Author Archives: Therese Trouserzoff

On The Road…Again

25 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Neville Cole

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By Neville Cole – former Pig’s Arms North American Correspondent

Boop BOOP boop, boop BOOP boop, boop BOOP boop…

The insistent tones of Skype beckoned me with all the urgency my Dell’s tiny speakers could muster. For three desperate weeks I had ignored its daily implorations but the devilish gravatar of The Pig’s Arms creator, founder and editor-in-chief, Mike Jones, virtually demanded my immediate attention. Trembling slightly, I reached out and clicked “answer with video” which prompted the gravatar to morph into the terrifying digital visage of Mr. Jones himself.

“So you’re alive after all, you old bastard!” Mike bellowed with all the warmth of a merchant marine. “I will cancel the obit I was just about to post.”

“I’m sorry, Mike,” I know I am a little behind on my submissions.”

“A little behind?” Mike guffawed. “I suppose J-Lo is a little behind too? I suppose Kim Kardashian is a little behind? I suppose Jayne Mansfield was a little behind as well!”

I’ve learned when Mike Jones gets on a pun roll it’s best to let him burn himself out, so I sat quietly by and waited which proved to be the right choice because he ended up stopping at three behinds and moving on to his main point.

“You haven’t sent me anything in months!  One day you are all gung ho to join the Movember team and next…you fall off the planet.”

“The Mo looks great, by the way, Mike!”

“Don’t interrupt…” Mike reached up with his right hand to smooth down his brimming moustache. “But thanks, the first mate isn’t too fond of it; but…I think it looks, you know…distinguished. Anyway, that’s beside the point! Do I have to remind you that you are The Pig’s Arms one-and-only official North American correspondent? We are the finest subscription-free online virtual pub and readery in the world and we currently have zero representation from the largest English proficient continent on the planet? What on earth are we paying you for?”

“You don’t actually pay me, Mike,” I noted.

“Now you sound like Hung,” Mike snapped. “Is that what this is all about? A little scratch? You think by withholding submissions you can strong arm me, eh?”

“No, I…”

“Now you listen, Neville and you listen good; because I am only going to offer this once!”

Mike paused momentarily. It’s always difficult to interpret Mike’s intentions exactly as he rarely appears online without his customary guise which includes a pair of highly reflective goggles and a horned cap made of tin foil; but I took the gap in the conversation an invitation to reply.

“I’m listening…”

“First off,” Mike hollered, “you are no longer The Pig’s official North American correspondent. You clearly have no grasp of basic journalism. As a result, this morning I conducted a successful Google search and signed an up-and-coming online reporter who is delighted for the chance to work for t-shirts and pink drink coupons. Her name is Bristol Palin and I am sure her submissions will be timely and…well, timely. ”

“Is that the offer?” I asked.

“No you damn fool,” Mike chirped, “did that sound in any fashion like an offer?”

“Well, it’s just you said I should listen carefully because you were going to make me an offer.”

“I was setting context.”

“I see,” I said, even though in truth, I didn’t.

“It seems your little stories…you know, the ones you used to write?” By now Mike’s voice was quite literally dripping with sarcasm. He had to wipe back driblets off his chin before he could continue. “Anyway, it seems you have piqued the interest an anonymous but substantial fan. He, or she, is willing to offer The Pig’s a hefty sponsorship if we can guarantee regular weekly postings from you.”

“I don’t know, Mike…” I stammered slightly. “I’ve been really busy lately and frankly I’ve been running low on story ideas as well.”

“Hear me out. I’m not done.” Mike cut me off as if the call was costing him a fortune. “I have a plan. I figured you needed a little inspiration. I want you to return to your roots. I want you to do what you do best. I want to send you out on the road…again!”

“You want to send me…” I asked suspiciously.

“All expenses paid,” Mike stammered slightly “within reason, of course.”

“Of course,” I noted.

“The people like it when you rough it a bit,” he added.

“I could make that part up.”

“No,” Mike said with increased emphasis. “It’s better for the stories if that part is real. So…are you interested?”

I have to admit I was interested but more than that I was suspicions.

“What’s the catch?”

“No catch.”

“There’s always a catch, Mike.”

“I’m telling you there’s no catch. I’ve made all the arrangements. Just say the word and I’ll have funds forwarded to you and you can be on your way.”

