Going Down With The Ship - poetry by shaun patrick green.: 2012

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Diary of a Bastard.

His need for her might be based

Upon misconceptions, variables

Of both time and obviously of place

He knew a girl once in a southern town

Black hair and she smelled like tarragon

Took her to a loft overlooking the bay

Felt her insides like white fish

And decided this was not the way

Met Roxanna and danced the night away

Next day awoke to find she was a he

Now that's no way for adults to play

Unless they're both consenting

Then there was that girl in Padua

Who cooked the best Matriciana ever

Pity she was so bad in bed

He thinks of all the lovers he has had

In countries free and forewarned

He can't think of a more appropriate bride

Than the one that's close to hand.

Crocodile Park

Saw them sunk in their pens

3 to 4 meter long man-eaters

Ancient offspring of the dinosaurs

True survivors of mass extinction

They are ambush predators

Waiting in the shallows

With senses so attuned

They can tell from your footsteps

Vibrating through the earth into water

Exactly how far away and where you are

Though they are still dumb animals

Tempted for tourists by pieces of meat

Hauled out on lines into the lagoon

Still sudden death is intimated

By the earnest guide who has come close

To losing limbs or digits once or twice

Once fed they settle back into the ooze

To produce more wallets, burgers

And high price handbags

Though their forbears out there

Might bristle at the misuse

Coup de Art (for Spook)

If I stayed in here, confined

Bottled as you will - I might become

One of these paintings,

Risk you take when you live with an artist.

So many images to choose from:

The Boggle Eyed Mao with flacid penis decoration

Communist Train Girl selling her fruits and beers

The Communist party meeting with scorpions and

Smoke haze converging the hidden mountains

The lassitudinous positioning

Of the well hung Kangaroo

Amanda Vandstone shooting her poisonous tits at us

I mean, mate, what are we to make of that?

Corporate takeover my friend.

We with our billions now control you

Fuck your paintings because we will

Rebuy them and Repaint them!

Fuck Fred Williams and Russell Drysdale

They were crap anyway

So lets make them go large

Like main screen in Fed Square

With grafitti art over the top

With audience participation

Lets deface these icons of Australian art

Oh sorry - not deface

But re-interpret

And the souls of people like McCubbin

Are yours to throw around like paper machete.

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Shapes In Clouds

"Bulls head," she says

Though to me it looks

More like a moose

This is something couples

Do on lazy afternoons

Pointing out shapes in clouds

Believing what we see says

Something about our compatibility

"Aeroplane," she says and I

Watch a silver trail snake by

"No, that actually is an aeroplane."

"I know," says she

"This was meant to be," say I

"Love heart," she shouts

And I see it pinned there

Against the big blue sky

As if it were the first time

I'd ever used my eyes

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

Walk With Me.

His hand in mine doesn't feel so strange

Though to look at him people might baulk

He is sweet and innocent in many ways

Though no one has stooped to that thought

So I will walk him through the streets

My only friend given freedom not bought

And tell the people, all the people,

About the freedom they might have sought.

The waves play

The surf club serves up its fare

They walk among people gathered there

Take a drink, watch the brilliant sunset

Think about which meal they might get

In the humid evening all the tables

Are taken so they find a spot where they're able

Bums perched on a sea wall by the foreshore

Drinking white wine till they are very sure

That the cover band playing is the worst

They have ever heard; even kids avoid the curse

And amuse themselves rather than spasm dutifully

In front of a misused stage; how beautiful,

She thinks, the toddlers tarrying in tide pools

Watched over by patient mothers flocking in schools

But then it hits: is she capable of it?

Bringing life flapping and flailing into this?

A world so hellbent on killing itself?

Maybe life is the antidote -

The more you spit out the more evil you demote

She watches the sun hit the horizon

Like a hot coal in a bucket of snow

Sucks back a wine cooler and says no

Tomorrow the clinic will make it all go away

She can go back to watching the waves play.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Tropical Gardener Dreams.

Thunder in the distance

As if the moon is lifting

The earth's crust and sifting

For its own cold bones

He rolls in dark sleep

Mind relentlessly replaying

The day, sifting in his way

For why he's alone

Sun had warmed his arms

Sweat sticking shirt to skin

As he weeded, staked, trimmed

Raking leaves like stones

Hearing sprinklers hiss

He breathed rotting fruit stench

As along the lawns shady edge

Bush turkeys roamed

Gobbling and cawing

Water and dirt through his fingers

Sifting again for what lingers

Shifting aim of the hose

Facades of houses

Stood along the street in rows

Secrets behind doors and windows

Lives lived unknown

As he rode by on the mower

Shaving bald the nature strip

No secrets for the grass to keep

Each blade lying prone

A lady offered lemonade

Seeking advice about her frangipani

He handed her glass back empty

She slid back to her home

No place for him here

Not among the living whose blood

Pulses with happiness and love

His sap all but gone

Thunder again, insistent and deep

Tonight the moon will not sleep.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Blackout.

