Brisbane Night Out

return from clubbing

only the cat hears

me enter

• 
  

pink neon

the pig fat

has long fallen

• 
  

red face

flaunting your

lack of education

• 
  

gazing at club lights

walk outside

stars

• 
  

perigee moon

in the darkness

mosquito too

Piano Lessons for Life

Correcting mistakes can take up whole piano lessons,

whole terms of piano lessons,

whole lifetimes of piano lessons.

It's no fun for the teacher,

even less so for the student.

Parallel to the mantra of:

"don't complain, find solutions",

would be a decent melody,

if composed to the whole of society

too.

Forest Painting

Staring at two quiet trees,

I walk away--

they rustle in my eyes all day.

Credo

As another youth festival

descends upon us

imposing a regime

of shopping and parties

and for many

getting drunk or stoned.

My belief is,

if you’re part of a culture,

you have the right to express

your individuality;

your universal right to

freedom of choice—

not to be conscripted

by societal norms.

For society to come knocking,

boasting values and

echoing colonialism

on native lands…

is presumptuous.

I am perfectly normal.

It’s everyone else

that fails

to conform.

Kindness- To All Who Are Good-Natured, Your Integrity Is Deeper Than All Mines Of Gold:

Kindness is goodness treasured in the heart.

I have seen your mood like sunrays, halted

by the clouds of modesty and compassion that shades

natures plentiful abundance. To rain after a dry spell.

Kindness is stored within a fleshy body- a prison

until it finds release in shining words or deeds.

We have the keys to free our cruelty: yet most remain

content with selfish ease. But sometimes a thought

occurs to remind the careless heart that keys decay in rust.

I thank you for your generous deeds, unconditional,

richer than all mines of gold. For kindness is the "thank you"

gift wrapped, kindness is the bandage of nurture

amid the bomb attack. Kindness is the "Do you need help?"

requesting to one who looks distressed. Kindness is mate-ship,

mate-ship kindness; Kindness is a plan:

scorned and derided since the world began...

Haiku SMS

Congratulations! You have won

one million dollars--

but how?

Indifference

These moonlit seas

glint in vain.

An orb of butter,

spread across sea?

I am oblivious.

I have thoughts

too deep for tears:

irretrievable as smoke,

formless as midnight.

Submerged in rumination

like shadowy mangroves,

inundated at high tide:

gasping a low and ceaseless sigh;

roots burrowed deep in the ground;

and branches subduing moonlight.

The full moon tonight is white

as a ghost and terribly upset,

dragging the sea after it like a dark crime,

to the sharp edges of the night.

A melancholy frowns

and spurts in patches on the water

towards these mangroves

where sunset fades, chill-sparse

in and around drowned hedges.

The majesty of this night is not for me.

Somewhere in this fathomless night,

two lovers walking along the long beach,

together as two gulls gliding in the wind,

may justify the moon’s beauty.

But as for me,

like dark mangroves,

I do not hear

these crashing waters.

And I am blind

to the glinting

of these moonlit seas.

Petrichor

(...from the Greek word: ‘petros’, meaning “stone” + ‘ichor’, meaning the fluid that flows in the veins of the gods in Greek mythology—the scent of rain on dry earth)

Waiting for the first rain

after a dry spell

has a suspense

like no other.

Its silence

calms the exhaustion

of hysterical trees,

shrugging off draught.

Its scent

lingers over fields

between blackberry lanes,

bearing their chests to the drizzle.

Its arrival

breathes most sweet lullabies of Gaia,

a gushing finger to her thirsty lips:

‘…hush now, sleep’.

Face-book No More!

Facebook No More! (exclamation mark)
Give me back my life.
Eyes are turning square
I stare and stare.
Like when you go checking the fridge,
you know nothing's there.
But you check it anyway.
Facebook, fridge, everyday.

Fumed, spiritous mists inhabit this place.
Yesterday's pizza sounds like a status update. Oh wait!
There's no milk! I must register as 'attending' to go to the
supermarket's event invitation to join the human race.

But no, Facebook is not a door of social opportunity,
It's a 'face' in it's own right:
Blue as a lap dancer's face and gaudily hazed.
You walk out of the stripper joint dazed.
It's a 'book' in it's own right:
Dragging you back after it like a dark crime.
Shoot the sheriff and the deputy will chase you double time.
Facebook is no door of social opportunity.
Facebook is no door.
Facebook no more.