Gun Violence USA

There is really only one way 

to fix gun violence in America.

Give everyone a gun!

You get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun!

And you get a gun…

Dangerous

A person who is comfortable being alone,

is a dangerous person.

If you disrespect them,

they will walk away.

If you overstep their boundaries,

they will cut you off.

If you try to manipulate them, or threaten to leave them,

they will hold the door open for you.

If you betray them,

they will leave you without looking back.

Because they don’t need you in their life,

they choose to let you be in it.

And that makes them,

the most dangerous person you will ever know.

These aren't entirely my own words, but I liked them, so they are my version of what someone else said

America Today

America Today,

what can we say?

Donald Trump is the living embodiment

of the fact that karma has no sway.

Because, when you are a piece of shit,

you’d think it, would have some say,

but he keeps getting away with really awful things,

so, the answer is pretty clearly nay.

Too terrible for words,

the fact that so many people voted for him is absurd,

proving that the master con man can fool some of the people all of the time.

We hold our breath for the time America is cured.

A man who constantly pedals in alternative facts,

and that’s the nicest thing I can say about that.

Who only ever has his own interests in mind?

Never mind the country has been elected to run.

He imposed tariffs on everyone,

claiming other counties had bought the US undone.

And now he wants to get deals done,

but the American people don’t seem to understand.

That means deals for his own personal funds.

A personal gift of a golf course in Vietnam,

The Nobel Peace Prize as a part of the scam,

If he has to destroy US citizens, he knows he can

My Long Over Due CD and the Meth Head

My dog barked.

He barks when he hears the front gate.

I was waiting for my new CD to arrive.

It was all kinds of overdue.

I opened the front door to see a chick standing there,

reaching up to my electricity metre.

What are you doing? I asked.

Re-setting your metre, she replied.

Why? I asked.

For testing, she said.

I wondered what that meant, testing,

as she turned and left through the front gate.

I caught sight of what she had in her hands,

a package, and old letters.

A red and yellow envelope?

That package looked like what my CD would come in.

Why was the skin on her face so blotchy?

Was she the homeless chick from the squat over Gertrude Street?

I’d watched her smoke her glass pipe, when walking my dogs,

hardly concealing what she was doing from those who could see.

I put on shoes and walked up Gertrude Street,

there she was standing over her dirty bedding.

I watched her like a spy, from across the road.

She headed down the next side street and fiddle with the nun’s electricity metre.

After an inordinate amount of time, when I feared for the sisters, 

I saw her go, to the next house, and the next house, and the next house.

I crossed Gertrude Street like a secret agent,

I went through her dirty bedding, duvet, sheets, blankets.

There were letters from all sorts of local addresses,

made me think she had my package, even if I couldn’t see it.

I called the non-emergency police line.

After I explained what she was doing, they patched me through to the emergency line.

The police asked if I thought the person was on drugs?

The police told me not to approach her, and to stay safe.

After much explaining, which the police seemed to find hard to follow,

they said they would send a car.

Curiosity got the better of me, and I put my shoes back on and headed out again.

The first thing I saw was a police car, turning up the wrong street.

I headed off to find her, and there she was,

in the next street, fiddling with electricity metres on the houses there.

Oh, what can you do, I thought?

And I went home and closed the door.

I told myself, that she was probably so juiced up at those electricity metres,

that she thought she was flying The Enterprise, or saving the world from immanent destruction.

I have walked past since, and seen her always comfortably asleep in her dirty bed,

there in front of the closed down aboriginal gym.

I have scoured her squat for the red and yellow tell tale signs,

of postal packaging, each time I have walked past, but none has ever been visible.

Each time I have regretted not doing a more thorough search for my CD,

convinced she had it, and had pawned it for meth.

Today, my long lost CD finally arrived, many days overdue,

My dog barked when the postie rang my door bell.

I was walking up Gertrude Street in the afternoon, and the homeless chick

was awake in her bed, she looked at me and smiled, and I smiled back.

Lest We Forget, Paul Thek

I look at your art work,

Which I love.

I look at your handsome face,

Given from god above.

I look at the years that you lived.

‘33 to ‘88.

I have a little shudder, 

I rub my face.

I don't need to be told why you died in ‘88.

Even though I know your fate.

I just feel the moment,

try to take it all in.