Quiet here

With the lights out

All the neighbours

Collect like insects

Around one shining globe

Voices in the dark

Asking: When is the light

Gonna shine on us

When is the light

Gonna shine on us?

Kids skittle in the dark

Talk of work and the weather

Bike lights piercing like darts

Crack a beer against the fear

But at some point the panic starts

Calls to outsourced suppliers

"How long we gonna have to wait mate?"

Nervous laughter as the night begins

Things that might do you bad

Lurking where you cannot see

Noises in the dark to drive you mad

Portents of a world without electricity

Terraforming.

Give me a song of the universe

And I will charge you a fee

Because nothing is for free

Even in space where

No one hear you scream

I can see the speculators

Cashing in on moonshine

Hedging on Martian gas

Underwriting terraforming

On Titan or Europa

Where a buck is to be made

There shall the middle man go

For he was not born of the sun -

Those shards left better men blind -
He was born of lesser stuff

The bitter dust left behind

No Goodbye.

waves lap at the shore

mangroves quiet in their hiding

birdsong exotic

smell of frangipani

sickly sweet before sunrise

i have no vision here

as I stride toward fitness

or some parody thereof

but people here

they believe in this stuff

saying: "Good Morning"

when I would say: "Fuck off."

but I fold into the shoreline

find myself compliant and rare

open to friendly hails

of fat dog walkers out there

familiar faces along the way

taking the time to say "hey"

as they pursue their quiet lives

where routine is supreme

and we will see them every morning

pass them, say "Good Morning"

without any goodbye

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Mary Magdalene.

In the vastness of sleepless nights

She is heavy with keeping secrets

Mother told her angels die when you lie

So she must tend their tiny graves

Amongst so many other atrocities

He was blind to her need for it

That wish she could never express

Which now comes to her in excess

Little hopes and dreams exploded

Along fault lines in the skin

A finger tips touch, a gentle kiss

A strangers breath on her neck

She wishes she had been more aware

Of the nature of the task

So she might not have married

The first boy who asked

Too late now for regrets

Too many angels to be buried

Ancient Migration.

Eyes that have seen bigger skies

Peer out from the long grass

Cicadas keeping millenial time

To the soft pad of unshod feet

I hear their songs in my sleep

Tracing some ancient migration

Following kangaroo and emu

To where the waterholes are full

And the lean-to again gives shade

We walk these lines in shoes

Coming after an understanding

That left us signs set in stone

A serpent's back, a mountain range

Tread lightly upon your mother earth

She knows you do not walk alone

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

The Build Up.

The build up puffs the horizon

With rain bearing clouds

He stands on the deck

Hearing children playing below

Smokes a forbidden cigarette

Flicking ash toward the mangroves

Seeing that last fishing trip

Barra thrashing in the lagoon

And she calling them in to dinner

This last light bending on the moon

Like it might mean something

The smell of sea air, gulls calling,

Crabs seeking shelter, squid mating

Waters stained luminescent

With each beings need to be itself

But he can't see it for what it is

Draws another drag on his cancer stick

Eyes to the black horizon thinking

Life is out there, somewhere.

Day Trip

I had arranged the wretched creatures

Into single files along the line

Their humped backs and stunted arms

Wailing at the opportunity to reach

Some sort of freedom or transcendence

The guide informative and sturdy

To the last croc question ever answered

Their mouths open, eyes wide,

Holding the baby dinosaur tight

For tourist orientated photo shots

Walking back by the freezers where

The tastier bits are sold in parts

Out to a car park built for buses

There is no freedom from truth here

Only the pathetic crawl toward being

Primal reptile waiting to bite

In whatever form that may take

Hoping to transform us in the night

Tourist freak, White Man fake

Become spirit bird, dreamtime snake.

Friday, June 29, 2012

Colonial Song.

We’re failing in the heat

Like the first fleet making land

And having to contend with

Tropical torpor

What a burden

And yet we shoulder it each year

Like the dutiful sons of empire

How rich their bounty must have been

To subject us to this torture

Or perhaps it was specially devised

For those of us

Less used to colonial methods

Whereby the blimey is bled out of us

Through sun and dust

And giving the natives blankets

Or beads to blind their disgust

A fine legacy this

The unpreparedness of a conqueror

The dissimilation of a nation

The abnegation of trust

Monday, June 25, 2012

Abigail.

