Our village is currently besieged by an invasion of Little Corellas. (They are hardly little but they are smaller than their close relatives, cockatoos and galahs.) I exaggerate not when I say they number in the hundreds. They can strip a tree of its leaves or denude a sports ground in no time. Originally a desert bird, as a result of droughts, loss of habitat and making connections with liberated caged birds, they have migrated to cereal farms, cities and the coast for their rich pickings.

Glorying in birds is in the DNA of the denizens of Chez Jacquier and we understand the environmental payback at work here. However their unrelenting high-pitched screeching from early morning until late at night has slipped into the realms of cruel and unusual punishment. If Hitchcock had used them in The Birds, audiences would have run screaming into the street before the end of the first reel.

Well, just move them on, I barely hear you cry above the cacophony. Unfortunately every community in Australia has tried that, with little success beyond the immediate term. Corellas are highly intelligent and have a very sophisticated communication system, so they quickly realise that whatever noise you create or visual deterrent you manufacture it is entirely harmless and can be routinely ignored. Drones have been tried but they are too smart for them. Ultimately, limited culling (i.e. blasting the little buggers with shotguns) becomes part of the strategy but again has little long-term effect and is of limited value in towns and suburbs for safety reasons. (Indeed, they have been seen to immediately roost on suburban roofs at the first shot.)

In fairness (not that they deserve that level of consideration), they are yet to attack our garden or our trees (unlike the wantonly destructive galahs) and we only pounce when they start to ground feed on our peripheries. Up until now, vigorous bashing together of baking trays and wading into the flock accords us some relief close to home. However the chorus from hell from the middle distance ruins any hope of a peaceful sojourn outdoors in the early mornings and evenings, which is, after all, one of the great rewards for diligent gardeners.

I am reliably informed that they will move on at the end of March, which is about as comforting as being told that’s when your jailer will cease to suspend you by your ankles. Until then, it is difficult not to contemplate how a certain virus that’s doing the rounds might be introduced to their number. Corella-19 may be just the thing we need to deal with those flocking corellas.

Yesterday, before we planned the future,

I watched you scan the room

and discretely re-arrange it

to make his wheelchair entry as smooth as your own.

As the room talked,

you led the listening to him

and planted your thoughts on the borders

of his lifetime garden.

At some signal I did not see,

the two of you left and returned as one,

either having been to the toilet

or to visit the Queen.

At lunch, you invited me to sit with you

and share his jokes

and learn that food can be thereabouts

and still sustain.

That night, I recited my mantra,

‘To plan is to cease to be a victim’,

but as I lay there sleepless in the dark

I heard myself whistling.

In the morning, I arrived before everyone else,

so I could clear his pathway

and laughed as he rolled in, without you,

waving his plan like a flag of independence.

For my wife, Sue.

There are no bricks and mortar

to stand in place of a life lived

not for the moment

but in the moment

so that all times are momentous.

If your life is to simply stand still,

then be still.

If it is to be simple

then let it be simple.

Who is to know what great things

came from the simplest moments of stillness

in the hearts and minds

of the high and the low?

Give what troubles you a name,

rage against it,

bury it,

grieve for it,

and be released

for life.

And I will try

to be silent

to listen

to be here

to mind my own soul (and not yours)

to give what is mine to give

through life lived

in the moment

so that all times are momentous

especially with you.

My intended career as a teacher ended two days into my first placement. I was assigned a school in suburban Melbourne in my own area. My first solo class was to enlighten a group of teenagers, including some I knew that were recycling through the system, about the depth of meaning in King Lear. The partially sighted leading the blind doesn’t begin to cover it. That, and the cynical funk that pervaded the staff room, persuaded me, purely on a whim, to join my mate, Barney, on a pilgrimage to Sydney, that fabled city to the north where all things were possible.

On the overnight train, I slept on the bench seat, the other guy in our compartment slept on the floor and Barney was so skinny he slept in the iron luggage rack (comfortable it would seem from the sound of his snoring).

