Heartlines

I’m passionless, devoid of all desire,
an empty vessel in the cause of love.
My libido has sunk into the mire
of despond – I need a forceful shove
or, at the very least, a helping hand.
Oh, who can aid me in this hour of need?
If anyone can, to you I plead.
Viagra? Ah, I knew you’d understand!
Chemical enhancement is such a boon –
much like a second honeymoon –
and stimulates the flagging horse
to clear the fence and stay the course.
Hats off, I say, to medical science,
to it I’ll give my full compliance.

Bill Fitzsimons

“Such is life.” Reputed to be the final words of the Australian outlaw,
Ned Kelly, before he was hanged at Melbourne in 1880.

A life, a death.
What’s one more life
(or death) in this
hard world?

Man is born of woman—
in this case
Mrs. Kelly
and her son Ned.

A wild colonial boy,
horse thief, bushranger
and mythical figure;

another man
in an iron mask;
a man whose passions
led inexorably
to the gallows.

Man who is born
of woman hath
but a short time
to live—

Mrs. Kelly, behold thy son.

Such is life.

Bill Fitzsimons

Last night, in the morning, I gandered down the wooden stairs,
ate jellied eels for breakfast with my pals, the grizzly bears.
Just a normal day so far but, as we slurped our dishes,
I heard a floosome noise outside – sploshy, splashy, splishy.

So I opened up the hatches to see what I could see
and, to my utter flabber, there’s an elephant up a tree.
‘I’m very sad,’ he wozzled, ‘And I’m in an awful muddle.’
He shed a tear and then another till they formed giant puddle.

‘I’ve lost my tusks,’ he told me with a tragivistal frown
and he recounted how they’d vanished as his circus came to town.
‘An elephant without his tusks is just a just a simple nelly,’
he sighed and cried another tear, his face dissolved like jelly.

I grabbed my hat and coat, my bag and shoogly purse
‘Wait here,’ I said because I couldn’t think of anything worse
to happen to an elephant than to lose his winsome finery
– his splendid white appendages made up of shiny ivory.

Down the local supermarket there was an oofly queue
and I wondered for a moment what in wetwang I should do
The nelly was performing in a show that very night –
he had to have some tusks for his moment in the spotlight.

Then luckily a singing squid danced past in purple pantaloons
and the queue fanoodled after her as she played her squidgy toons.
So I grockled through the sliding doors and shouted for some help
and such was my excitement, I let out a little belch.

‘Oh, lucky you,’ a colleague clucked and snapped her chicken beak,
‘Replacement tusks have gone on offer just this very week.’
‘Buy one get one free,’ I carpled with delight.
I’ll take a dozen of them – I imagine that will be alright.’

I crackled home in high calloo to tell the treesome creature
that I’d got the tusks he needed to restore his finest feature
but when I gurgled up the road the nelly wasn’t there –
I would have called his name but what it was, I’d no idea.

There were no footprints in the grass, no clues at all, no sign

–   just a giant muddy puddle to show he’d been at mine.
I nearly threw the BOGOF tusks into my wheelie bin
but, if you should see him, please invite him to call in.

You see I didn’t throw those tusks away – I’ve kept them just in case
and if he calls again then I might fling them in his face.

Liz McPherson

She is gone.
No longer will her sleepy smile
greet me in the morning,
her warm arms embrace me.

She is gone,
yet her aura lingers
in the night breeze from
an open window;
a soft whisper
in my ear, just before sleep.

She is gone –
yet somehow she is still with me.

Bill Fitzsimons

I look in the mirror and what do I see?
The image of an aging chimpanzee.
Black-button eyes and grizzled face,
a simian angel fallen from grace.
My body hair is fading fast
(how much longer can it last?)
My teeth are yellowing with age:
I hear that implants are all the rage.
All in all, I’m in a mess –
help, SOS, I’m in distress!

Bill Fitzsimons

…or some other far-flung destination
is what my disillusioned spirit craves.
To escape the humdrum of the quotidian,
the stress of everyday monotony is, I believe,
the duty – nay, the imperative – of the questing
mind, the hungry imagination.

And India would serve that hunger well.
Not the sweltering slums of Calcutta
or the hopeless misery of impoverished millions;
the fly-blown carcasses of the fallen dead;
the complete despair in the eyes of small children:
such brute reality demands a different response.

No, the India I seek is another realm,
where moonlight gleams on temple ruins
and colourful birds delight the eye
each sun-washed day; an India
where Dr. Aziz still yearns to impress
Miss Quested in the echoing Malabar Caves.

Such an India may not exist outside
the pages of Forster’s novel; an India
of the pining heart, rather than
the reasoning mind, but the sorcery
lingers, the spell will not be broken –
my ship awaits and Miss Quested beckons.

Bill Fitzsimons

I park the car,
turn off the wipers,
stand in the rain a while to get my bearings,
then collect a trolley.
You look up and nod
your head half hidden in your parka’s sodden fur
as the automatic doors part –
my smile hidden by the mask.
Can you see it in my eyes?
Do you care?
I push on, brisk in my search
for life’s necessities – Brie, wine, washing up liquid.
Discomforted by your presence
till, by the salad veg,
I forget your soft brown eyes, prematurely weathered face.

I park the car,
turn off the heater
tuck the woollen scarf around my neck
before I get a trolley.
See you seated in the self same place
beside the automatic doors.
I’ve come prepared,
Drop my two pound coin into the paper cup.
Thanks, you say.
I briefly ponder homelessness
as I’m engulfed by Tesco’s,
The image – you inside your sleeping bag,
a bedraggled chrysalis,
stays with me till I reach the eggs.

I park the car,
close the windows.
Turn to fetch a trolley.
Any spare change? You, standing in the sun,
a full fledged adult moth.
I’m starving, you say.
I show both empty palms. No cash, I say.
But wait. I scrabble in the cars ash tray.
It’s all I’ve got, drop the single coin
into your outstretched hand.
But it’s not enough.
I’m at the toilet rolls still wondering
what that paltry pound could buy.

I find you in the trolley park
fixing a roll-up.
Present the ploughman’s sandwich,
prawn cocktail crisps
and buttered malt loaf – a ‘Meal Deal,’
Your thanks so hard it hurts.
Is this all there is?
Is respect, compassion, care,
reflected in a few coins here and there,
some food?

I park the car and get a trolley,
coins in hand.
Where you should be now stands
a rack of bedding plants.
I think of my own son. How, once,
I’d hoped a stranger would show kindness
were he in need, and move on.

Cate Anderson