I Shouldn’t Worry About The World, But I Do.

Donald Trump sits on my window sill tweeting,

His orange plumage garish in this tropical dawn.

Jo Biden teeters skeletal, colour-blind

To a country split into red and blue.

I shouldn’t worry about America, but I do.

Sure, it is just another empire falling into ruin,

A failed state, by its own definition, but

A third world country in charge of a first world army

Has to be a cause for concern to those

Other world leaders who standby smirking, pointing

And stroking their chins.

But I wonder if the US is also a victim

Of its own success: the spoiled child

Of a marriage between democracy and capitalism

Who ends up murdering its own parents

While they sleep?

 

Meanwhile, Xi Jinping waves dictatorial

Like one of those mechanical golden cats

On a takeaway food shop counter

Where Hong Kong and Taiwan

Are the main items on the menu.

I shouldn’t worry about China, but I do.

With its bellicose rhetoric about sovereignty,

Its militarisation of the South China Sea,

Its Belt and Road Initiative, its economic bullying,

Its silencing of dissent, internment of minorities.

Is this what the future of the world looks like:

A Concentration Camp/Re-Education Facility

Where thinking and speaking freely

Are crimes punishable by death?

Those same world leaders smirking at America

Look to China and hold their breath.

 

All this seems so far away as I water the garden

And watch my daughter pick Hibiscus flowers:

“Daddy, this one is for you.”

I shouldn’t worry about the world, but I do.

It is hers to inherit, and if this inheritance

Turns out to be a broken, dysfunctional nightmare

Then isn’t that our collective failure as parents?

 

 

©shaun patrick green 2020

Toilet Paper Blues (Or, How A Pandemic Taught Me To Stop Worrying And Embrace Scatological Humour)

Remember how toilet paper

Made its comeback

Onto supermarket shelves, slowly,

Carefully, roll by roll,

Bulk pack by bulk pack,

As if it were sniffing the air

For any sign of the panic

That had wiped its predecessors from the shelves?

 

There is nothing sadder or more frightening

Than the sight of empty supermarket aisles

To we who have lost the knowledge

Of how to use our hands

For anything other than texting,

Using a remote control

(which is pretty much the same as texting)

Or peeling price stickers off

Plastic wrapped gifts ordered online.

 

When I was living in Tennant Creek

One year there was one of those

Huge storms that dumped so much rain

It cut off the Stuart Highway and the train.

Supermarket supplies had to be flown in.

I remember my mother complaining,

But I never noticed a lack of toilet paper.

 

Not that I used it.

I just used to shit in the yard,

Wipe my arse with grass, and keep playing,

A trick I had learned from the Aboriginal kids.

These days, shitting in the yard

And wiping your arse with grass is frowned upon.

So after 2 weeks of Corona Virus pandemonium,

With my stock of toilet paper dangerously low,

 

I ventured to the supermarket

And out of sheer luck

Found 2 packets of party serviettes

Pushed up the back of one very lonely shelf.

I took them, leaving my dignity behind,

At the same time appreciating

The grotesque parody of the food-to-mouth cycle.

 

When I got to the checkout,

The girl behind her plexiglass screen

Shook her head and told me

I could only have one packet.

I was indignant.

They had let hoarders waddle out

With trolleys full of toilet paper

And now I was restricted to one packet

Of serviettes?

 

Voices on the TV had tried to soothe us:

There is no problem with supply chains.

I shouted back at the TV, pointing

At the stock footage of yawning empty shelves:

“Then what do you call that?”

Someone was talking shit.

Maybe they needed the serviettes

More than I did? 

 

© shaun patrick green

Broken Country.

I bet he used to ride for miles

Sitting now in the dialysis centre

Watching his blood being changed

Like oil, memories of watering horses

Riding on the head of the muster

Breaking off to reign in a buster

Dust and bindies in his eye

A working stockman

Seeing more of his land

Than a traditional owner ought to

Still the black memories

Of the newborn steer

That vaulted off a cliff

There is no salvation here

Only the work in the hard earth

And the hope it will be a good year.

Tsunami Piano.

Sakamoto bows before a tsunami piano

It stands on a stage,

High water mark stained muddy brown

On the curtain behind

"The water came up to here?"

"Yes," replies the schoolmaster

So many of his students lost

Little fingers and toes

That might have played pianos

Washed away in a toxic flood

Sakamoto sits at the tsunami piano

Tinkers with the keys

Like they are the broken bones

Of a calamitous century

All the school bags and shoes

Of those piano school students

Still waiting in the hall

Parents still waiting for that call

Sifting amongst the rubble

For past and futures consumed

Sakamoto traces the waterline

Seeing where the mud

Must have lifted the piano up
"It's strangely bright,
But also melancholic."
The schoolmaster nods
His pain contained
At a future washed away
Mud and broken homes
Abandoned hope, little sustenance

Sakamoto sits and plays

The first few bars of the theme

From "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence"

(c)shaun patrick green 2020

Shaun Patrick Green's Guide To Good Eating.

Hi there and welcome to my guide

To Good Eating

Firstly, Bats: No!

Say NO to bats!

Bad! Bad! Bad!

Horse: OK, but be careful

You don't want to get

Trampled to death.

Same goes with cows

Tasty - yum yum beef:

But gettin' in there

Can give you grief.

Lamb - oh lamby lamby woo,

I French Trim your cutlets

Because I have nothing

Better to do.

Pork, pork,

I want more on my fork:

Bacon, ham cutlets, fillet

I want it all in my skillet.

Mostly my food is farmed

Because I don't want wild things

Getting harmed.

But farming causes a lot of

Those Green House gases,

So maybe taking animals from the wild

Should feed the masses?

Vote with your feet: Stop farming meat.

