If only he had stuck to painting murals,
if only he wasn’t driven by nature
and run over constantly
by the Greyhound buses that skipped
and lolled through the desert
and 92 degrees heat, if only
he wasn’t such an arsehole,
we might have liked him more.
If only he had found a way
to curb his appetite,
to not clip the wings
of his bird
of prey, of his chosen meal
that would stop his mind from being obsessed,
if only he could change that nature,
Does it matter what colour your passport is
as long as you can travel safely
and experience the whirlwind world,
not be covered in ivy as you recede
into a fool’s paradise of post imperial pride.
I grew up with maps of pink,
I didn’t see the point of ownership,
embrace the blue, the green, the rampant red, the saffron,
I couldn’t care less about borders,
If we all had the same, then nobody would
suffer from envy, nobody would be jealous…
in theory
The grandee pokes his head
above the parapet and cries out
earnestly for war,
it is O.K. for him, stuck as he is,
behind the lines, behind the men,
behind his comfy leather chair
and his idealism enhanced by those foolish to believe;
carry the flag boys, show some of that bulldog
breed spirit that made them whimper
in the South Atlantic, jolly good fun
in April spring, he suggests
knowing the belligerent and the uncompromising will follow
and create havoc in the press,
… and I don’t know what they told you
about my Captain, but in his life
he opened my eyes for me,
I suspect he did the same for you,
or at least tried before you clammed them shut
and shook your head from side to side
like a mad man,
like the unfeeling
and wretched,
for in your pursuit of happiness
there was one thing you forgot to learn
that a hundred pounds stolen and squandered
is nothing compared
to five minutes alone
in the woods and listening
The sleepy Tamar
at high tide in summer
may have been the sound more gentle
to those ears of a Cornish Man
and Home Park love, Green
and Pilgrim, The Hoe and the Lido
just out of earshot and Mutley Plain
a place in another county;
yet for this South West Man, Green running deep,
Tamar running deeper still
and majestic, flowing football, he traded in Pastie days
and local derby smiles
to find the meaning of life
and complete the forty-two,
an achievement of high esteem
Their marriage was always the cause
of an argument, how could it not be
when they were always at war before hand;
the union laid down with ambassadors
forever at the birthing suite,
ready with hot water and towels
as a procession of children followed
who all left home with a single
solitary finger raised in the air
as they eventually told their parents,
sometimes nicely, sometimes
through gritted teeth,
that they were old enough, mature enough
to break away and live on their own
I would wait a lifetime
to kiss you, to feel that tender skin
now sweet with middle age
and soon to become lined, matured,
taken beyond the late teen I knew
to the world of womanhood
and with the next step,
Time’s next artistic breath,
near dust, near rust, near the echo of the youthful
freckled girl I once dreamed of;
I would wait a lifetime to kiss you
as it would show we had lived all our lives
in each other’s company.
Ian D. Hall 2017
She met her old lover
on the street that night,
they ran into each other
by the corner of 77th and ‘Dam,
so she told me
and after much deliberation on her part
she found herself drinking a few beers
just out of kindness,
for she thought he was still crazy
though she still loved him
after all those years.
I wish I had met her lover,
I would have warmly shook him by the hand,
for in the way he dismissed her thoughts
An hour forward, Time again slides its hands
down my back pocket and fondles for change,
urging me to deal with the loss,
to make up Time and have an account settled early;
I wasted the moment,
I slept instead of being productive,
the type of action that would have a black mark
put aside you in a Kangaroo court of law,
the sentence…
undisclosed for now,
be satisfied, let your gloriously white teeth gnash
and grind…but hey, stop
for a minute and chew on this,
It is dangerous
to be so deluded,
that the internet for all its good
and ability to show the world
just how we strive forward in unity,
should we wish, gives a platform
to one so
bound up in her own con trick
that she can even call Australia
a place which doesn’t exist…
this modern day Atlantis,
packed to the brim with spiders
that will kill you, with Koala Bears
that are riddled with Chlamydia,
Kangaroos that made Skippy a star,
That made Paul Hogan a star,