Cartoon

 

[Cartoon]

 

Anthony Albanese,

a workhorse some call lazy;

understated, or clearly hazy?

 

Anthony Albanese

not easy being PM Albanese

in a world of tariff crazies.

 

Adam Bandt.

Did you say Adam Ant?

Prepare for a two-hour rant!

 

Adam Bandt

can’t just cannot abide cant

for it he just cannot standt!

 

Peter Dutton

in Queensland thing’s hit rock bottom,

in Denmark there’s something rotten.

 

Peter Dutton

shows he ain’t got nuthin’ -

say “Nuclear” and press his button.

 

David Littleproud

can’t pull a crowd,

has to say things very loud.

 

David Littleproud?

Yes David Littleproud,

that’s correct David Littleproud.

 

Bob Brown,

he’s been around.

No one’s going to keep him down.

 

Bob Brown

speaks with a frown

about those Capital City clowns.

 

King Charles the Third

hasn’t heard, or been referred

to Pam the Bird.

 

Charles, King of Great Britain

of whom much is written.

Once shy, now hard bitten.

 

Samantha Mostyn

says climate’s costin’

this world we’re found or lost in.

 

The same Sam Mostyn

serves tea and buns (Boston)

when the neighbours come she’s hostyn.

 

Bottle

 

[Bottle]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘Dining room at Le Cannet’ (1932)

 

Remind them of the shape of bottle

lip and neck and base and not too subtle

how it fills the space not too little.

 

Erect the form using line. incorrect colour

the time it takes to fill with water

or something sweeter or tipsier, richer.

 

Suggest body with blue patch of window,

crimson curl reflection, distant dayglow

inside glass silver liquid, go with the flow.

 

Demonstrate, using cubist traction

impressionist smudge, baroque affection,

its air of indefinite abstraction.

 

Imagine the genie who got us all here

all the questions so far yet so near.

all’s as it appears, yet changed it’s clear.

 

Write the message bottled for their word game

who still have to find out how futile is fame;

only love, work, rest, signed with your name.

 

Imply that all objects have such mystery,

the contents take effect in all their variety;

the poet said it, the world’s incorrigible plurality.

 

Describe its glassiness as simply the start

of iconic afternoon its edges prefiguring dark.

there are years wherein to appreciate the art.

 

Leave it to breathe where you saw it last

to the gaze of aging friends sharing the past

and the young who find the whole thing a blast.

Table

 

[Table]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘The Table’ (1925)

 

The head turns this way then that

so show that, with her face hidden at

an angle in thought whereat she sat.

 

The arm embraces as well as fends,

so show as veins and nerves extend

its curve, how the muscles flex and bend.

 

The hand puts all things in their place

so show how the fine parts hold in space,

move slight, or swift, with speechless grace.

 

The plate holds the earth’s goodness

so likewise show its hue and centralness

hard and round and chipped no less.

 

The knife there has ten thousand uses

so solitary, like a paintbrush that sluices

seizes on sizes, renders and reduces.

 

The bowl upholds all things their forms:

attend to the round, sharp, frilly, forlorn

each resting in transit to their next morn.

 

The table, the tablecloth picture the day,

so centre them so with the daily display

of our needs, our work, our play.

 

Then, the door exhibits our small universe

so render both dark and light as at first;

stay this side or exit, for better or worse.

 

The shadow shall speak of passing time

so define each body and object’s special line

outlined by light, and made a certain sign.

Suburb

 

Glen Huntly at Daybreak

[Suburb]

 

“march suburb haiku”

 

there’s a crack in everything

yarraville

and that’s how the light gets in

 

the compost is perfection

thomastown

the tomatoes turn bright red

 

minutes broadmeadows glenroy

pascoe vale

west brunswick on the freeway

 

pobblebonk frog from log drops

moonee ponds

into the water kerplop

 

the weekend arena of

jolimont

its roar of weekday workers

 

more green leaves than yellow leaves

collingwood

soon more yellow leaves than green

 

oh apartments apartments

south yarra

apartments more apartments!

 

the ubers go too fast through

elsternwick

and the trams go far too slow

 

cream brick fifties make way in

cheltenham

for the chocolate brick twenties

 

heatwave conditions of march

kananook

cool into daylight saving

 

glades caper and shimmer in

rosanna

eltham copper butterflies

 

patients in emergency

heidelberg

doctors talk in corridors

 

dry side toasts with rainwater

camberwell

wet side floats on gold bubbly

 

same same, same but different

glen iris

ashburton glen iris, same

 

eucalypt mural barks of

mooroolbark

and morale barks of park dogs

 

there’s vietnamese spanish

dandenong

peruvian sudanese greek

 

more carparks stores trolleys as

pakenham

grows miles in all directions

Need

 

Image: Illustration to “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy. ‘Pahóm Running to the Hillock’ by Arkady Plastov (1952), watercolour and gouache on paper. The Leo Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow. 