He crept out of the ground like a thief

Dirt under his fingernails, in his hair

Her name carved on his heart with a nail

The woman who had betrayed him, Abigail

Stood in the moonlight, breathing deep

Brushing himself off, spitting black dust

Back from the dead to tell the sad tale

Of how he would murder sweet Abigail

She had bought poison from a procurer

Dosed him twice daily to be sure of demise

But he proved stronger than her potent tale

Surviving the dire love of murderous Abigail

He crawls into her mobile home and sits

Watching her sleep sound as dogs in the night

Willing himself to end the tortured tale

Of the woman betrothed to him named Abigail

She stirs and spies his forlorn spirit

Sitting alone and vengeful in the dark

"You're here to kill me." Got it nailed

The sweet ignorance and bliss of being Abigail

He puts two bullets in her brain

Then climbs back down into his pit

Regretting the day he ever wassailed

The nothingness of sweet sweet Abigail

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Boxes

He would miss certain things

The old place did have its charms

Rising damp along the passage

Low ceilings, leaking toilet

But it was real, solid and warm

With a lived-in feel you only get

From old houses with vague histories

The landlady's son had told a story

About how they used to run a sly

Betting shop out the back in the 20s

His grandmother as a young wife

Standing watch out front

Ready to give the signal

If the coppers appeared

When they did there was whistle tooting

And running up and down back alleys

Through the streets of Collingwood

He wraps plates and cups in paper

Considering the fragility

Of ordinary everyday things

How something is lost every time

We move from one place to another

Funny how you don't realise

The amount of 'stuff' you own

Until you have to pack it in boxes

heart of a nation

he looked in her mouth for teeth

but found only broken bones

battered wives, dreams of children

in her eyes he saw profound grief

secret arms deals, catholic guilt

many centuries of corruption

perhaps she could be fixed, he thought

and sent her to expensive doctors

filling their every prescription

but the drugs didn't work, never do

her hair a mess of secret deals, bribes

dreams of mass destruction

he felt himself begin to change too

his cheeks swamp-like, mushy to touch

soggy with political affiliations

his legs brittle as ethnic cleansing

back spasming with corporate greed

and ineffectual administrations

ears clogged by nationalist fervor

bowels stopped up by disillusionment

scalp itchy with frustration

doctors unable to define their condition

the common 'malaise', highly contagious

a sickness at the heart of a nation

Wednesday, May 23, 2012

Live Forever

When you are young inside it

You think these moments

Will always live forever

Waking in the van still stoned

Her naked body beside you

The sound of waves breaking

Smell of warm meat pies

Cracking that first beer

Dawn creaking like a behemoth

Over the still frozen horizon

Walking along a deserted beach

Like the last two people on earth

Music everywhere and shells

Like bright brittle currency

You don't question your worth

What you're doing where you're going

You just are fundamentally you

As you understand that to be

Later there may be revision

Comprehension of complications

Extenuating circumstances

But when you are young inside it

You think these moments

Will always live forever

Dream Into You

And did I ever dream into you

The possibilities of our life

With moments of joy and bliss

Moments of darkness and light?

And did I ever dream into you

The ugly person that I am

Not good in the fragile mornings

While you are awake at dawn?

And did I ever dream into you

The practicalities of living together

A man with a fetish for cleanliness

A woman with a penchant for mess?

And did I ever dream into you

The depth and sway of my love?

Because if I didn't I have failed

With my only witness heaven above

The Butcher

These streets are packed with flesh

He thinks worrying about refrigeration

Don't want it all going to waste

As the gutters fill with blood

Doing what his father did and more

Knife in hand to cut the brisket

Hands bone dry from all the washing

So as now his wife wont touch him

She so averse to the smell of sinews

How the hair clings to his fingers

Still slice, dice and wrap it in paper

How he came by it doesn't really matter

There's meat on every home table

And the streets are better cleaner

He often feels a pang of guilt

About being judge juror executioner

But with the bellies of the townsfolk

Full of quality free range red meat

He knows what he is doing is acceptable

Monday, May 21, 2012

Darwin

mangroves hide the shoreline

and the possibility of crocs

one measuring 4 meters made

its home under Nightcliff pier

still people play on the beach

and surf fish as if they are

immune or touched by the heat

the lure of cool blue water

being too much to resist

this city balances on a knife

humidity heat and commerce

make for an unstable mix

Europe and Asia colliding

and not always meeting

white fella law seeing itself

in an indigenous mirror

innocent or guilty without peers

there was the bombing during WWII

downplayed by national media

to avoid mass hysteria

left the city bitter

then Tracy came and almost

wiped it off the map

you can see the determination

in the eyes of those who survived

this city is at war with itself

beneath the wealth dwells a fear

both colours trapped in a dance

that will scar the landscape

gouge mountainous dreamtime furrows

carve new and dangerous estuaries

where the barramundi will die

and the great spirits decide

who has the right to dwell here.