I was in desperate need of a break from the office and well overdue for a long holiday. I was also pretty certain I could at least get a month off and all in all an all expenses paid trip was a tempting offer indeed. Besides, if I did things right I could set myself up for a dream career. Most my favorite writers – Ernest Hemingway, Somerset Maugham, Spike Milligan, Hunter S Thompson, S.J. Perelman, Bruce Chatwin, Jack Kerouac – did their best work on the road…”

“I hate to interrupt your obvious deep thoughts,” Mike interrupted. “But I need your answer. We have to get this show on the road one way or another.”

“All right, Mike. I’ll do it.” I said without further deliberation. “I’ll just have to make some arrangements at work and put together a plan. I should be ready to head off in a few weeks.”

“A few weeks!” Mike blasted. “We can’t wait that long? We need you out there! Can’t you see? People are clamoring to live vicariously through your adventures! The world needs you on the road now!”

“But I haven’t even had a chance to think about where to go? I need to book flights, find hotels.”

“Just get in a car and drive. This is on the road not in the air! Sure, you might eventually need to take a flight or catch a train or hop on a boat…but that’s not how true adventures start! Don’t over-think this, man…that will be the death of you. Get out there and live in the moment! Then be sure to write all those moments down take a few snapshots and send it all to me post haste!” With that Mike was done with the conversation except for one final parting shot. “I’ll look for the first installment one week from today! Bon voyage!”

The moment Mike hung up my doorbell rung. I rose in a daze, shuffled to the front door and opened it. I was greeted by a man about my age and height, with the eyebrows of Groucho Marx, the haircut of Mo Howard and dressed in the traditional green and gold of the Australian national cricket team.

“G’day Nifty!” he chirped inviting himself in before I asked. “Did Mike chat with you yet?” As the man barged past me I finally recognized him as The Pig’s infamous intergalactic cricket correspondent, Hung One On.

“Hung?” I stammered with little certainty.

“Yeah, of course…who were you expecting?”

“Not you, that’s for sure. What are you doing here?”

“That depends. Did you talk to Mike yet?” Hung asked dropping his duffel in the middle of the hall and making his way directly to the fridge.

“I just got off a call with him,” I answered following the tornado on two legs to the kitchen.

“You bewdy,” Hung laughed. “Then this calls for a celebration! You got any beer?” he asked while ripping open the fridge. “Miller Lite? That don’t sound too good. That all you got?”

“Yeah, ‘fraid so,” I replied already picking up his accent.

“Well, here’s to “On The Road with Hung.” Hung passed me a bottle and took a long gulp of his own. “Strewth! Is this beer or chilled dishwater?”

“On The Road with Hung?” I repeated slowly.

“We can work out the name later, no worries.” Hung took another long gulp draining the remainder of the bottle and instinctively reaching for another. “I just figured you’re writing the stuff so your name is like, a given, you know? Don’t really need it in the title. But, that’s up to you, really. You are writing this stuff, right? You did take Mike’s offer.”

“I took the offer,” I countered “but I didn’t know about…”

“Oh, thank Christ for that,” Hung blurted. “You had me worried there for a minute. Mike’s backup plan was that I would go off alone and pretend to be you. I didn’t like that idea one bit.” Hung smiled warmly and gripped me by the shoulder with his non-drinking hand. ”We’re gonna make a great team you and I… We’ll  be like Dean Moriarty and Sal Paradise… Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo… and Bob Hope and Bing Crosby.”

“Mike didn’t mention any back up plan…”

“I didn’t like it either. No fear. You write too many bloody words. But don’t you worry, I’ll take care of everything. I’ll manage the funds, make the bookings, keep things rolling…  Maybe from time to time I’ll send in a few of my own observations; not to upstage you or nothing! Don’t worry, you won’t have to do a thing but watch and write. We’re gonna make a top team….and guess what I’ve already figured out the perfect first destination for us! Vegas, baby!”

