Circles.

She dreams in circles

Night drivers coursing through

The roundabout outside her house

Tyres sucking tarmac

In a centrifugal hum

Somehow out of phase

With the whirring fan above

Endings create beginnings

Like stars, marriages, love

She boils a brew

Milk and sugar stirred in whirlpools

Watching the dog chase its tail

Kids running rings

Maybe there is form in that

The ever tightening concentric

Regularity of repetition

The infinite circularity of the thing

She works shifts

Walking amongst the almost dead

Changing sheets, holding hands

Hearing their memories

As time folds in on them

Like a self-seal envelope

The past emerging in spasms

Then spinning out of reach in gyres

“Yes, I remember…” becomes “Who are you…?”

I am your son, your daughter, your wife

Completing some cycle

Where we all return to the source

Ending as we became

Incontinent and inchoate

Parked in a bed not our own

In an unremarkable suburb

Our needs tended to by strangers

Who seem vaguely familiar

She watches the news

Sipping white wine 

Appreciating a bird’s eye view

Of a cyclone spiraling off the coast

A series of circles come to reclaim us

Churn us into sea and dust

Above her the fan whirls

And ancient truths unfurl

Like spider web spirals

Portents of a calm 

That will come to us all

After the storm

 

© shaun patrick green 2021

 

 

 

 

Planet "B'

“In my opinion," he said,

"We should never have gone to the moon.”

I had to agree.

The idea that we could leave this planet

Somehow meant we could give up

On its maintenance.

It meant we could still dig big holes,

Pollute the earth and the oceans,

Bury all our contaminated waste,

Toxify this planet absolutely,

This jewel which gave us life,

And have billionaires

Fund jaunts to the next rock from the sun

Because we have so poisoned 

This blue planet

That we need to move to a red one,

Where there is no atmosphere,

Where there are no trees, rivers or seas.

I had to admit, he had a point.

The ability to travel between planets

Has allowed us to set a use-by date,

Much earlier and more convenient,

For this one.

 

 

© shaun patrick green 2021

Time

She said: “Time is the ultimate warrior.”

And I said “Bullshit. Time doesn’t fight.”

And she said: “It doesn't have to. 

It waits us out.”

And I thought: “Shit she’s right.”

According to all the rules of war

The long game is played by those

Who have the most to win,

Which means the losers

Are those without time on their side.

Time outlasts empires;

Time formed the rocks we stand on;

Time is the force of nature

That strips our bones of flesh,

Our minds of reason.

It will blind the stars

And end the universe.

Time has time to spare,

Because it is in its nature

To be patient.

She said: "You will never win me."

I asked: "Why not?"

"Because patience," she replied,

"is not in your nature."

I said: "Give me a minute."

 

© shaun patrick green 2021

Are We There Yet?

“Are we there yet?”

Our shrill voices in unison

Over my father’s shoulder

As he steers the Holden station wagon

Down the Stuart Highway

From Tennant Creek

To The Devils Marbles.

His reply is always the same,

A kind of in-car joke:

“Over the next hill

And round the next bend.”

Were all 70s dads like this?

Laconic, to the point of being comatose?

Or was my dad some sort of ambassador

For this particular form of

Relating to his own children?

My brother and I just played the game:

“Are we there yet?”

“Over the next hill

And round the next bend.”

We watched flat red dirt expanses

Dotted with spinifex clumps

Fly by our window screens

As the hot desert air

Blew in like jet exhaust.

“Are we there yet?”

“Over the next hill

And round the next bend.”

My mum had to hold the radio aerial

Out of the passenger side window

So we could get reception,

The radio playing Daddy Cool,

Fleetwood Mac, and The Eagles.

“Are we there yet?”

“Over the next hill

And round the next bend.”

Suddenly, we were there,

After countless games of I-Spy,

There was this moonscape:

Massive red rock boulders

Scattered over the landscape

In a tone of ochre so blood red

It left Indigenous folk mystified.

“Are we there yet?”

My dad looked out across this vista,

Sunset casting long shadows amongst

These vast rounded rocks

And said: “Over the next hill

And round the next bend.”

 

 

 

© shaun patrick green 2021

Winter.

Seeing you again,

On a cold day in May,

I felt a sense of loss.

Had I acted rashly,

Not thinking of love enduring

Not counting the cost?

Were those thoughts

That once lifted our spirits

Weaker than the ones

Dragging us down,

Knowing we will age disgracefully

Beset by forgetfulness,

Ill-health and poverty,

The dreams of our youth

Having flown South

For the winter?

As we spoke I knew you felt it too.

We had arrived at the same place,

After choosing different paths,

Where the ghost of what-could-have-been

Leaves deep footprints in snow.

We said our goodbyes,

Promising to keep in touch,

Knowing this was unlikely

As we reminded each other too much

Of life's brevity

And how chances not taken

Slip away as the blood thickens,

As the brain fades,

Forsaking the thrill of possible futures

For the familiarity of distant pasts,

All as empty as air.

Literacy.

  

Do words alarm you?

They shift and change meaning,

Alter spelling,

Almost as if

They are trying to trick you.

Sometimes, you run out of vowels

And realise there’s nothing left

To cry about.

So you go into debt,

Buying consonants,

Spending big on S’s, N’s and L’s,

But your mind is writing cheques

Your tongue can’t cash.

There are just not enough

Shelters for the wordless.

We must give literacy

Back to those in need,

Freeing entire generations

From bondage, from slavery.

Imagine that: to feel the joy

Of language returning

Like a lover

After an argument.

 

© shaun patrick green 2021