On arrival, we made our way to the share house where two previous adventurers we knew were staying. We dossed on their floor for a few days until the landlord evicted us for freeloading and other nefarious acts and, after a brief stay in a cockroach-infested room in Kings Cross, we ended up in a boarding house in North Sydney.

Two young men in a room, sharing a bathroom with multiple others and feeding sixpences into the metered gas heater that threatened to explode at any moment. We were living the dream. We could tell the days of the week by the cooked breakfast that was provided in a common dining room. Lunch and dinner were our own look-out. Hamburgers, fish and chips, and Chinese take-away were our three closest friends.

At a time when unemployment barely existed, we had trouble in getting a job initially. Barney’s career as a canny judge of horse flesh was short-lived, despite his constant assurances that his system had to work in the long run. The trouble was his wallet existed very much in the short run.

Eventually I landed an interview for a job as a driver for a hardware company in North Sydney. Before I left Melbourne, a friend had given me a 50c piece to keep in my wallet so I’d never be broke. I spent that 50c on the train fare to the interview and had no plan beyond that day. Of course I lied through my teeth about my experience and knowledge of Sydney’s highways and byways and omitted the fact that I had never driven a truck. I was stunned when I was offered the job, starting the next day.

Barney had accidentally bet against his system and was temporarily flush, so I was able to cadge a couple of dollars until payday. Turning up bright and early, I was assigned a loaded truck and handed my delivery schedule. Waving cheekily as I departed the warehouse, I immediately pulled up around the corner and consulted the mangled, ancient street directory in the truck.

It appeared my first run involved taking the Harbour Bridge for part of the journey and then peeling off onto the Cahill Expressway. At my first attempt, I didn’t unpeel in time and ended up at the toll gates at the other end of the Bridge. A sympathetic toll booth attendant took pity on me and allowed me to return for a further attempt at no charge.

Except I missed it again. This time the toll booth guy was mightily unimpressed but must have concluded I was mentally defective in some way and let me go around once more. This time I nailed the correct lane and was about to meet the Cahill Expressway when the engine coughed and stopped. For the first time I looked at the fuel gauge and it was so far into Empty it was practically exiting the dial.

In the rear vision mirror, a conga line of horn-blaring vehicles was rapidly assembling, followed shortly after by a Bridge official. Apparently idiots like me were common, so he resignedly drove me to the toll booths and handed me a phone to ring my boss.

Ken was beyond apoplectic by the time he arrived in his XJ6 Jaguar with a jerry can. As I poured the petrol into the truck’s tank, I asked how far this would get me. Through gritted teeth he guessed enough to do the deliveries but I’d need to top up to return. When I quietly advised him I had no money with which to complete that task, I thought Ken was going to explode as the colour of his face turned brick red. Without a word he grabbed his wallet, stuffed $20 into my hand and stormed off.

Miraculously, I completed the deliveries without mishap and returned to the depot, with great apprehension. Ken was waiting in his office. Instead of the dismemberment I was expecting, Ken asked me to tell my story. I confessed all, including my abject poverty, and he studied me closely for a while.

‘OK, you’ve got a week. Besides, you owe me $20 from today and this $20 to tide you over.’ He slid the note across the desk. ‘Now, get out of my sight.’

That night Barney asked how my first day went. Of course, I lied.

In the 6 months I worked for him, Ken would go on to fire and re-hire me three times. He was a crass cowboy who had inherited a thriving business by marrying the homely daughter of the owner, whom he would later abandon for a much younger trophy wife. But he kept the wolf from the door for a bunch of basically honest but largely incompetent misfits, just like himself.

Proud to have been part of the launch of Friendly Street’s New Poets 21 collection last night, in company with Tarla Ritchie and Mark Kramer. If you’d like to buy a copy, they’re a bit old school on payments and there are no e-book versions available but we’d all be pleased if you could see your way clear to having this collection on your bookshelf. 

http://friendlystreetpoets.org.au/…/new-poets-21-now-avail…/

This is my response to the prompt ‘Warning Labels’ from The A Mused Poetry Contest

The fridge magnet letters spilled out on the table,

followed by the numbers and then a WARNING label.

‘Some more advanced children may well be prone

to spell out things you may not condone.’

