environment

The Pigeon (a sonnet)

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What is the point of a pigeon?

Have you ever pondered this thought?

I’ve scanned the books, all religions,

And believe this bird to be a rort.

 

There you waddle, pecking at refuse;

Fat head bobbles, you coo and scratch;

And you can home (that’s no excuse);

Those other birds you cannot match.

 

But God must’ve something in His mind:

A niche, a role for you my friend;

In pity I wink, reason sure to find;

Stop this poem reaching a sad end.

 

But now white goo splatters my eye;

Then a wink from pigeon up on high!

 

Old Hall

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We came from near and from far,

To the hall at the end of the tar,

To dance to Frank and his band,

Far from war in another land.

 

We waltzed long into the night,

Till night gave way to first light,

Two tops in a twirl and a spin,

We danced with aplomb and a grin.

 

We joined as one in barn dance,

Chance to romance and to prance,

We thought our life was just made,

No chance of the bombs from a raid.

 

We slipped to the back of the hall,

None saw our stealth and our gall,

Not to think of whether we should,

We carved our love into the wood.

 

the floor has sprung

boarded windows clatter

in wind like a percussion solo

rats scuttle to their pit

battered paint peels

uncovering

‘Albie loves Essie’

 

a developer eyes the structure

‘Yeah, it’s a knockdown mate’.

 

A poem about cows and climate change

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A CHANGE IS IN THE WIND

 

Belch!

 

They’re watching us, these things called humans

Pens out, monitoring our rumens

Cows no fun

 

Pointing their fingers, shuffling their sheets

Murmuring about the planet’s heat

Cows help sun

 

Worried faces, showing their petulance

About our burps and our flatulence

Cows need bung

 

Uttering words, the most common ‘methane’

Hoping us cows would kindly refrain

Cow’s bad bum

 

With a gut like a still, it’s our only torment

Grass sloshes around, slow ferment

Cow’s big drum

 

Big cows with balls are the worst offenders

Blame males, that’ll help defend us

Cows well hung

 

They think it’s best to fit us with gas masks

Give us new grass to stop all the farts

Cow’s new tum

 

They’ll want us to dispose of our very own cow pats

Placing them into some underground vats

Cows no dung

 

See they carve us up or milk us bone dry

Now they say that we make all things fry

Cows hard done

 

No bull, we’re so over their bovine jokes

Go away and pick on some ‘udder’ folk

Cow bad pun

 

And don’t they belch things out, that’s a fact

What’s spewing from that factory stack?

Cows not dumb

 

See all we want to do is chew on our cud

Moo, poo, and trudge though the mud

Cows hum drum

 

So it’s over, all of this crap is enough

We’re taking a stand, getting so tough

Cows done fun

 

Let’s fight for ruminant freedom

Run with the buffalo, the sheep

Let’s herd together, fight to the end

Cows are one

 

Let’s stampede the Golden Arches

Go on long protest marches

Fight on beaches and on pastures

Even take to the air in the fastest

Cow Top Gun

 

And now the end is very near

The day that all of us cattle fear

The last to the abattoir is to be tanned

The fight was called ‘Muster’s Last Stand’

Cows out gunned

 

So if this story shocks, scares and amazes

That we Daisies could be ‘pushing up daisies’

Next time you question our windy emissions

Consider the risk of milk and meat omissions

Cow’s life done

 

(Author’s note: It is reported that ruminants, including cows, are directly responsible for 6.3% of anthropogenic global warming. Apologies to Dana Lyons for using some ideas from his song ‘Cows with Guns’)

 

 

Whittlin’ our life away

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Whittlin

See me and me cousins – old Daryl and Bede,

We sat on the porch at the front of our home,

We used to laze ‘round, have a drink and a feed,

Coz we had to make sure them cows didn’t roam.

 

Some say folk in the sticks have so little to do,

They say we have plenty of time on our hands,

But now we are part of the active crew few,

Coz for whittlin’ we are the biggest of fans.

 

We started to whittle the odd gum tree stick,

Carvin’ them sticks into nothin’ much at all,

But then after a while we gave sticks the big flick,

Coz there weren’t any more on the trees to fall.

 

We then took to whittlin’ all the wood that we found

(I know you must think this is pretty outrageous),

And all that was left were some chips on the ground,

As whittlin’ for us was becomin’ highly contagious!

 

So we called for whittlin’ help from all of our relos,

(There are lots, as not much happens in them hills),

Whittlin’ was now a big job for gals and the fellows,

Coz we were sellin’ more chips than them log cuttin’ mills.

 

Now as we’re all whittlin’, I gets to do some thinkin’,

Started to make up a tune for all of us to know,

A song ‘bout whittlin’ that would get us all a hootin’,

Let’s call it: ‘From Big Things, Little Things Grow’!

