Just Below The Shore Line

(for Lori Watson)
My brother and I

Crammed in Dads fourteen footer

Sleeping knawl tight on high seas

The smell of brine, kelp and blood

Coiled up in dreams of mum

But when the ropes went down

We would wait and fish

Dad on the prow feeding out line

Us waiting baited on where
To drop anchor and put in

His determinations elusive
Mythical, based on an extra sense
That men have about these things
Making them either slaves
Or fathers or kings
A tug from below and pull
Flathead skipping across the hull
Him stabbing at the base of the skull
That's how you kill a fish
That's how you raise a child
Turning the boat back toward land

He would bring the catch 
Back to his wife

One girl, one boy, six flathead
To be scaled and gutted and fried
Eaten with potato salad and lemon
While the sun sank
Just below the shoreline

© shaun patrick green 2013

Poetry As A Political Alternative.

"Rimbaud," she shouted at me

And I failed to see how this

French fop had changed anything

Except the way gay people write

"Baudelaire," she shouted again

Me sifting through the literature

Finding nothing revolutionary

The guy was a syphilitic sponge

A maudlin dandy without

Political or artistic intent

"But Aesthetics is a force of change..."

Oh you sad person, when,

Tell me when has any aesthetic ideal

Forced political change
In any way shape or form?

"Surrealism," she whispered

Bullshit, I said -

Andre Breton and the Surrealists

Were riding on the coat tails of

True revolutionary left wing politics

Forging new forms in art to be sure

But in society: NO

Because poor people don't read poetry

At least not the poetry written by the rich

By rich privileged wankers who control

Who the poor are and where they can live

Did reading Rimbaud ever give a black man

Freedom? I don't think so.

But maybe if he had

He might understand

What it is to be a slave.

© shaun patrick green

Political Quatrain #14

Tony Abbott, Oh Tony Abbott

Please listen to your diocese

The Boat People are coming

Don't let them die on the high seas

© shaun patrick green 2013

Political Quatrain #13

Julia Gillard Coo Coo Coo

Most beautiful of flightless birds

Such a pity your only sustenance

Was Kevin Rudd's greasy turds

© shaun patrick green 2013

The Tale Of Eunice Trubelly Oncegood

I met her in a crowded street

More bumped into than met

Her with Elizabeth the Second hair

Only longer and pinned at the back
With a posh English accent

She smiled and seemed to know me

So we went on a shopping spree

First stopping at the Fortune store

Where she bought a music box

I had no idea what for

Next stop was St. Vincent de Paul

Where she bought a BB gun

Its butt and stock decoupaged
With old timey advertisements

The third stop was a Thrift Shop

Ladies all in a huff about stuff

She sifting until she found the

Right gifty sort of thing: a mannequin

I had to ask: who are you buying for?

She said: the children, of course.

Took me back to her manor

Where she was Governess

"I teach these children, see?"

She pointed to her degree

'Eunice Trubelly Oncegood'

Issued by the Mother Superior

By the Order of The Sisters of God
At the School for Orphaned Girls

"We agreed our birth year would be 1973...

Which means no matter who we are or

Where we are we will all be the same age."

So I waited while she changed

And followed her and her friends

Out into the night still carrying her gifts

Tried to shout: "Why 1973?"
I did the math. "That makes you 40!"

But I was obviously too far away

Falling behind, losing sight,

Then into the crowd she disappeared

I was lost and still had her gifts in hand

Bodies were pressing in, rain was threatening

There was nothing to do but backtrack

Eventually finding the antique shop

Where she had bought that last figurine

It was closed but I knocked anyway

And found the old owner more than genuine

In his offer to take me in as apprentice

So there I worked for ten years

Restoring old things to life

And in my down time working on the toys

Of Eunice Trubelly Oncegood

In the hope that one day she would come back

Enter through those doors and say:

"I have come back for you..."

Except it wouldn't be for me

But these stupid toys:

The derelict music box that will never play,

BB gun with applique that will never shoot

Weirdly human mannequin with French roots

Needless to say, she never did

Those toys sit in this shop shelf still

The music box, the BB gun, the mannequin

Testimony to my lack of intuition

© shaun patrick green 2013