Going Down With The Ship - poetry by shaun patrick green.: March 2014

Sunday, March 30, 2014

Caught.

Saw you across a crowded bar

Head down, weary, eyes on me

Asking a question, as we all do:

Just for tonight or forever be?

I told you you were cute

You said you didn’t feel it, prove it

So I kissed you

And you said: you’ll do

Now we are husband and wife

About to bring life into this world

Are we capable? Are we schooled?

Birthing classes bleated about pain

Support, preparation, analgesia

Pushing life into being looks fraught

Sometimes fish get stuck in the net

Let this life be loosed and caught

Thursday, March 27, 2014

Touched.

BMX scoots to a skid

People always forget

What the gloomy kid did

Goosed a granny

Who wasn’t his nanny

Yes that’s what

The gloomy kid did

People said bad boy

Don’t you know

That’s not how you make

Your mammas garden grow

Got to tend it with love

Use a rubber glove

Never the whole fist

He pedalled on his way

Became a gynaecologist

Happy, older and gay

The 80s faked a lot of

No longer gloomy kids

Tuesday, March 25, 2014

A Reason To Be.

Seasons come and go

Planes fly and crash

The biggest loser wins

Hobos fight for cash

Sex is in your mind

Crime is on the street

The good always die young

The old learn how to tweet

Money is in the bag

Bag is at the station

Someone stop the train

Lets buy a broken nation

Piss passes for water

Water turns to wine

We kill ourselves for fun

Gets a laugh every time

We are older than we look

Younger than we feel

Today I saw myself in an ad

I no longer know what’s real

I wear boots without socks

Shave my head, read a book

Got on a train only to find

Everyone has stolen my look

I’ve been a demographic

For longer than I can remember

Eat, buy, consume, die

Holiday in December

If peace were a bullet in the head

I’m pretty sure I’d take it

Until then I’ll just be happy

Or learning how to fake it

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Doting Wings.

Doting wings a parent’s hands

To hold, wipe, lift and sooth

Under a blue pool-like sky

As children wobble and scoot

I hold your hand in silence

Mother to be, parent in waiting

Feel you pulsing in the sun

Held by older hands debating

Why into this world bring life

I risk it all for you my wife

Fools Way To Paradise.

If you come crashing into my evening

I will tell you death is for losers

You will bitch and fight

But in the end we will be even

You will leave the burning car

I will take the million dollars

The cops will chase us over the border

Wait, weren’t we partners?

With a bullet in my gut I guess not

So I will let you hang me out to dry

Stooge for you in this life

But don’t sweat it my sweet
I'd have done harder yards for less

Trusting the one you love

Is always a fools way to paradise

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

Letter to God.

There may be a force

Guiding the universe

Rather than blind science
But I cannot see it
Although I have looked
Prayers answered by silence

My wife lies sleeping
Tended by beeping machines
She may well be dying
I don’t believe in you, God

And yet I am asking

Please give me back my wife

You don’t need her

But I do, she is my love

My morning, my evening, my life

So, if you exist, intervene

I would be so grateful

Amongst so much strife

If you could find the time
In your busy schedule

To save one precious life
I have been imperfect
Let her down, been low and mean
I'll change if you give me a sign

Please grant me this one wish
You gaseous lack of rationality

And give me back my wife

Is It Just Me Or Is The Health System Sick?

Public Hospitals don’t make money

After all they are not businesses, but

The companies that supply public hospitals

With dressings, cleaning agents, drugs,

Gowns, curtains, equipment, gloves,

Plastic food trays, Styrofoam cups,

Syringes, wipes, gowns, scrubs,

Beds, sheets, cannulas, shoes,

Soap, towels, wheelchairs, tubes

Waste collection, waste disposal,

Administration, security, childcare,

They all make money don’t they?

Question: have we created a vested

Interest in keeping people sick?

Or in making them sick then well again

Just to show the system is working?

How market driven is our health system?

How many politicians sit on the boards

Of these companies or hold shares?

And how many politicians sit on the boards

Or hold shares in the companies that

Produce products known to cause diseases

Like cancer, cirrhosis and diabetes?

These questions should be answered

Before we privatise our health system

For it seems this is not about wellness

But making the privileged even more rich

In a United States of Illness

Broken.

Morning radiates like absolution

Golden and chirping with satisfaction

Lizards scuttle amongst the ferns

Clouds billow and brood

Promising afternoon storms

The chicken coop needs finishing

And there is the bathroom to do

My wife lies sedated and tubed

Tended by ICU nurses and tears

From colleagues and friends

One of whom brings gifts of food

I stalk the garden like a dead man

Glaring at swarms of dragonflies

Perplexed by things that can’t be fixed

With bailing twine, pliers and glue

Thursday, March 6, 2014

The Lake.

I am in blood

Stepp'd in so far, that, should I wade no more,

Returning were as tedious as go o'er.

--Macbeth, Act III, scene iv

The water looks clean and cool

Light scintillating against my skull

A volcanic lake with no bottom

The fear is somehow palpable

Tribes here were cannibals

Nearby was a judging stone

Where criminals were dismembered

Their body parts thrown from boats

Sinking into the ghostly depths

A carpet of bone somewhere down there

The force of this history carved

Into the faces of locals like templates

And they prevent me stepping

Into the cooling water

Storm clouds gather overhead

All I can do is blankly stare

Into the clear blue water of the lake

Valediction Forbidding Custody.

I crawled out of us a cripple

Now let me breath the stink

Of us devouring each other

It’ll be quicker than you think

And the lawyers will make a mint

You keep the house I bought

The kid I sired and still

I pay you monthly maintenance

So you can continue the torture

Call me to update your dates

With internet desperadoes

While I take the moral high ground

Teaching our son not to hate

No wonder I am turning to drink
Tonight it’s supermarket Tacos

Gleaning the child for fast food

Hoping it will come back to haunt you

Lets see which way the wind blows

Even your rich arse family must know

Some of this shit shoveled will

Eventually stick to your shoes

The Scream.

My wife has blown out like a balloon

And scans show there is life in there

Shaped like an inverted avocado

Apparently it will arrive soon

Announcing itself with a pitched scream

Maybe that was what Munch was trying

To capture in his painting of that name

Welcome to the horror of the world

A tough place for a little girl

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Insomnia and regret.

Had there been a greener gauge

More forceful at a younger age

I might not have to always fight

Against the demons of the night

They wheel and deal in neon light

Hold me up and then pick a fight

Sure I don’t know who will win

Their bodies ripped with every sin

Mine racked with doubt and worry

And the inability to say “I’m sorry”

Every day a wonder I’m still alive

This is not to live but to survive