 

And thought all big words could do with a whittle,

Cut them down to size, get rid of the word pith,

It would make them word books be ever so little,

For doin’ this craft, they’ll call us a ‘wordsmith’!

 

Back from my thoughts to our whittlin’ adventure,

There’s not much wood left as you look around,

Gone are fences, the house door and its wood floor,

And there’s none of them trees still growin’ on the ground.

 

Hey, we might of overdone the extent of our wood work,

May be we couldn’t see ‘the forest for the trees’,

But we’ve just heard some news that made us all smirk:

There are lots of big trees in Brazil that are free!

 

The Plain

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The plain: uniform terrain. Plains-people: strong, resolute against drought, flooding rain … and the boredom of the plain. Does the rain fall mainly on the plain? What about the orographic effect? You’ve probably guessed by now that this is a planar poem – as flat as the plain: it rambles across this plain page. A road train rumbles through the plain to make noise to liven up the plain. The plains-wanderer is a bird that wanders across the plain trying to find and eat something that likes the pain of the plain. It builds a mound to lay its eggs and make a mountain out of a molehill … or is that bird the mallee-fowl? The plains-wanderers sometimes get run over by road trains. Stratus clouds work in parallel with plains. Planking is people trying to be plains. I would like to live on a plain, then I wouldn’t fall down a hill like Jack and Jill. Life can be a real plain: they always want you to stay calm, not show your emotional highs and lows. Have you felt emotionally controlled before? That’s a plain. And when you die and your heartbeat stops, the line on the machine you are attached to shows a plain; a plain life from birth to death. This poem is flat-lining: it’s dead. Mirages are shimmering, glitzy sirens like the Lorelei that lure you to keep travelling across the plain (beware of plains-wanderer’s mounds, road trains, bored plains-people, and death). Plains of the world unite as one – the prairie, the tundra, all plains come together and adopt a flat earth policy. But then, see, if you’re in a plane and you look down, the plain is not plain, it is: Creased, Cracked, Contoured, Colourful

I

Now

Have

A

Different

View

Of

The

Plain.

Fly

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Black-shouldered Kite (3)

FLY

Don’t you wish you could fly?

Leave the ground and touch the sky?

Don’t you want to break the mould?

Be strong? Be brave? Be tough? Be bold?

 

There you lie, thinking of what can be,

Banal life preventing you to be free,

Weighted down by routine, daily pain,

A prisoner coupled to ball and chain.

 

So look for the wings within your reach,

Fix them on, so the sage would teach,

Be Pegasus, take flight towards the sun,

Don’t give up till you’re number one.

 

The Procrastinator

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I almost didn’t write this poem

I wondered, I pondered

Walked around my home.

 

I thought of an excuse not to write

Fed the pet, placed a bet

Went and got a bite.

 

I went for walk around the block

To clear the mind, find a line

I must have writer’s block.

 

I turned the computer on again

Stared at the screen, at a scene

I was finding this a pain.

 

I almost put off procrastinating

What a shame, no words came

Sat there contemplating…

 

We almost didn’t save the Earth

Thought of money, of our tummy

Didn’t know what it was worth.

 

Poem about the rubbish in our oceans

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Plastics in The Ocean

THE GREAT PACIFIC GARBAGE PATCH*

Now
We’re in the North Pacific Gyre
To the horizon, a flotilla of plastic flotsam
Hey, there’s even the odd tyre!

We’re in the doldrums of PET remains
Bobbing up and down like sailing boats
Far from the shipping lanes.

We’re in a mire of goopity goop
A slowly spinning whirlpool of waste
A ‘messpool’ of plastic poop.

Future
“This is the best eco-tour of the fabulous five hundreds! So fly on over for a once-in-a-lifetime experience and join us for the Fantastic Plastic Tundra Tour across part of the spellbinding Northern Plastific Ocean. There’s solid pristine plastic as far as the eye can see, borne from over five hundred years of natural accumulation. You’ll be amazed at the white wilderness expanse; wonder at our plastic effigies of extinct animals like the seal, the polar bear; marvel at the size of our plastic Blue Whale – a species that once roamed the vast waters below. Far from the rat-race of our land masses you can even shed your breathing mask and take in our sterilised air. Relax in the comfort of our air conditioned skidoos that float effortlessly across the plastic ice. And then brace yourself for an exhilarating ride up Tyre Mountain from where you can take in the full expanse of the eerie, white wonderland similar to that former frozen landscape: The Arctic. And for the ultimate in ultimate experiences…bungie off a massive tyre cliff stopping only centimetres from the rock-hard plastic icesheet. This and much more to explore with our company: Plastiglorious Tours. And don’t forget our motto – ‘A Plastic Tour will mould your life!’”

(Author’s note: * There sadly is such a place)