gingatao

Thanks Bob

(1)
S’old joke but a goody, went to the movies where
terrorists robbed a train, thought I might
then forgot on the walk home through
a cloud of concrete dust from the new bridge
‘Mangrove Reclamation Project’ then over tiny Zion Hill Park
(nice try he thinks) on the good Jim Soorley Bikeway,
chubby and smiling ex-priest he was
to Northgate Cemetery
short walk epic poem all gone now forgot

(2)

If I was Kinsella I would only write of crows
but that must be difficult to do in Cambridge.

(3)

It is strange to have a home not know it for so long
have it appear just as it’s gone, Jen Jewel Brown
whose poems I once saw projected on a blank
brick wall. If I was Tranter I would know
the conjuggler noun for a gathering of soiled ibis
passing over from the tip to once cooler noon air
by the river where some sweating waiter
is catching breath before the lunchtime rush
important guests come again for chrome and
scented meats, stubs his cigarette and turns.

Mrs Dickens-Smythe cycles by (the special
is the purloin he rehearses) while
her husband whispers
I think we can measure some manner of progress,
one sees “Mary Martin died 23rd May 1911 aged 21 years
also Arthur Martin died 4th August 1919 aged 11 years
thy will be done”
so much less these days.

Now here’s an ending to be proud of
Thomas Nathaniel Pope lost in the bush
at Yaraba 26 June 1920, aged 79!
Although I must admit the exclamation mark is mine.

(“Well I guess the plan was to write poetry and publish books and make a living from writing poetry. That was a pretty ambitious plan I guess.” Robert Adamson)