NEXT UP: BEER AND BLOATING NEAR LAS VEGAS

Warrigal’s Friday Music – The Human Condition

21 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Warrigal Mirriyuula

≈ 25 Comments


Jackson Browne Running On Empty

Paul Young Everything Must Change

Simply Red  Holding Back The Years

Daryl & John Oates Do What You Want, Be What You Are

Linda Ronstadt Desperado

Judy Collins Both Sides Now

Sandy Denny Who Knows Where The Time Goes

Goanna Livin’ On The Razors Edge

Harry Chapin Cats In The Cradle

Dianna Krall Lets Face The Music And Dance

Elvis Costello & The Attractions Shipbuilding

XTC Making Plans For Nigel

Blood Sweat and Tears Alone

Glen Campbell Wichita Lineman

Harry Nilsson Everybody’s Talking At Me

Prince Sign Of The Times

Jimmi Hendrix All Along The Watchtower

Lou Reed Take A Walk On The Wild Side

Marvin Gaye What’s Goin’ On

Johnny Cash Hurt

Jackson Brown The Pretender

De-Chickenification – or The One

21 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay

≈ 14 Comments

Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

I guess that my forage into the World of Red Shoes gave me my first ever standard.

I can never be satisfied with a good red shoe. Even a great red shoe. This shoe I liked wasn’t the best shoe in the world, not the most attractive, not even the reddest. My professor at university spent some time talking about immanence. A kind of glow, a kind of spirit. When you know it’s good, and it’s right. What my red shoe did for me was to give me an example of something that I could hold up as a standard for what I really wanted – my immanent shoe. I had always had trouble really knowing what I wanted. So easy to be submerged by what was there, to believe that inside of that group a choice needed to be made, or the fear that I would get nothing at all.  There’s nothing at all wrong with nothing at all. It’s just waiting, and sometimes waiting is not a finite state. Maybe you can see that this was a revelation for me? And it stands with me now as a solid, companionable post that I can lean on when things get tough. I really have nothing better to do, and I like that red shoe. So I’m happy to keep looking. And wait.

My doctor said: so you are free then? Of course he wasn’t talking about the shoe, nor was he trying to make another appointment. If you are free you hardly need another appointment…I was surprised, I hadn’t realized what freedom was. It really wasn’t what I expected.

I Wasn’t Seduced

21 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by in Cricics, Critics, Everyone's a Critic, Emmjay

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Last night we went to see the renowned John Malkovich in Giacomo Variations at the Sydney Opera House.  I had high expectations after seeing him in many movies and having gone to the Steppenwolf Theatre Company’s “August: Osage County“ production at Sydney Theatre Company last year.  It was a tour de force – possibly the best theatre I’ve seen in years.  Malkovich is one of the founding actors of this Chicago-based group.

After paying $125 a seat plus $35 for parking, not forgetting the least memorable Chandon NV (for another $20 the pair), we abandoned our massive holiday treat investment at interval and didn’t return.

I’m not a huge fan of operetta or whatever the format of Giacomo Variations actually is (they called it a “staged performance”) – orchestra, opera-like singing, sort-of-lavish costumes, surtitles, spoken dialogue – but I was hoping for a lot more from John Malkovich.

I rate the acting and direction as poor, but it seemed that the real problem was with the source material – an old Casanova retelling the seductions of his youth.  Sad and pathetic. The leading part was weak, his performance tepid and the overall subject matter and production was really crook.

And I have to say that this is not the first time I have been suckered by a big name in the Sydney festival. When Cate Blanchett starred in War of the Roses, she set the low bar. Incredibly minimalist set, lacklustre cast, forgettable dialogue, truly uninspired direction.

It seemed that the organisers had fubbed it by spending all their dough on one big name – neglecting all the other things that make a memorable performance.

That just about sums it up for me with John Malkovitch as well.

I’d like to say that the music and songs were memorable, but I’d be fibbing.

One chap actually booed after about ten minutes and saved the OH staff from ejecting him – being the first to walk out unaided; unlike the ABC luminaries sitting in front of us who just dozed quietly through the first half.  So tired from working on the First Tuesday Book Club and Talking Heads, probably.

A colleague at work wanted to go and see Giacomo Variations – but last night he was preparing for a colonoscopy.  I reckon we saw more crap than he did.

If you missed Giacomo Variations, you were lucky indeed.  And richer for the experience.

*  In fairness to John Malkovich, he read an Allen Ginsberg anti-war poem – accompanying – or accompanied by Philip Glass last Tuesday at the Sydney Recital Hall.  And he was brilliant; the highlight of that performance.

Uncle Oprah Touched Me

18 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Gregor Stronach

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by Gregor Stronach

It was a cold November day when the unthinkable happened. The world changed, irreversibly, and the sad part is that none of you felt it happen.

