[ Potpourri '90s ]
He's going through various versions of being 50-something and for a while this stretch is just a mixed bag. The wheels come off for a few laps but every life has a few wheels-off hiccups. After they subside he rediscovers self-discipline so he sheds his bed at four every morning and communes a while with the sea or the backyard shrubbery then has breakfast with the cat and writes. Writes bigger. Writes better. Lives the dream. And is bloody-well successful at last. Godknows it's due. So it becomes Heady Shit time but it doesn’t last long. Heady Shit time never does. Heady Shit time breeds arrogance and arrogance breeds face-plants onto the concrete of reality. He says it’s a bastard but it’s true to anyone who’ll listen but no-one's listening. So he just goes on scribbling. Because. Because he doesn’t know how to not go on scribbling. But then the sun goes out and for a long time all of life stops.
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THE
WEDDING
All
the women of the family,
clucking
around the reception hall,
sucked
into the certain belief that
the
more bellies they fill
the
more married the happy couple will be,
some
sort of pagan hangover
that
equates gluttony with fecundity.
So,
she sells her youthful body
for
a house with a man in it,
as
if that is the only way
to
keep the wild animals out of her cave,
while
he trades his back for regular rooting.
Some
time in the future
they’ll both wonder why they bothered.
T.R.E.
(1993)
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THE
TRUE COUPLE BEAST
Mick
Pryor, like so many men
was
looking for a woman
he
could be truly intimate with
with
whom he could
merge
merge
and mingle
share
a total existence
that
whole body mind and soul thing
but
he always failed
and
never knew why
didn’t
understand that it’s
the
nature of the beast
the
True Couple Beast
that
it’s only mythical
okay,
maybe, just maybe
it
existed once
like
Merlin
or
Utopia or Thor or Culhuilinn
or
the Murderfree and Taxfree Society
but
not in these unclassical times
but
HE believed it could be attained (poor fool)
the
truth is Mick my old mate
it’s
only hypothetical
the
nature of the True Couple Beast
like
unicorns
but
Mick still keeps trying
like
- yes, but maybe they’re still out there
those
unicorns
waiting
for Noah to swing by
and
take their perfection into the future
out
there waiting and dreaming
and
loving each other
with no damn strings attached
ah,
you’re a pathetic romantic Mick old son
T.R.E.
(1993)
<<< >>>
WAITING
old
farm machinery
in
a rusty regimented row
like
rocking-chaired geriatrics
all
along the nursing home porch
musing
on their once useful life
waiting
for nothing more to happen
how
I would if I could
breathe
noise and purpose
back
into your romantic old bones
and
watch you all skip and run again
and
plough fields and cart hay
like
you did when I was young
T.R.E.
(1993)
<<<
>>>
FOUR
AM
somehow
the
old cat had come
to
represent something of himself
fading
into the shadowed years
and
scraggy at the eyebrows
and
he feared
should
his old friend die
he
would end as well
he
stretched
and
the ginger cat
disturbed
stretched
also
they
both went on waiting
waiting
for the real day
to
impose itself on them
he
writing
the
cat sleeping
T.R.E.
(1994)
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>>>
GARDEN
MORNING
Pays
to do a lap around the garden
These
new Spring early mornings
Found
my oak tree has already dressed
while I wasn’t looking
And
the poor dead wisteria
Has
defied all glum predictions
And
slipped two bits of healthy green
Into
the nature of things
Any
living thing that can deny
the siren call of Spring
Is
REALLY dead!
T.R.E.
(1994)
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>>>
POTSY
he
was only a blackbird
and
crippled at that
one
wing at a permanently odd angle
one
leg that didn't work right
poor
little bastard
couldn't
even walk straight
let
alone fly like his mates
they
were all long gone
his
mum too
which
is the way of blackbird things
they
had life to get on with
no
time for fledglings
that
staggered like a drunk
sometimes
falling over
never
knowing what airborne was
cripples
have to take their chances
with
the first law of nature
he
adopted our back yard
stumbling
around the carnations
avoiding
the cat as best he could
pinching
bits from his plate
hiding
under the tomatoes
forced
to trust that the world
would
show a little special care
we
left food out for him
in
corners of his small territory
and
he seemed to be getting by
but
he had to sleep
sitting
on the ground
backed
up in the violets like a derro
resigned
to his unfair lot
sometime
last night
he
gave up the unequal struggle
and
we buried him this morning
cold
and unmarked
wing
and leg now crooked forever
sorry
Potsy
you
didn't have a chance
better
to go round again
you
made us care too much
and
feel so inadequate
T.R.E.
(1994)
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MY
SEA
I
love to come out in the morning
and
find that overnight
God
has hosed the world down
and
given me a freshly salted sea
and
an old stray dog
to
share the magic moment
T.R.E.
(1994)
<<< >>>
LOOKING
IN THE MONITOR
by
some means
the
world turns slowly
caught
up in the business of the universe
with
no option
but
to fill out the decree
of
a couple of billion years ago
a
particularly old dinosaur
that
died of circumstance
didn’t
have an impact at the time
it
simply returned
the
star’s borrowed molecules
for
the making of several young cycads
that
cycad stand
lived
out its foliaged time
then
one by one returned to the ground
and
a tree grew
a
giant among giants
towering
over the forest of its days
a
long silence
compressing
on ever down
made
blackened seams of yesterday’s evergreen
then
waited
till
a shrew-like creature
mastered
this smallest corner of the vastness
then
Newcastle coal
lit
the bessemer night
to
make slag heaps and the anvils of smiths
their
striking peal
counting
out their own hours
turning
steel hoops into atomic clocks
now
inside
this humming word processor
lives
the distilled spirit of a dinosaur
ticking
time
in
the latest alpha-numerics
wise
and ancient beyond my comprehension
T.R.E.
