Four poems by Jamie Dawe
Satirical Advantages of Poverty
You are born an environmental caped crusader by default
Non-existent vehicle with burbling smog fluting out
Excessive energy bills? Oh, Not you….
Cramped housing, a blanket or an open 44-gallon drum to toast up your frozen feet in the sub zero
Nothing too good for the impoverished!
The moths in the wallet detracts you from phoney donations and scams
Upmarket clothing boutiques will shoo you with your thrift shop budget
Kidnapping is an unlikely consequence under the poverty line belt
Your small palette experiences will be noted by Greenpeace
Nevertheless, the droll smorgasbord will be fixed with a lekker six pack of beer
To your minus, the Amazon will inhale the alcohol carbon over six months as you guzzle away the gloominess
Prospects of marrying up: the chances are Lilliputian
Quintessentially a land lubber, so globe-trotting is purely rhapsodical posters in travel agencies
Life’s troubles won’t be extended as specialists rely on the sickly rich
Coffins will be at bottom dollar basement prices- endangered timbers ever so tickled pink
And the ausgespielt tenet that ‘the meek shall inherit the earth’ firmly supplanted in the psyche
If that is alright with you?
Solomon’s Wisdom
The souls of the righteous engraved
With the graspable callused hands of Solomon
Mother lies underneath the tombstone
Withering flowers in vases keening
A day after burial, the son whom curses his grief: a vivid dream
“Wake up my child. There is impending seriousness as your father has left the teapot on the electric stove”
Her softness echoing an earth tremor inside him
Instinctively he telephones his Dad at 1.49 a.m. with the warning
Father drops the telephone smelling exigency
Returning to finalize the call
“But how did you know?”
This man with half a century of literary acumen
Black and white print predominantly superceding his emotions
Weeping inconsolably for his irreplaceable first love and the mother of his children
Dad went to Myers in Margaret Street the following day and used a electric kettle from that day forth
Temporary Rental
Concrete pillar cancer
Leathered surgery cosmetic epidermis
Creaking joints and hardened sinues
Muscle and free radical cell compromise
Collapsing plaque inner walls
Plumbing with the incontinent drip
Aged roofed shingles
Grimy windows of time
The octogenarian endeavouring a sedentary pathway
Unsent letter
Fossicking through a brown Grosby “They’re Great Mate” shoebox
I find an unmistakeable envelope of unrequited ardour
Joanne Corbin appeared out of left field assisting me with a 12 month old infant son Isaiah and a 6 year old Jasmine
She was a doppleganger For Honeysuckle Weeks character Samantha Stuart in the series of Foyles’ War
Doctor Kelley at 125 Russell Street informed Mum