School of Life.

Christmas again and the usual minefield

Of family drama, excess of gifts

Masking lack of understanding

That we have traveled 4000km

With minimal baggage and don't need

To lug 30kg of crap back to Darwin.

Stuff is no compensation for distance

Yet empathy goes a very long way.

Still, no teaching old dogs

With three legs new tricks

Unless one of those tricks is how to be a tripod.

Every year I feel less engaged, less involved

Like something in me is dying slowly.

I am witness to my own demise,

Until I feel the touch of my daughters hand in mine

And know this is not about me.

Having a child is a profound

Lifelong lesson in sacrifice.

It is a not a lesson I ever felt

I needed or wanted to learn but here I am,

Sitting at my wooden desk, writing lines,

Watching the clock, avoiding the teacher's gaze,

Waiting out detention in the school of life.

© shaun patrick green 2017

Trump Card

Games with trump cards are anathema to Americans

For they are a gambling people by nature

Holding fortune in their hands on a turn

Lady Luck clucking in their cotton-picking ears

So loud she could be accused of assault

With a deadly weapon, unless

They are all, as a nation, made to reali(z)e

The game is rigged, the dice are loaded

And like life, no one gets out of here alive.

So was it because of or in spite of this reali(z)ation

That America elected Donald Trump its next president?

I would say there has been no reali(z)ation

And that America is still playing the odds

Laying down chips of fear and resentment

Turning over cards of racism and xenophobia

Going all in, betting everything on the next deal

The next roll of the bones

Nice to be a spectator in history's biggest crap shoot

Only problem being we are all now casino chips

In a winner takes all high roller blackjack deal

Where the winnings might be measured in body bags.

I only hope America's newest president has experience

When it comes to counting cards.

© shaun patrick green 2017