But I was there. I know. I’ve seen.

My story begins with my trip to Chicago. I was supposed to be joining a walking tour of several large cities of the United States of America, to discover first hand the awesome beauty and style of the architecture of Kim Il Hung. Kim Il Hung was an escaped Communist sympathiser whose years in the northern death camps had cramped his ability to think in anything other that straight, vertical lines – probably something to do with the chain link fences which kept him separate from his wife for nine long years.

Anyhow – I traipsed around the Windy City, an apt name for Chicago as it was suffering some terribly blustery conditions for the entire time we were there. So too, it would seem, were the cab drivers. On their own they could well have earned Chicago its unofficial moniker on their own. Smelling worse than the Venice Canals at low tide, the taxi drivers really need to be unionised and bathed, or put out to pasture. I blame the frozen custard that everyone seems to be eating over there – by day four of my tour, I too was suffering the ‘Roaring Forties’, much to the disgust of the doorman at my hotel.

Like all good tourists, I did the tourist things. Having gotten myself thoroughly lost a couple of times, I found myself meandering down North Lakeview, coming to a stop beside the National Shrine of St. Frances Xavier Cabrini, where a poor black man was begging for change, wrapped in several layers of clothing which did nothing to protect passers-by from his smell.

“Be touched by Oprah Winfrey”, he croaked as I walked by.

I stopped dead in my tracks. Had I heard him correctly? Was this homeless man pimping for Oprah?

“Come and be touched by Oprah Winfrey”, he rattled, his rheumy eyes streaming, staring deep into my soul. He knew it was what I wanted. He knew that a simple brush with fame would seal this holiday once and for all as a life-changing experience.

I began to pepper him with questions.

“How? How is this possible? What do I need to do to make this happen?” I asked, marvelling at the prospect of returning home to London, able to tell my friends that I had been touched in a special, special way by Oprah.

“Sixty bucks”, the old man coughed, extending a polio-withered hand from the depths of his tattered rags.

I gladly handed over the cash. The mere thought of meeting Oprah Winfrey had me dancing like Snoopy – on the inside.

He led me into a dark alley, past three dumpsters and up to a plain black door. Knocking twice … pausing … then knocking six times, he stood back. The door opened a crack, and a pair of bright eyes peered out of the darkness.

“You have one?” a voice asked.

The wino nodded, pushed $40 through the door, deftly pocketing the extra $20. I didn’t mind – I’d gladly pay double that fee.

Quick as lightning, we where whisked inside. I found myself standing on a stage, 400 middle-American housewives baying for blood in an orgy of pseudo-sapphic lust. They were here to see Oprah too, each one having paid their money I assumed for the chance to be touched by Oprah.

“Get over there!”, I heard, as I was manhandled onto the couch, cheap pancake makeup applied hurriedly over my rosy cheeks and shining, perspiration damp forehead.

“You’re Robert Downey Jr, ok? Just smile, talk about drugs and hookers and the inherent sadness of the human condition. Try to imagine yourself as a star of the 80s trapped in a new millennium where cocaine is unfashionable and supermodels are only interested in each other.”

I nodded dumbly, confused as the audience went wild. Loud muisic assaulted my senses, and the rush of activity behind the cameras ceased so suddenly, I thought someone had stopped time. I looked off-stage, and gasped. It was her.

Teetering on four-inch snakeskin heels, Oprah waddled to the couch, waving to her adoring audience of Modern American Women. Having taken her applause, Oprah appeared to notice me for the first time.

“On today’s show, we have a very special guest. It’s been a long and difficult road for this extraordinarily talented young man, so I’d like a big Oprah welcome for… Robert. Downey. Junior!”

The cheering got louder than ever before, several women needing to be restrained by burly security guards as they tried to rush the stage to steal Oprah’s clothes.

She sat down next to me, turned to me with her giant bovine eyes, saying “You look amazing. After all you’ve been through… doesn’t he look amazing?”

As the ladies present barely controlled themselves, and after an implausible amount of clapping and cheering, it happened.

Oprah Winfrey put her hand on my knee …

First published by Rumandmonkey like last century

The Red Shoe

16 Sunday Jan 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay

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Painting and Story by Lehan Winifred Ramsay

I found a pair of red shoes in a shop in Melbourne.