Some say we died for our sins.

Some say so many things.

So many faces race through my mind,

Looking for answers they never did find.

A cacophony of names and souls,

All disappearing from this earth.

How scared you all must have been,

Life for a time there was pretty grim.

So many of you.

So much fear,

One by one they all disappeared.

The end was never clear.

What happened to whoozit?

I haven’t seen him for a while.

And now?

And? Now?

The fear has gone.

The sun did rise again,

Even if it took two decades to shine.

I wonder if you could believe it,

From where you stood?

So much fear gone away,

That much is good.

So much so that we hardly give it a second thought, today.

Could you have imagined that, 

Paul Thek?

Pete Hajar?

Freddie, Anthony, Rock?

(I could fill volumes with everyone who died)

People talk about the good, and the fair,

So many lost about whom ‘they’ didn’t care,

It was a massacre, right there in plain sight,

Nobody helped, so we fought our own fight.

That much I know, that much is true,

We have to look after ourselves, me & you.

Mary

I look at your awful wedding photos, and shake my head,

whomever took them should never be allowed near a camera again,

and there is your smiling face, so young, and so pleased, 

shining as one does on their wedding day. Such a lovely smile.

And those old scanned photos are a real mess, spots and dirt.

I clean them up, so that you have the nicest wedding photos possible,

now, with a little hope for eternity, for the memory of you.

It’s the least I can do, for you. It’s kind of funny that no one will know,

that I tried to give you the nicest wedding photos possible, all these years

after you are gone. I look at your radiant face on that day and think of you,

and the shit life you had, even that wedding failed you, as he was gay,

and he went away, leaving you alone with two kids. Still, he bought you a house. But, he wasn’t the saviour to take you away from your awful family and all that violence and drunkenness, you delt with, when you 

were so young, bringing up your siblings because your parents 

were ‘otherwise’ engaged. Another failed marriage worse than the first, 

sent you down again. A failed business, took you down again. But you got up, again. Your son died. You got up again.  Then just when you got over everything else, cancer took you away, quite young. What kind of life did you have, I think? I look at your smile now, and try to make it as lovely as it can be, just to remember that small moment of joy, you had, 50 years ago on your wedding day.

The Truth About Husbands, Straight or Gay

Your husband doesn't care what you wear,

because, chances are, when he looks at you

he is picturing you in your knickers, anyway,

so just relax

Miss Naive

When they are young,

and dare I say stupid,

– oh yes, I know, dangerous ground,

but I mean it as young and stupid – 

in this world of inequality,

they are Miss,

strutting through daisy fields,

with baskets on their arms,

and the golden sun overhead.

But once they have been divorced,

and been beaten up by life,

a bit, hopefully not by men,

but probably, possibly – 

you are aware of the world today – 

or been weighed down 

by the second class status,

women have,

they realise they wanna be,

a Ms.

It seems to me to be better equality,

and it’s better that way.

And you know, that is okay,

that’s up to them, as they

are women, and I’m not,

but that doesn’t stop me,

thinking it is odd,

you know,

they still can’t get it from the get go.

Shoes Inside

He who dared to wear his shoes inside

will be beaten until he cried.

This is the life I am denied.

What shoes inside? I'd be chide.

It is madness, I cannot deny,

take your shoes off when you come inside,

my only question is why?

My feet should not be denied.

Me? Shoes inside? Okay I lied.

I cross my feet and hide

them out of sight for this time

the investigation pursues the crime.

In the Dark… 5.05am

I sneak about in the dark,

even before the song of the lark.

My Hoodie covering my head,

anonymity is best, it is said,

and hopefully my face 

from cameras dotted about the place.

I clean up the suburb’s light poles,

from posters stuck to them in scrolls.

They are a mess,

we must all confess.

Someone has to do it,

and because no one else gets to it,

it might as well be me,

as anybody,

you see.

It’s god’s work,

(which means in the dark, anonymously)

(like a hooker with a halo)

good as gods work as anything,

well, at least this is a real thing.

Holocaust

Love lost

do we give a toss?

Sometimes not until we are crushed.

And everyone involved has bore the cost.

The story of our modern day holocaust,

where lovers kill each other as they leave the nest.

Lovers detest.

Nobody understands.

We all hold up our hands.

We collectively shake our heads.

Then there is another one dead.