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

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The waves play

The surf club serves up its fare

They walk among people gathered there

Take a drink, watch the brilliant sunset

Think about which meal they might get

In the humid evening all the tables

Are taken so they find a spot where they're able

Bums perched on a sea wall by the foreshore

Drinking white wine till they are very sure

That the cover band playing is the worst

They have ever heard; even kids avoid the curse

And amuse themselves rather than spasm dutifully

In front of a misused stage; how beautiful,

She thinks, the toddlers tarrying in tide pools

Watched over by patient mothers flocking in schools

But then it hits: is she capable of it?

Bringing life flapping and flailing into this?

A world so hellbent on killing itself?

Maybe life is the antidote -

The more you spit out the more evil you demote

She watches the sun hit the horizon

Like a hot coal in a bucket of snow

Sucks back a wine cooler and says no

Tomorrow the clinic will make it all go away

She can go back to watching the waves play.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

A Tropical Gardener Dreams.

Thunder in the distance

As if the moon is lifting

The earth's crust and sifting

For its own cold bones

He rolls in dark sleep

Mind relentlessly replaying

The day, sifting in his way

For why he's alone

Sun had warmed his arms

Sweat sticking shirt to skin

As he weeded, staked, trimmed

Raking leaves like stones

Hearing sprinklers hiss

He breathed rotting fruit stench

As along the lawns shady edge

Bush turkeys roamed

Gobbling and cawing

Water and dirt through his fingers

Sifting again for what lingers

Shifting aim of the hose

Facades of houses

Stood along the street in rows

Secrets behind doors and windows

Lives lived unknown

As he rode by on the mower

Shaving bald the nature strip

No secrets for the grass to keep

Each blade lying prone

A lady offered lemonade

Seeking advice about her frangipani

He handed her glass back empty

She slid back to her home

No place for him here

Not among the living whose blood

Pulses with happiness and love

His sap all but gone

Thunder again, insistent and deep

Tonight the moon will not sleep.

Monday, October 15, 2012

Blackout.

Quiet here

With the lights out

All the neighbours

Collect like insects

Around one shining globe

Voices in the dark

Asking: When is the light

Gonna shine on us

When is the light

Gonna shine on us?

Kids skittle in the dark

Talk of work and the weather

Bike lights piercing like darts

Crack a beer against the fear

But at some point the panic starts

Calls to outsourced suppliers

"How long we gonna have to wait mate?"

Nervous laughter as the night begins

Things that might do you bad

Lurking where you cannot see

Noises in the dark to drive you mad

Portents of a world without electricity

Terraforming.

Give me a song of the universe

And I will charge you a fee

Because nothing is for free

Even in space where

No one hear you scream

I can see the speculators

Cashing in on moonshine

Hedging on Martian gas

Underwriting terraforming

On Titan or Europa

Where a buck is to be made

There shall the middle man go

For he was not born of the sun -

Those shards left better men blind -
He was born of lesser stuff

The bitter dust left behind

No Goodbye.

waves lap at the shore

mangroves quiet in their hiding

birdsong exotic

smell of frangipani

sickly sweet before sunrise

i have no vision here

as I stride toward fitness

or some parody thereof

but people here

they believe in this stuff

saying: "Good Morning"

when I would say: "Fuck off."

but I fold into the shoreline

find myself compliant and rare

open to friendly hails

of fat dog walkers out there

familiar faces along the way

taking the time to say "hey"

as they pursue their quiet lives

where routine is supreme

and we will see them every morning

pass them, say "Good Morning"

without any goodbye

Thursday, October 4, 2012

Mary Magdalene.

In the vastness of sleepless nights

She is heavy with keeping secrets

Mother told her angels die when you lie

So she must tend their tiny graves

Amongst so many other atrocities

He was blind to her need for it

That wish she could never express

Which now comes to her in excess

Little hopes and dreams exploded

Along fault lines in the skin

A finger tips touch, a gentle kiss

A strangers breath on her neck

She wishes she had been more aware

Of the nature of the task

So she might not have married

The first boy who asked

Too late now for regrets

Too many angels to be buried

Ancient Migration.

Eyes that have seen bigger skies

Peer out from the long grass

Cicadas keeping millenial time

To the soft pad of unshod feet

I hear their songs in my sleep

Tracing some ancient migration

Following kangaroo and emu

To where the waterholes are full

And the lean-to again gives shade

We walk these lines in shoes

Coming after an understanding

That left us signs set in stone

A serpent's back, a mountain range

Tread lightly upon your mother earth

She knows you do not walk alone