Caught.

Saw you across a crowded bar

Head down, weary, eyes on me

Asking a question, as we all do:

Just for tonight or forever be?

I told you you were cute

You said you didn’t feel it, prove it

So I kissed you

And you said: you’ll do

Now we are husband and wife

About to bring life into this world

Are we capable? Are we schooled?

Birthing classes bleated about pain

Support, preparation, analgesia

Pushing life into being looks fraught

Sometimes fish get stuck in the net

Let this life be loosed and caught

© shaun patrick green 2014

Touched.

BMX scoots to a skid

People always forget

What the gloomy kid did

Goosed a granny

Who wasn’t his nanny

Yes that’s what

The gloomy kid did

People said bad boy

Don’t you know

That’s not how you make

Your mammas garden grow

Got to tend it with love

Use a rubber glove

Never the whole fist

He pedalled on his way

Became a gynaecologist

Happy, older and gay

The 80s faked a lot of

No longer gloomy kids

© shaun patrick green 2014

A Reason To Be.

Seasons come and go

Planes fly and crash

The biggest loser wins

Hobos fight for cash

Sex is in your mind

Crime is on the street

The good always die young

The old learn how to tweet

Money is in the bag

Bag is at the station

Someone stop the train

Lets buy a broken nation

Piss passes for water

Water turns to wine

We kill ourselves for fun

Gets a laugh every time

We are older than we look

Younger than we feel

Today I saw myself in an ad

I no longer know what’s real

I wear boots without socks

Shave my head, read a book

Got on a train only to find

Everyone has stolen my look

I’ve been a demographic

For longer than I can remember

Eat, buy, consume, die

Holiday in December

If peace were a bullet in the head

I’m pretty sure I’d take it

Until then I’ll just be happy

Or learning how to fake it

© shaun patrick green 2014

Doting Wings.

Doting wings a parent’s hands

To hold, wipe, lift and sooth

Under a blue pool-like sky

As children wobble and scoot

I hold your hand in silence

Mother to be, parent in waiting

Feel you pulsing in the sun

Held by older hands debating

Why into this world bring life

I risk it all for you my wife

© shaun patrick green 2014

Fools Way To Paradise.

If you come crashing into my evening

I will tell you death is for losers

You will bitch and fight

But in the end we will be even

You will leave the burning car

I will take the million dollars

The cops will chase us over the border

Wait, weren’t we partners?

With a bullet in my gut I guess not

So I will let you hang me out to dry

Stooge for you in this life

But don’t sweat it my sweet
I'd have done harder yards for less

Trusting the one you love

Is always a fools way to paradise

© shaun patrick green 2014

Letter to God.

There may be a force

Guiding the universe

Rather than blind science
But I cannot see it
Although I have looked
Prayers answered by silence

My wife lies sleeping
Tended by beeping machines
She may well be dying
I don’t believe in you, God

And yet I am asking

Please give me back my wife

You don’t need her

But I do, she is my love

My morning, my evening, my life

So, if you exist, intervene

I would be so grateful

Amongst so much strife

If you could find the time
In your busy schedule

To save one precious life
I have been imperfect
Let her down, been low and mean
I'll change if you give me a sign

Please grant me this one wish
You gaseous lack of rationality

And give me back my wife

© shaun patrick green

Is It Just Me Or Is The Health System Sick?

Public Hospitals don’t make money

After all they are not businesses, but

The companies that supply public hospitals

With dressings, cleaning agents, drugs,

Gowns, curtains, equipment, gloves,

Plastic food trays, Styrofoam cups,

Syringes, wipes, gowns, scrubs,

Beds, sheets, cannulas, shoes,

Soap, towels, wheelchairs, tubes

Waste collection, waste disposal,

Administration, security, childcare,

They all make money don’t they?

Question: have we created a vested

Interest in keeping people sick?

Or in making them sick then well again

Just to show the system is working?

How market driven is our health system?

How many politicians sit on the boards

Of these companies or hold shares?

And how many politicians sit on the boards

Or hold shares in the companies that

Produce products known to cause diseases

Like cancer, cirrhosis and diabetes?

These questions should be answered

Before we privatise our health system

For it seems this is not about wellness

But making the privileged even more rich

In a United States of Illness

© shaun patrick green 2014