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

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