It was a long time ago. It was a seconds shop. I brought them home not liking them much, grew to love them more than any shoes I’d ever had, wore them out. When they broke I wasn’t too perturbed. Shoes aren’t so difficult to replace. But I couldn’t ever find a replacement for them. I looked around. I found myself in Melbourne, went back to the shop. It was gone. A year after that I began looking regularly in the second hand shops, but they never appeared there. Every week for nine months I looked for them. A few years after that I realized how much I missed those shoes. Every time I went to another country I would go to shoe shops I passed, hoping that there would be a shoe like my shoe. Germany, France, Amsterdam, America, Australia, Thailand, Vietnam. I realized that my shoe shopping habits had changed. If I needed a shoe I bought one. But never did I find another pair of shoes that I MUST have.

I would go out to the shops thinking: there is this shoe I want. I could spend hours looking, never really wanting anything. Then I realized that a great thing had happened. Finally I had found something that was worth waiting for. Finally, I knew what it felt like.

Super

11 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Lehan Winifred Ramsay

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Comment and Painting by Lehan Winifred Ramsay
News of Elton John and his partner having a baby has meandered its way over to Unleashed for commentary. As usual the real grist of the discussion is on reproductive rights for gay people, usually described as equal rights versus discrimination, and as usual I’m disturbed by it. Disturbed enough to comment, my comment disturbing enough to receive critical responses. Those critical responses have me rocking back on my seat once again. Is there real cause for my comments, or are they coming from my own biases?

There is something good about these situations, I have to say. They give us cause to reconsider. I remember the case of a woman in her 60’s giving birth a few years ago through reproductive technologies. But I doubt I’d be quite as against it as I am against this. It may not have been a natural thing, but at least the baby developed in the body of the woman who would be it’s mother. But it’s a murky murky thing. What is a right body, and is every body that gives birth going to be accompanied by a woman capable of being a mother? And does it matter, that someone doesn’t have a mother?

What I find myself thinking is this. It doesn’t seem right to me, this situation. And I think I have reason to feel uncomfortable, so I am happy enough with my gut feeling and happy enough to speak out. I think it’s necessary to highlight the ways in which heterosexual people have been pushing the boundaries of reproductive and birth rights for so long. I think we need to take a good long hard look at the laws and loopholes and clean them up – from long ago. Straight people have always done what they wanted if they had the means, and people have always turned a blind eye. So why shouldn’t gay people – isn’t that the way a lot of the the arguments go? And they have a point. We need to clean up the discrepancies now that we can see them.

How does a society define what’s best for people? I really have no idea. All I know is that having a mother seems to matter to animals. A lot. So why doesn’t it matter to us?

A Psalm for Foodge

11 Tuesday Jan 2011

Posted by in Foodge Private Dick, Lehan Winifred Ramsay, Pig Psalms

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.... for gourd's sake

By Lehan Winifred Ramsay

1 What advantage then hath the Publican? or what profit (is there) of circumcision?

2 Much every way: chiefly, because that until the stirring of the Oracles the drinkers were commited.

3 For what if some should not continue their drinking? shall their women sunder the faith without effect?

4 God forbid: yea, let the Gourd be true, and every man a drinker; as it is written, That though mightest be absolved in thy Tab, and mightest overcome The Stirring when thou art served.

5 But if our unrighteous commend the righteousness of Forsaking the Gourd before it Closeth, what shall we say? And Is She who taketh our man Foodge from the Gourd a vain Gent? (I speak as a man)

Vivienne on Cookbooks

10 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Vivienne

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Pictures and Story by Vivienne

These are my favourite cookbooks and I write about them in no particular order – I love them all.

The Cook’s Companion by Stephanie Alexander (1996 and 816 pages) – This really is a ‘must have’ cookbook and that is exactly what I said to myself when I heard that it had just been published.  It is almost an encyclopaedia and very much Australian.  There is a lot of cross referencing (Stephanie is a trained librarian) and it works its way alphabetically – anchovies, apricots, bacon, coriander, lamb, melons, rabbit, sage, trotters, yabbies etc.  So, for example,  if you happen to have a big crop of X vegetable here you will find how to store, prepare and cook it.    Want to know what to do with a duck?  Stephanie gives you all you need to know to cook it chinese style, french style, in a salad or with fruit.  Her marinated boned leg of lamb is a little ripper.  This too has some basics but it is so much more and it is written with a lot of love.