Get out into the wild with a crossbow,

If you're hungry.

This might be the future

For feeding our country,
Or you could just go Vegan?
Nah, only jokin'.

© shaun patrick green 2020

Language Is A Virus.

William Burroughs once said:

"Language is a virus from outer space."

I can think of others,

Though their origins

May not be as exotic.

Love is a virus:

It strikes without warning,

After close contact,

Although there is no chance

Of infecting those around you.

They just watch you go crazy

And die... or get married.

Hate is a virus:

It lives deep inside us

And seems to spread after meetings

Or exposure to certain

Webpages where we find

Other people with the same virus

And choose to isolate ourselves

With the very people who

Infected us in the first place.

Children are a virus:

They are contagious,

You see other people having them

And telling you how great it is

So you say: why not?

Then realise they were lying.

Politics is a virus:

Those infected become delusional,

Thinking they can make a difference

From the inside, that they

Wont be corrupted by lobby groups,

Interest groups, the demands

Of Real Politic and the dulcet tones

Of Mattias Corman whispering

In their ears: "'Is' is the third syllable

In compromise."

Work is a virus:

It leaves us depleted, underpaid,

Open to irrational behaviour,

Like filling up the time

When we are not working

With crap activities which

We pretend to enjoy,

Like Ice Skating or Bowling.

At least if language is a virus,

It allows us to talk about other viruses,

Which may be its ultimate victory:

Humans without language would be lost.

All this just proves Burroughs's point:

While the virus does its work,

All the attention is back on the host.

© shaun patrick green 2020

A Plague On Both Your Houses.

A bicameral system?

A plague on both your houses

Canberra has become such

A nest of vipers

That no one leader

Can break free of the morass

Of social media commentary

And make decisions

In the best interest of this country

So we live with knee-jerk policy

And sound-bite diplomacy

While real people lose everything

All turned to ash

And real businesses fail

Suffocated by lack of cash

Future fund and Budget Surplus

Not withstanding

The people of this country

Are demanding

A political system ready to rise

To the challenges

Of Global Warming and Corona Virus

Instead of this paralysed

Top-heavy bureaucracy

Invested in self-interest

And maintaining power

The clock is ticking

Second by second

Hour by hour

While you white-ant each other

Wait for a new leader to be named

Time wasted cannot be regained

A plague on both your houses

© shaun patrick green 2020

The Moment.

In that place where you would heal

I found my friend deep in the forest

Knowing it to be her home

Her dog loping around

Worrying a chew toy

The wind in the trees like a voice

Whispering annunciation

As if an angel were to appear

At any given moment

And then it did:

We two deep in conversation

On subjects of art and film

Suddenly a honeyeater

Hovering between us

Like a sentinel

Wings furiously flapping

To keep it stationary

As it considered its options

A moment seeming like an hour

Its beating wings a sweet

Counterpoint to time's slow creep

Us transfixed

By its primal indecision

There is nothing to eat here

Then it was gone

Darting back into the forest

It's visitation over

Leaving us to stare at one another

Jaws agape, lost for words,

Perhaps for the first time

In our lives

© shaun patrick green 2020

Elegiac.

Feeling nascent

Like the first rain

Garden unattended

Must make plans

Life having its way

Unabridged

Always liked that word

Dishes to be washed

Child to school

Spiders in alcoves

Some memories

Are like that

Scuttling

Into dark places

Where the dirt hides

How does it migrate

No matter

Corn to gather

Harvest of hope

Children dancing

They used to, once

Now so quiet

A church

In miniature

Dinner to cook

Sun dropping

Stone heavy

No solace

Only this dark

And thoughts

Of melodies

Played

By merry-go-rounds


© shaun patrick green 2020

Midnight At The Broadway Cafe.

She held his hand in the Broadway Cafe

Rain outside falling in sheets

Her heart beating in her chest

So hard her ribs hurt

"I have done things," she said

Looking into his infatuated eyes

"I have been bad to people

Who have loved me..."

He felt her palm in his

The warmth of it genuine, firm

"I have done bad things too," he said

"We all make mistakes."

He could hear the rain outside

Like constant applause

"But I believe in second chances."

He held her gaze, continued without pause

"And this is a chance for both of us..."

A waitress sidled over

To see if they would order

"Two coffees," he said, "Black."

"You don't understand," she said

Watching the waitress move away

"I am poison."

He looked into her eyes

And knew it was true

But believed his love for her

Would be an inoculation

Not an invitation for dissolution

"It's nothing I can't handle," he said

Gangster bravado

She was up to her neck in debt

With an ice habit that would

Break his bank in a week

"But I'm weak, I know it," she said.

He took her words as a challenge

Could he keep her safe?

Could he keep his head above water

Could he avoid impending doom

The wars, diseases, the slaughter?

Her perfume wafted over him

Like the most magical of potions

They were young and in love

Failure was not an option

© shaun patrick green 2020

Water (to Michael Gunner)

How curious to hear the sound of rain

While the rest of the country burns

I feel a guilt that will not

Wither regardless of donations

Of clothing and fodder

What they need is water

Dum In Mirrie got 562ml in 24 hours

Where did that water go?

Into the ground or out to sea

Same with the Tiwis

Where does that water go?

We need to prepare for

Dryer Wet Seasons which means

More effective water storage

So why not build aquaducts

Like the Romans

To channel the excessive flows

From the Top End to those

Down South?

Of course, pipelines would do

But we cannot afford to waste a drop!

We need to be smarter

Think of ways to capture and store water

As a resource, like Iron or Copper

Forget fracking for gas

Water is the new powerhouse

The most valued commodity

Get it to where it's needed

And you could save the NT economy.

shaun patrick green ©2020