Piffle, I snorted, as I added them to the door;

my kids are more adult and their taste is not poor.

What I hadn’t allowed for was their merciless wit

and their ability to give visitors an apoplectic fit.

Thus ‘HELLO BABE’ was what greeted tubby Mrs. Foster

and her balding hubby got NICE RUG. WHAT DID IT COST YER?

The Reverend was rocked by DO SHOES HAVE SOULS?

and Granny by HAVE YOU TRIED SHAVING YOUR HAIRY MOLES?

I gathered the clan and in a voice loud and ringing

said that any more pranks and their ears would be singing.

All was quiet for a while but you can’t stop temptation;

I was greeted with KIDS ARE CAUSED BY MULTIPLICATION.

Despite myself, I couldn’t stop laughing and arranged my reaction

ALL PROBLEMS CAN BE SOLVED WITH A LITTLE SUBTRACTION.

Game over but they must have the last word they decided

with the finale WE CANNOT STAND A HOUSE DIVIDED.

You’re like:

Abseiling (if you could teach an abalone to seil)

Busking in Brunswick with a balalaika,

Cats who only eat Dine,

Dancing (strictly no ballroom),

Ease (only accomplished without practice)

Fencing without a face mask,

G, but with no strings attached,

Honesty (often unseemly and embarrassing),

Intelligence (seldom found disappearing up itself),

Joy (beware of limitations),

Knowledge, useful for renovating prejudice,

Love, proudly irrational,

Milk, wholesome but abandoned in hot weather,

No (there’s no part of it you don’t understand),

Outrage, the truly righteous emotion,

Psychology, but only if you want to be,

Quagmires, only dangerous to quag dancers,

Romance, but more boon than Mills,

Similarity, except for the differences,

Treasure, unreachable to those without a clue,

Us (fascinating, witty, and cultured)

Vulgarity, forgiven when delivered with panache,

Water (but only when the champagne runs out)

Xanthippe, (the wife of Socrates), the real inventor of Socratic irony,

Yoghurt, just off enough to be attractive,

And, finally,

Zero, rounded, whole,

and nothing more nor less than what you want to be.

Sonnet: Be still, my swell-ed heart

I did but see her glassy-eyed, astride

her pied ride as she wended to her home

sighing in her saddle set to the side,

clutching her cask of wine to her bos-ome

Full sore my lovesick heart (and other parts) swell-ed

as Cupid’s arrow shrived my mortal soul

and I resolved to plight my troth once held

by the Fair Young Maid at my watering hole.

Dark Lady, I fulsome cried, be my bride

and let us to Lethe flee and there be wed.

She fix-ed me full-faced but gimlet-eyed

and intoned words that ‘minded of the dead.

“Marry, not marry, for I am wed to Sid

but as to your other needs, whatsay twenty quid*?”

*British slang for a pound

Shakes peer

‘Now is the winter of our wet cement’

quoth Lucy in her sty with diamonds in her silk-purse ears.

Meanwhile, in a battlefield far, far, away, Dicky Three hunched his back,

despairing at the sward strewn with sordid, sworded bodies in his path

and cried ‘A hearse, a hearse, my kingdom for a hearse’.

Hearing nothing but the sounds of silence he bellowed

‘Unleash the dogs of war. Out, damn-ed Spot and yes, you, Fido,

and you, frumious Bandersnatch.

And let no-one ask who let the dogs out.’

But alas, alack, the dud plan of attack now needed a patsy stone.

He roared so all could hear,

“Cry ‘Harry (and Meghan), England and Boy George’ ”

and hied himself to the tintinnabulation of the belfry of Notre Dame.

Thus it was left to the immoral bard, TS (George) Eliot to record,

on a cold, bright day whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

and the clock was striking thirteen,

“This is the way the world ends,

not with a clang but a boom-tish.”

God ignoring the bleak midwinter

The bleak midwinter arrived in

the middle of winter

and it was bleak.

Not moor bleak;

more bleak than that.

The wind was keen,

not in that American neat way

nor like mustard,

but sharp

and bleak

because it was midwinter.

I watched it being bleak midwinter

but I don’t think God did.