Reflections for the Second Sunday in Lent, the 16^th of March 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 James Joyce, who wrote the funniest novel in the English language, regarded Leo Tolstoy’s short story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need’ as “the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.” It is a story about being tempted with the promise of owning the world.

 Pahóm, a villager, listens to his wife argue with her sister, who comes from the city. The elder sister praises town life (fine clothes, good food, theatre) while the younger sister says she would not trade her peasant life; she and her husband may never grow rich, but they will always have enough, whereas rich people often lose all they have. The city, she says, surrounds people with temptations from the Devil. Pahóm agrees with his wife, but also thinks they do not have enough land. If he had more land, even the Devil would not be able to tempt him. The Devil, who is sitting unseen in the room, hears this boast and decides to give more land to ensnare him.

 And so Pahóm raises money to buy 40 acres of a deceased estate. Happiness reigns until he starts fining other peasant landowners who let cattle roam onto his land. This causes resentment. Trials are held with no outcome other than further quarrels, bribes, and ill-feeling. Soon Pahóm hears of promises of even better land some distance away on the other side of the River Volga. Selling his land, he moves there, further away from home. Crops are good, life is fine, but he then learns from a passing dealer of even better land, and cheaper, in a province 300 miles away. He takes a punt and travels all that way, taking a servant but leaving wife and family behind.

 Negotiations with the chiefs of this region, who flatter and entertain him, lead to a deal: the price of their land will be one thousand rubles a day. Pahóm is puzzled by what this means, so it is explained that he can have as much land as he can walk around in a day. If he fails to return to his starting point within that time, he will forfeit his thousand rubles. The night before the Big Walk, Pahóm in a dream meets a man who is laughing outside his tent. It’s the Chief, but he then sees it is also the land dealer of long ago and, in fact, the Devil and that at his feet is a dead man: Pahóm.

 Waking up he goes out early to walk the perimeter of the land he wishes to own. The chiefs watch, the day is hot, and he walks for a long time, morning into afternoon then evening. Exhausted, he goes faster and faster and breaks into a run, discarding his coat, boots, and flask. The sun is close to the horizon as he rushes towards the chiefs and collapses in front of them, touching the Chief’s cap, in which his money lies. The Chief declares that Pahóm has acquired a lot of land. However, when Pahóm’s servant runs to him, he finds that Pahóm is dead. The servant digs a grave and buries him.

 After striving for so long to acquire land, all the land Pahóm needs now is six feet.

 

Secret

 

Iso-mandala No. 162 (October 2020)

[Secret]

 

secrets flare up from coals alive in ash

containment lines detect the nascent flash

stop turning my mood into burning trash

 

others congregate around a name

yours or mine or theirs it’s never the same

given what’s the game or who is to blame

 

secrets exist in various sizes

so many metaphoric reprises

deliver the same old instant surprises

 

daylight is no obstacle to dream

secrets secreted burst into words, seem

undercover yet ever on the scene

 

spell them out on the page for all to gaze

secrets that have become set in their ways

they still shatter peace or frighten the days

 

but what guilt or guard or hurt or fear

made them secrets likely to reappear

keep us in the dark where the price is dear

 

I would be freed of their inner power

the years cannot undo to spoil the hour

of their return and the doubts that sour

 

can but offer them in secret, my own

known or forgot, to the only unknown

to whom all desires and secrets shown

 

are there made real in their act of reveal

their dash and shame and cries and schemes unsealed

tears and cowers and groans let go, appealed

 

 

 

 

 

Scripsi

 

[Scripsi]

 

quod scripsi, scripsi

even when glitzy, bitsy

sober judge or tipsy gypsy

 

what I have written

bitten smitten befittin’ never quittin’

I have written

 

quod scripsi, scripsit

snipsit flipsit blipsit shitsit

eejit whatsit generates great slabs blitzit

 

what I have written it has written

splittin’ patent profits on ill-fittin’

prose more worse than bulwer-lytton

Room

 

[Room]

 

“1968 kusama lyric”

 

in a white room

with black curtains

in the station

 

you made teardrops

endless circles

goodbye homeland

 

phallic rowboats

naked dresses

tired starlings

 

endless english

softly spoken

now forgotten

 

you stepped into

such a black lake

from your high-rise

 

in the last room

hang one thousand

candelabra

 

all the mirrors

neon ladders

explanations

 

you’ll say no strings

can secure you

just beginning

 

stars out of reach

as steps ascend

the work never ends

 

all left behind

where the shadows

run from themselves

Idiot

 

from 'We are All in the Dumps with Jack and Guy', by Maurice Sendak (1993)

[Idiot]

 

the useful idiot

of the global village

pushes people’s buttons

 

the life of the party

wants to clear the room

of anyone but his

 

the prince of lies

doesn’t read books

as a rule

 

the artist of the deal

takes all the money

and runs

 

the moving target

is no. 1 with a bullet

but runs out of time

 

the feet of clay

feels poorly

and well drops dead

 

many are the dead

who leave unread

his gaslight biography

 