(1995)
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TOE
NAIL
His
blackened toenail
has
at last succumbed
to
the relentless march of nature
and
has fallen off, inside his sock
and
it now moves about
as
if in its small death throes
or
maybe simply looking for a reasonable exit
T.R.E.
(1995)
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>>>
NIGHT
SKY
he
regularly goes outside of a night
and
for a moment
it’s
like at the movies
when
you get totally absorbed
by
the energy coming off the screen
and
you forget that you are simply
one of the multitude
hanging on the dialogue
sucked into the action
but,
for that one moment,
you
have the illusion
of
being alone in the world
and
all things that are happening
are
for you alone
so
you can stand and just look
look
at the starbursting darkness
with equanimity
and contemplate
and speculate
and wonder about infinity
but,
because
they love him
invariably
one of his family
will
appear at his side
right
at that moment
and
say wrong things
T.R.E.
(1995)
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PONDALOWIE
I
know a certain place,
a vantage point atop
a high cliff
overlooking an ancient ocean
where the clouds come in
from some distant
birth-place
scudding in at eye level
as if to buffet me in their journey
towards
the waiting land
its
a peaceful place
even in the midst of a
storm
it retains its natural serenity
where
I can be both an observer and a component
part of the sequence and the rhythm
of an unchanged order of things
I
can see the rain squalls
coming across this
panorama
long before they reach the coast
patches of sun shafting down
between
random weather witches
and storms
in teacups
whitecaps decorating the
restless sea
I
am in harmony with such a place
it is filled
with my kind of peace
a turbulent restless
peace
that comes from some greater
existence
that is of some greater dimension
that is of solid stuff
like the buffeting
wind and the cry of gulls
like the
sting of spray and pound of surf
and the
whole sight and smell of free space
and
a turbulent distance
it
is an alive peace
filled too with an excess
of sensation
I
sense a looking down and a looking out
testing
my wings to the wind
it is a time of
maybe lifting off and wheeling free
or a
time of maybe falling
or a time of maybe
waiting
it is that kind of a place
I
have a great need to be there once again
T.R.E.
(1995)
<<< >>>
AUTUMN
MORNING
Winter
is waiting
patient
in the wings
old
Sea is grey and moody
little
time left
for
making love outdoors
one
more circle of seasons
has
ticked away
sands
through our fingers
grains
of memories
clinging
to the drying skin
beaches
are the places
of
old pirates
rusty
cannons
whispers
of the siren deep
and
echoes of summer
T.R.E.
(1996)
<<<
>>>
ONCE,
YOU WERE SIXTEEN
A
childlike innocence
so
appealing in its simplicity
worn
with the purity and charm
of
a Sunday school picnic dress
An
echo of youth
of
Spring stirring in cool sweet grass
as
green as her eyes and our days
before
the ripening summer
A
love of life
of
being a part of a new morning
old
bikes with sandwiches and apples
and
a Saturday full of possibilities
A
vulnerability
somehow
still without armour
protected
only by the unadorned honesty
of
a pretty girl in bloom
A
sadness
carried
with grace and good humour
warmed
at her own fireside
in
the company of her children
A
waiting
letting
time mark the circle of her days
till
the golds of autumn afternoons
lay
soft beside the garden wall
A
romantic
a
few cinderella dreams tucked away
where
the world can’t touch
for
when she needs them
A
sweetness
edged
with enough spice
to
command a quiet respect
along
with the appreciative glances
A
special friendship
adding
something beyond explanation
filling
important spaces
with
a measured caring
T.R.E.
(1997)
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LOOKING
FOR GOD
I
suppose I’ve looked for God all my life
off
and on
although not
necessarily
with zeal and passion all the time
or
even any of the time
but
I did look
honest
off
and on
didn’t
find him though
or
Him
or
even Her
looked
in the wrong places I s’pose
maybe
even for the wrong entity
that’s
probably why, now
as
a person of advancing years
the
only solution I can find is to BE God for a while
see
what it feels like
T.R.E.
(1997)
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TOE
POWER
A
small boy
stands
at the edge of a morning rain-puddle
pigeon-toed
socks
awry
staring
at the reflection of scudding white
against the uncertain blue
down there in the depths
a
snail-tracked sleeve
goes
swipe! swipe!
across
a sniffle-snuffle nose
while contemplating such godly things
then...
one
toe, hovers, feeling the power
of wriggling an eddy
carefully dismantling the image
waits...
watches
the stillness reassembling
does
it all over again
T.R.E.
(1997)
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THURSDAY
AFTERNOON
It
was only five minutes to five
busy
late afternoon
workaday
shopping centre car park
untidy
man
losing
touch with his pride
standing
beside a tired car
bottle
of cheap port
well
on the way to empty
furtive
looking
yet
sadly defensive
watching
me out of one sidelong eye
sucking
on his bottle quickly
like
some thirsty kid with a coke
he
hated himself
and
he hated me catching him
but
he didn't stop
T.R.E.
(1997)
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MICK
IN TRANSIT
Mick
Pryor
middleaged
now
terminal
two heathrow
thinking...
thinking...
you
stumble around for a while
then
every
so often
you
fall over each other
but
mostly
it’s just
sitting
about
waiting...
waiting
for something interesting to happen
T.R.E.
(1997)
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