Saturday, May 19, 2012

list

the sun on the windscreen

the knowledge you've gained

the film you wanted to make

the winter your dog died

the vibrating petal

the missing finger

the laughing child

the blood on your shirt

the way the curtain falls

the sleep you've missed

the staring clown

the receding sea

the lack of hair

the boats in the desert

the key to the door

the sand between your toes

the face at the window

the broken heart

the bird with no song

the song with no words

the house on the corner

the man in the blue suit

the girl in the red dress

the way your name is said

the drugs that work

the role you played

the game you didn't win

the warm summer rain

the fondue that didn't

the size of your shoes

the size of the sky

the taste of her lips

the joy of the sugar rush

the playground at night

the fear of beards

the lure of the road

the way words deceive

the junkie begging coins

the music of the spheres

the wallet you almost stole

the fun you wish you'd had

the fish caught in the net

the bleeding nose

the day when we met

Friday, May 18, 2012

the gun

it was always there between them

hard and cold as a promise

hidden in a shoe box in the closet

contingency against unwanted interest

"love, I would never use it - trust me"

those were his words in earnest

though she knew he was lying of course

had already shot two dealers

and there were others to be sure

bodies strewn about like Easter Eggs

to be dug up by over-eager kiddies

or health freaks walking their dogs

no, she thought, carpet has its uses

sweeping as much as she could under it

still there was the matter of the gun

much as she tried it stayed in place

heavy smooth deadly as a dying sun

dragging all into the collapsing orbit

of its machined killing perfection

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Think of Banking as Russian Roulette

He was a roof tiler tanned chocolate brown

By working outdoors in the tropical sun

Baseball cap, cheap servo sunnies, tats

Singlet, thongs, shorts too long

Thought of himself as a small business man

Who knew a thing or two about economics

"Think of Banking as Russian Roulette."

It was a statement rather than a question

As if he were giving examples of how well

Violent analogies work when trying to explain

Market vagaries and economic inequality

"You put the bullet in. That's your savings."

Except that a gun is a mechanism

Not an institution listed on the stock exchange

Which needs to justify its profit margins

To its stock holders on a regular basis

But yeah I can see how the analogy works

"Then the barrel gets spun. That's investment."

I can see how on one level investment as a gamble

And the chances of getting shot in the head are

Matched in levels of danger as one can often

Lead to the other but the analogy is breaking down

"Others bet on what happens when the trigger's pulled,

That's called hedging." Yeah, hedging your bets

So the barrel has been spun, the gun is cocked,

Bets are placed on whether or not this poor sucker

Gets their brains splattered all over the hand-crafted

Mum-and-Dad investor table
(Telstra share owners beware!)

"Then the trigger is pulled. That's the payoff."

So, if you didn't get a bullet in the head

Then you are substantially richer, none-the-wiser

Free to take long walks on beaches with your dog

Until you choose to load another bullet in the gun

That might just be the shot that kills everyone

Thursday, May 10, 2012

quiet

it was the quiet disconcerted her

she held his hand like an object

feeling its smooth unfamiliarity

though they had been married ten years

his body almost totally unknown

him breathing hard like a diver

trying to understand depth asking why

she feeling she should have an answer

perhaps a simple man deserved that much

but it was profoundly beyond her

thinking back had she ever loved

even at the altar the emotion didn't well

in her breast as her mother said it would

she just stood rabbit in the headlights

while it all happened beyond her control

the kiss the honeymoon the house the kids

a perfectly staged play directed to script

her life lived by professional actors

she only a half-tix cheap-seat spectator

sleep-walking into somebody else's dream

who was this strange man who came at her

each night smelling of sweat and beer

who were these children who demanded

to be fed clothed cojoled into bed

when did these banal domesticities

begin to redefine her inner soul

who is she in this moment now

telling her husband it is over

all that living together was a myth

they will simply have to get along

separately somehow

Sunday, April 29, 2012

Bedtime Story

He watches from the porch

As she rams the BMW

Paid for by her lawyer father

Into his shitty Dihatsu

Screaming: "You fucker!"

Over and over again

While the child hides inside

Asking: "Has mummy gone nuttso again?"

What does he say?

She does her damage and drives away

He inspects the carnage,

Decides its acceptable

And goes inside for a beer

Wishing this headache would end

Knowing that it wont ever

It will grow like a tumour

Sucking the best years from him

But there is always the boy

Can he guarantee his future?

Quarantine him from madness?

He wishes he could sleep forever

But the child calls to him

From his darkened bedroom

"Dad, is Mommy going to be alright?"

"Forget that mad bitch,"

He wants to say but doesn't

Instead lies next to his son

And reads a bedtime story