from DEADLY POLLEN
A Public Works draughtsman
spent thirty years designing the City
Sewerage Reticulation System
he eventually hoped to escape through -
a masterpiece! A prairie dog would
have been proud of it. Complex of
accented runs, angles, drops, sluices,
pumps, ditches, endless unbowed
archways, treatment ponds breaking into
sunlight - the architects of Athens
would have been proud of it.
Only on paper - not one trowel lifted!
miles and miles and miles of it.
Pyrrha, your dewy hair,
yellow, scented, doubly wreathed
in Jasmine, fresh from the trellis
this morning - your new lover yet to
arrive, breathless. Your tantrums
are as sea-storms, heart-wrecking
for that unsuspecting voyager - maybe
as survivor, I might warn him
against your squally lust, he won’t
find safe haven in your arms! This note
is record enough - that I set down
against your lubricous hold.
See: Horace’s ‘Pyrrha’ ode. I,v.
[ from Deadly Pollen, Word Riot Press, Middletown NJ, USA, 2003 ]
BALLAD OF WITTY TICCY RAY
Excuse me one tic or two
I’m by far speedier than you
with a song or ping-pong.
Give me a multiple drum kit
you’ve never seen the likes of it -
extemporization and speed.
I can be loud or obscene
pitch a blood-curdling scream
it’s neither here nor there.
I’m excessively excited
been said I’m much blighted
better that than slow.
Allow me one tic please
I can’t imagine a life of ease
with Tourette Syndrome.
Mid-tic I’ve been caught
as if blinded on fortified port
blame that drug – haldol.
How I love things that spin
a revolving door a garbage bin
I dodge quick as lightning.
I don’t care for catatonia
and forget that sloth dystonia
It leaves me cold as jelly.
I’m a singular man – a tiqueur -
and there’s no sure cure
from this glitch in the thalamus.
I’m the funniest man in town
call me Ticcy Ray Tourette Clown
yet I’m always sure to win.
Should a doctor wish to fix me
I would complain oh most wittily
then bounce him out the door.
[ from Ballads, Satire & Salt – A Book of Diversions, Greywacke Press, Sydney, 2003 ]
GREATNESS
This is our first understanding of loss,
it rises up before you through jungle
where sky turns the colour of verdigris,
it invokes the half-bad dreams that rankle.
What manifests is slowly surprising
as if you had suspected the image;
a train’s ghostly beam in fog emerging,
the light molten, a river-spanning bridge.
What comes after anticipates vision,
for the mind that opens out will amaze -
how much is trusted, what hangs in balance.
As truth is perception that ricochets
off stonework in some cataclysmic dance
of all that went before now arisen.
[ from Ballads, Satire & Salt – A Book of Diversions (Illustrated by Matt Ottley), Greywacke Press, Sydney, 2003 ]
Ballads, Satire & Salt – A Book of Diversions [ Illustrated by Matt Ottley ]
Greywacke Press, Sydney, 2003.
Available from author:
sao@smartchat.net.au
PO Box 1661, Strawberry Hills
Sydney, NSW, Australia, 2012
By cheque or money order Australian dollars $18.95 per copy;
for international orders please add $3.50.
SYDNEY BELLS
Gays go up and gays go down
To ring the bells of Sydney town.
Suspenders and tarts,
Say the bells of St. Mark's.
Zip up your flies,
Say the bells at St Ive's.
Pants full of piles,
Say the bells at St Giles'.
No worries mate,
Say the bells at Ramsgate.
No drinks to minors,
Say the bells of Maria Regina's.
Pots of old paints,
Say the bells of All Saints.
A joint and champagne,
Say the bells at Balmain.
Politicians and hat tricks,
Say the bells at St Patrick's.
Sausages in batter,
Say the bells at Parramatta.
Bimbos bring hassles,
Say the bells of St Basil's.
A turd in your eye,
Say the bright bells at Bondi.
I've got a court date,
Say the bells at Mortlake.
Marriage banns?
Say the bells of St Anne's.
Can't pay my tax fee,
Bang the bells at Bexley.
Go broke on New Start,
Loll the Bells of Leichhardt.
Who's at the door?
Say the bells at Enmore.
Here comes a taxi to take you home,
And here comes a train to grind you to bone.
'Sydney Bells' is a passing tribute to one of the more endearing examples of the nonsense poetry genre; the anonymous nursery song, 'London Bells'.
YOU SEE THE ANTHOLOGY MAN
I am you see the anthology man,
Very much the fashion, and so today,
I will let you into my little plan.
I adopt a style to seduce the fan;
(One feels freed in a familiar way)
I am you see the anthology man.
I shift with fashion, a chameleon,
The man for all seasons, and so today,
I will let you into my little plan.
I am a poseur but of marked elan;
(As the ego-gathering tides hold sway)
I am you see the anthology man.
A solipsist does whatever he can,
The devil take the rest, and so today,
I will let you into my little plan.
Any talent challenging me I ban;
(Mine is an exclusive brand of poesy)
Am I you see the anthology man?
I will let you into my little plan.
[ from Ballads, Satire & Salt – A Book of Diversions (Illustrated by Matt Ottley), Greywacke Press, Sydney, 2003 ]
© Stephen Oliver