Change.

(for Zoe Eszter Green)

There was never any thought of you

No idea of what I was getting into

But to save a marriage I went against

My instincts and followed through

It was twelve weeks in when your mother

Was diagnosed with breast cancer

We had to wait until the second

Trimester for her to undergo surgery

You lay safe in her tummy

Unaware of the emergency

Then she went back to work too soon

And caught a multi-resistant bug

That put her in a coma

And defied antibacterial drugs

It was touch and go

A doctor confiding to me

That if not for the Gentamicin shot

She would be dead

Your mother decided not to go back

To work which was wise

But when she went into labour

Came the third surprise

An emergency C section

To save both your lives

You were pulled gruel grey

And wet and clearly unhappy

Like a puppet above the gauze

But as soon as you touched mum's chest

You sought what boob was left

And I was amazed at all the suicides

Because life finds a way

It is encoded in our DNA

Just as being a dad

Must have been jolted within me

While your mum tried to bleed out on the table

I was ushered into a room

You wrapped in a blanket

And I sang to you for two hours

Waiting to hear the news

Until your mother was wheeled in, alive

Barely, and you reconnect to the boob

I sat by, watching the bonding as

The nurse stood by, busy but charitable
We took you home, the caring begun
Each day a joy of life tightly won

We shut ourselves off from change

But like death and taxes, it is inevitable.

© shaun patrick green 2019

Don't Rip Out My Breast And Leave My Arse Behind.

(for Anthony Bourdain R.I.P.)

You dress in camouflage

As a good predator should

And stalk me with keen senses

Just as the crocodile would

But when I feel you are near

And flap into the sheltering sky

You take your best shot

I might fall, I might fly

But if I fall and your mutt

Retrieves, a game he doesn't mind

Don't rip out my breast

And leave my arse behind

Like the pig and the kangaroo

You can hunt us for sport or food

But if you take an animals life

You should then take every part

With your knife

Not just the sweet meats

The fillets and cheeks

But the bones and sinews

The arseholes, the beaks

Use the whole of us

Or else you are wasting our lives

Leaving giblets for scavengers

Who are not here for revenge

Simply to live like you or I

Even if their stomachs

Have less discerning eyes

© shaun patrick green 2019

Living The Dream.

Fifteen and on the basketball team

We made the finals and the weakest guy

Got subbed on before me because our Coach

Who had trained us all year

Didn't notice me sitting kitted up

Thought I was a fan or family

So we lost, victory within reach

Why should the memory of my defeats

Overshadow my victories

Depriving me of sleep needed

To rebuild these corpuscles

Facing each day more depleted

The clogging of arteries

Cramping of muscles

All signalling an ineluctable decay

Why should dreams be suffocated

By a murderous mediocrity

A meanness of spirit

So that we all face this same disarray?

Addled in our thirties

Disconsolate in our forties

In our fifties just ready to fade away?

We had dreams once, didn't we?

So where have they fled to now?

To the political backwaters of our minds

To the impossibility of how

I see the orange shirt of hypocrisy

And wonder why this country sold its soul

For fat fools in the senate

And extremist morons in control.

© shaun patrick green 2019

Staying On Message.

Save the Beach

For whom?

Save the Forest

For whom?

Save the Whale

For whom?

Save the Reef

For whom?

Save the Natives

For whom?

Save the Panda

For whom?

Save the Tiger

For whom?

Save Paradise

For whom?

If you're poorer than poor then not for you

If you got no job and can't afford food

Then biodiversity is a theory for dudes

Always white, middle class, not meaning to be rude

But they have the privilege to choose

To put morals before mouths, right before true

While developing nations are considered crude

For allowing their masses, whose labour we use

To aspire to the simple things all westerners do

If we leave them behind, it is a day we will rue

For Africa and Asia have millions to imbue

With a stake in equity, control over what's new

Stay on Message

Australia is the Greatest Country in the World!

Stay on Message

Australia is the Greatest Country in the World!

Stay on Message

Australia is the Greatest Country in the World!

Stay on Message

How good is Australia?

Australia is the Greatest Country in the World!

© shaun patrick green 2019

I Met A Man With A War Inside.

I met a man with a war inside

He opened his chest, ten miles wide

A void where his heart used to reside

I met a man with a war inside

I met a man with a war inside

Didn't ask for help, he drank and he lied

His wife now gone, his children hide

I met a man with a war inside

I met a man with a war inside
Every deal a sabotage, every meal a bribe
Suspecting the enemies might be on his side
I met a man with a war inside

I met a man with a war inside

Couldn't put a name to his pain or describe

The mortal horrors that within us abide

I met a man with a war inside

I met a man with a war inside

Lost his pole star, his only guide

Deserted in the desert, brain completely fried

I met a man with a war inside.

I met a man with a war inside

Thrashing against the rising tide

Didn't want others to think he'd never tried

Said he never met a man without a war inside

© shaun patrick green 2019