The Poetry Marathon

The comfort of fireflies

Housed in a brown-glass bottle

The fruits of labours spent over

A long day of laughter

Is soon forgotten,

Like the African mask keepsake

From a year’s past holiday,

In the face of a steaming

Bowl of porridge

Newly removed from the heat.

Right, ok, you know

Us and them

Sadly you waved away the space

It was a good idea, to be sad

Filled you up with black holes

And more black holes

Just right

Opening for you

I’m sanitising the  sideboard where I lay my paper down

I’m bleaching the steps at the front and back doors

I’ve got bottles of disinfectant ready for murder, if I must

I’m keeping a squeaky clean house because it’s the Season of the Cane Toad

I take my dog’s temperature each time it comes indoors from playing

Just in case, I run random blood tests on the cats in the neighbourhood

They’re quite put out but who takes much notice of a whining cat?

Only dogs who aren’t too tired to chase.

It’s their refusal to back down, sitting there

with that hang dog expression upon their already thinned lips that shits me

Bloated, up to a ruler length, they swarm the fields, the streets, the outsides of chip-shops

and pizza-joints, the back exits of hospitals, the exhaust-pipes of trucks.

Never seen a cane toad in a cane field yet.

No matter how hard I try to keep the place clean, another one will pop up,

usually in a shady corner I’ve forgotten or missed.

The pacifist in me disappears and I am hell bent on their destruction.

Where do they go off season?

Do they all vacation at another location?

Were they just temporarily camouflaged, or were they being

Rendered by some invisible string theory?

It’s been a long toad season,

And the poison is an ever bitter bite to taste

Thought they would go when the rains failed

But they stayed, and grew fatter in secret.

Recently I’ve seen reports on the news

that every country now has toads

Foreign travel has been banned

But I’m not sure whether it’s for them or us?

Coarse hair against hair against hair

Fingers drum down my scalp

Sleepy eyes open the clock is early

The shower blanket drains over fleshy me

Burnt into the brain black marks sing out

From curved wooden bodies and black hilo strings.

Sweet…… Salty……. Umami……

Smooth liquid strokes the inside of me

Hot in report

Comforting skin and stomach

The sun presses into our cheeks

As our rough hands explore skin investigating

Your powerful arms release me

A moment of weightless existence

Brings a smoothing

Of metal or wood for the delivery of stripey socks

Sweet…. Salty…. Umami

Smooth liquid strokes the inside of me

Hot in report

Comforting skin and stomach

Peaty breath with samphire tones

Waves break over me

Sending me

Away to my deep bed

In the Pythagorean landscape

The dog dug up the lettuce

Scattering soil over the terracotta tiles

Nothing so mystical to be unattainable

And yet still so mighty to be venerable

Protected from the rain

My spider’s web caught each drop

and rerouted it.

By undoing an individual beauty

Thus securing a mathematical moniker

The dog claimed a private place for worship

Dear Dad

Now that you are dead

I thought it time to have a chat

That chat

You know, the one that ends with

you owning up

Dear Dad

Your words of apology

I dreamt last night or some other week

Are refused

It’s too easy to say them

You’re not forgiven

Dear Dad

The trauma you delivered like a postman

Far outweighed the life I had

When I escaped the brunt of your torment

It was sublimely peaceful

Once you’d gone

Dear Dad

In Australia the colours are green and red and black

It’s the gum trees and the kookaburras

Only natives

which flourish, which truly belong

and live well here

Dear Dad

I’m hoping that purgatory is for left footers

Who fall off the rails

Claiming atheism doesn’t count

Once you’ve been baptised a catholic

Hopefully, there’s no escape

Dear Dad

Now that you are dead

the words of apology and

the trauma you delivered like a postman

removed me from belonging anywhere

So I changed my scenery, got me a new landscape

Dear Dad

In your absence, I took up Taoism,

got me a new passport,

rented a post box and started recording

every conversation I have.

Thanks

Such outward sorrow as clads your smile

Betrays the secret you hold.

Far too long from haunting

it now acts with substance and you,

racked with self-imposed stains

have left it too late to lighten

And each time you spit, you will see it.

The weight upon the back of your neck

leaves you hunched over words.

A thickening pad between your shoulders

deforms your expectations for living.

It is in death you seek forgiveness

but you fail as it has rendered you

Helpless. Intention vomits over

all your thoughts and actions

And each time you spit, you will see it.

Such inward regret as darkens your heart

remains testament to your abject

cowardice every day you

refuse to clear your throat.

If you believe it is really too late

For laundry, for water, it is

And each time you spit, you will see it.

INGREDIENTS

1) Doubt (in others or self )

2) Sunglasses

3) Soft but dry cough (non phlegm)

4) Ribs (own or spare)

5) Sandpaper

METHOD

Ask plenty of questions whilst sanding away your motivation.

Avoid eye contact even when dry.

Let the ribs tighten slightly as the stomach quivers,

then, cough gently to release the tension (but to avoid attention).

Never fall in love.

Book the last two seats, in your name, for the Greyhound and

steal a boat leaving only whispers of your story in the sail.

It begins with me and steps through a holiday

they took in Spain some years ago when

they still bothered to use gum to fill in the cracks.

The lady of the house, her brother had once been married

to Aung San Su Kyi.

That feels like 3 rather than 6.

Because it became one of my mother’s obsessions,

the support and discussion of Aung San,

at the time, under house arrest,

I heard the story so many times

I began to be able to tell it for myself.

I grew tall each time I told the story

noting the link I now had with the

Great woman.

Then she was freed.

It continues where I lose my hope for an enlightened future

In a modern country called Myanmar

It might as well have still been Burma

for the lies she began to tell and represent.

If there is three between me and she,

then there is one

between me and he who survived the

On-going genocide of the Rohinga.

I taught him while I was being as best an activist

I could muster in middle age and not lose my passport

Inside a camp for asylum seekers.

It continues where I witness the colours of truth that

make up the irises of all the survivors

who shared breath, the same eyes

and who would watch with me

on the news, this once venerated martyr

deny the savage pain of their existence.

My mother sits now silent on the topic

Of Aung San Suu Kyi, remembering instead the

wife of the couple, whose brother had once been married

and how this wife carried with her

a sense of a higher class, a classical education and

in the hot days and cool nights,

the life of a child who could never grow old.

I too would rather think of a life unchanged,

educated and yet youthful enough to defy

the expectations of those who need a leader.

Instead, that other story, has found its way

into my personal saga..

The loss of values, the denial of truth

and changes to the apparent worth of life.

Not sure if I’m doing this right.
but I’m keen to say hi and not sure who will see this.  Where do I find the prompts? Where exactly do I post my poems… here?  Anyone in Cairns area doing this too?