Mediterranean Food by Elizabeth David  (a Penguin paperback, reprinted 1970) – This is the first cookbook I bought for myself and it is now in six pieces held together with a rubber band.  Elizabeth includes quotes from such people as Henry James regarding a lunch he had at Bourg in France – these are all fascinating and reflect her own attitude to food and eating.  Her section on eggs is amazing – two pages on the details of cooking an omelette.  Some of her recipes omit certain details but commonsense usually overcomes that and the results are always delicious.  Many recipes are remarkably short and simple (five lines on how to cook a stiphado).  Elizabeth David was a pioneer cook and ahead of her time (she also loved oysters).  A must have book.

South East Asian Cookbook by Charmaine Solomon (hardback, 1972).  Over the years I have found that even if you don’t think one of Charmaine’s dishes is ‘for you’ give it a go and trust her.  All the recipes are very good and taste great.  She takes you through India, Ceylon, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, China and Japan in just 120 pages.  If you like ‘asian’ food you can have it all in just one book – it is like a best of the best.  There is an introduction to each country but the one on Burma is significant as that was where she spent her childhood.

Wogfood – an oral history with recipes by John Newton (1996) – and my copy is autographed!  John came to Albury for a festival and I had a lovely chat with him.  When he wrote Short Black for the Sydney Morning Herald I won his competition for an original regional dish and he sent me Australia, the Beautiful Cookbook (a very big book).  Wogfood is a story of migrants from the Mediterranean and what happened to them in Australia.  Quite a number of them lived and prospered in North East Victoria as well as Melbourne.  You can read about people like Greg Malouf and his kitchen at O’Connell’s Hotel in South Melbourne.  It is 240 pages including old family photos and a good sprinkling of recipes (duck confit, fennel salad, harissa, kapamas, Italian tomato sauce etc). Wonderful reading.

Greek Cookbook by Tess Mallos – my copy from 1978.  It is an A4 paperback which starts with 26 pages on their regional specialties and the joy of sipping an ouzo while enjoying mezethakia.  The recipes are focused on soups, sauces, seafood, meats, pastries etc and they are easy (uncomplicated) and work.  If I want to do something Greek this is my first port of call.  I spent three weeks in Greece and this book reflects my experience there – all good and a lot of fun.

Lebanese Cookbook by Dawn, Elaine and Selwa Anthony – also from 1978 (A4 hardback).  It has a similar format to the Greek Cookbook.  There are suggested menus for breakfast, lunch and dinner followed by mezza, pastries, soups, fish, meats, stuffed vegetables, salads, pickles etc.  It contains the only recipe for stuffed grape vine leaves which, when I cooked it, tasted terrific and better than any I have had elsewhere.

Note:

I have a lot of cookbooks and some are only used for inspiration, others contain a few recipes which I regularly use and then there are those which contain vital information on such things as how to kindly kill a crayfish.  The last cookbook mention here is included as a basic best book – not a favourite but highly recommended.

The Australian Women’s Weekly Original Cookbook by food editor Ellen Sinclair (reprinted 1989) – a must for some people because of the fact it is excellent if you haven’t a clue how to make a pavlova or a good scone.  Follow the recipe and you’ll be very happy (Cream Scones recipe a total winner and was made often when I had plenty of homemade raspberry jam).  I don’t actually refer to this book very often but it is an excellent reference for anyone who knows little about how to cook anything.  It covers all one would need if you only ever bought one cookbook and didn’t want something which one might call ‘modern Australian cooking’.

For those who don’t care much for cookbooks, here is a photo of another part of our driveway, taken in December 2010 and proving you can grow jacarandas in frost prone areas.

Monkey-Do and Ducky

10 Monday Jan 2011

Posted by in Sandshoe

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Image and Poem by Sandshoe.

 

 

Wise Monkey-Do and Ducky waited

 

perched behind the shed’s dank, lush

 

surround of fallen vines, tangled

 

leaves and branches, a massed crush

 

of red wildflowers falling, roiling

 

off the tin roof of the gazebo,

 

bold Gold Sun’s rim glowing, dawning

 

on New Day’s rise.  Their souls akimbo,

 

the friends looked out together

 

waiting for Gold Sun’s full shine, warm

 

in their new morning’s warm-sweet air,

 

their warm friendship as warm –

 

as sweet.  Strange! Dark! Pea-green sea!

 

As still as only still can be!