Traffic

 

[Traffic]

 

“february traffic haiku “

 

numerous examples of

motorcar

queue enormously at peak

 

mini glances from windows then

minibus

school kids return to scrolling

 

light angular insectoid

bicycles

swarm and split fly out of sight

 

useless extras bedeck brute

utilities

aerials bullbars pipeflaps

 

life offers visions like an

ambulance

ferrying forth against death

 

do not cut in front of a

three-piece tram

hundred rhinos are not wrong

 

mobile heartbeat at the lights

crossover

disco on wheels squeals and goes

 

mountainous turns corners the

tourist bus

leaving vistas in its wake

 

armed with map locations the

campervan

knows there is no place like home

 

burning through midday extremes

fire truck

lights up the street its alarm

 

three-sixty-degree access

e-scooters

park across well-trod footpaths

 

blinkering gasolineing

limousines

careering desiring

 

modest undemonstrative

couriers

send the message emails can’t

 

shaggy the secret life of

panel vans

behind smooth exteriors

 

driving home the full import

vehicles

sporting their exotic names

 

wheels within wheels fast forward

police car

time catching up with the crime

 

lawless clueless lightless a

pizza-bike

runs the red with late orders

 

 

 

Dotless

 

Infinity Dots (1953) Yayloi Kusama

[Dotless]

 

“kusama englyn penfyr”

 

we cannot see cannot guess deep darkness

blackness offers no suggest

more dark we mark, never less

 

should a dot the eyes enter through doubtless

dauntless as though the centre,

dotless no more, frequenter

 

with eyes to see, say why and spy, day walk

cakewalk where there’s only eye

and no full stop only i

 

imagining being initialling

initiating seeing

joyful creating freeing

 

ink stained galaxies innate progressive

impressively scintillate

infinitely impregnate

 

 

Child

 

[Child]

 

“kusama englyn penfyr”

 

war is over her atoms all dotted

besotted as she is some

over every single item

six-sided rooms of mirror are this child’s

exiled universe of wonder

and small margin of terror

 

her infinity ladders disappear

reappear taking matters

in hand now clustered shattered

 

endless paintbox timeless splotch of her brush

is the crush she has with touch

whether masterpiece or botch

 

millions of red flowers glow glossy

bossy as she is powered

by their delicate hours

Pumpkin

 

'Pumpkin' (1981) by Yayoi Kusama

[Pumpkin]

 

what do we see in the pumpkin

there amidst morning tendrils

that wasn’t there yesterday

 

skin hard in the round light

where it rests on the ground found

amidst sounds of grass, wind and leaf

 

cut open the pumpkin to find

more sun firm fibre condensed

and seed chambers in numbers

 

admittedly often happily

there’s nothing to say

just us and the pumpkin out in the open

 

where mood improves

in the presence of this little planet

hard outside not that hard inside

 

but what does she see in the pumpkin

holding it tight like a child

lonely in the clinic and out

 

all you need is love

and the creation and the pumpkin

the ultimate anti-depressant

 

what in wartime she knew

was main sustenance, aid to

all thought that will get her through

 

the pumpkin’s humanness

tenderness humourousness

unpretentiousness

 

buried in clumps of compost

pumpkinseeds

return curved in great green clouds

 

only then what do you see in

the pumpkin that would be something

really would be something

 

a simple question simply answered

not simply a suggestion but

an appealing manifestation

 

plain as day warts and all

big as they come all sizes

protuberant or else squat

 

or just pumpkin pumpkin

pumpkin pumpkin pumpkin

cut from its cord for the kitchen table

 

soup prolifically squashed

roast pronouncedly sweet

pie productively sliced

 

 

 

Online

 

[Online]

 

do you ever feel spoken to

by online does online ever

reach you where you’re at

 

is online your main learning tool

what’s the first think you think

when you see the word online

 

do you wake or sleep online

does online enhance your sleep

or keep you awake all night

 

this survey takes only a minute

does online lift your spirit offer

all the spirituality you need

 

do you use the wasted time app

to measure how much online

could be spent on something else

 

when the scroll fights

when the troll bites

when you’re feeling sad

 

do you simply remember

your favourites online and

everything feels alright

 

sorry actually this survey

takes several hours

but you can pause at any time

 

would you describe your current

online presence as vacant

glancing nonchalant pedestrian

 

academic insomniac

omnivorous omniscient

psychopathic trumpian

 

all of the above

if online fell over today

never to recover would you

 

go in search of another spirituality

sort it out over a cup of tea

or 2, 3, 4, 5 cups please specify

 

return to writing letters by hand

go to the kusama show

for the afternoon spit the dummy

 

what will online do in retirement

take up shuttlecock ring triple-0

retell its carer old clickbait stories?