
and then my muse may well return.....
and the healing, calming  words
will come
if not..
well then, I am undone

betterdays Nov 2016

small thing.....

four kilo's of skin
and scruff and fur

four kilos of wrinkled blue
of velveteen and corrugation
of bat ears and amber green eyes

four kilo's of meow
and chatter and purr

given in love
given to love
lover of sun
and warmth
and all things
chicken

collector of hearts
and bugs, lizards
socks and *****

littleblucat
so very big
in heart
for one so small

it has been
just on a year
since you were
called back
to the mothership

and yet
I still look to find you
still expect to hear you
and wonder why the
new batch of skinks
still retain their tails

you were such a small thing
to leave such a big gap

betterdays Nov 2016

dragon lights

the moon
clothed in pearl grey clouds
sits high upon the sky
as the tides sings an ode
to it's beauty

the air still,
then zephyrous
dances with dust and motes
in the street lamps reflection

dampness sizzles and steams
on old tar roads, puddles erupt
as cars swing on through
dragon lights on high beam
veering off into the night

we sit, drinks in hand
as small things pitter
and patter about
and listen to the deepening
of the warm summer night