Best Housemaids Poems
He owned no fabled treasures
Nor the kingdom of a king,
No horses or elephants
Nor a catapult or a sling.
He said he owned the blue skies
Birds, animals & the trees,
Heavens had legated them
With its rivers & the seas.
Not a thread on his bare back
Belongings a pleasant smile,
He carried it far & wide
When he walked the barefoot mile.
Taken for a mendicant
Who had no home nor a stead,
He never owned a penny
Cared not for water or bread.
He greeted townsfolk like he
Greeted the thunder & rain,
Oblivious to comforts
So immune to loss and gain.
He blessed every passer-by
He blessed every beast on road,
He prayed for shrubs & blossoms
He prayed for the yew tree's load.
There were times children taunted
Strangers took him for some thief,
Housemaids were suspicious
And they refused him relief.
He knew 'twas his attire
Bony frame & beard long,
No curses spilled his parched lips
Except for an ominous song -
Oh mortal seek not treasures!
This world is a mystic inn,
Be snared not by vanity
For the heavens lie within.
A handful still adored him
Yet most over passed him by,
He wished them all his choicest
Blessings that heavens imply.
One dark day he went away
And then was seen not again,
Known lanes and pathways he trod
Seemed bare in the sun & rain.
Folks longed for benediction
Saintly songs & hymns he sang,
His gentle smote on doorways
That in blessed echoes rang.
Been eons, now folks say that -
He was an angel in guise,
They lament at their naivete
Long it took them to be wise.
Now they've cast a sepulcher
And call it the - Seer's Gate,
Townsfolk line up for blessings
So that their pains may abate.
Call it mirthful mockery
Or ironic mankind's fate,
For they fathom life backwards
Discern it never on date.
***********
Cubbie worker…
So you worked on an out station on Cubbie…
Saw the cattle tracks and also the sheep …
You were only a poor boundary rider …
On your straw bed the hut you did sleep…
The Manager ate in the dining room ….
Jackaroo's, silk shirts and ties were so neat…
Station workers they ate in the kitchen…
The rest of us on the wood heap…
The Pommy overlords sent out the workers…
Housemaids, Jackaroo's, the book keeper…
So the Aussies were duffing his cattle…
Thought Lost in the drought the grim reaper?….
Down near the river the old tribe had cut….
Left handed holes in the Coolabahs hides…
These left handed men are gone, but…
now in Goodooga descendants reside….
You saw the tracks went through the fence….
The boundary fence had opened wide ….
The cattle tracks unbranded young Micky bulls….
And Heifers were side by side….
I’m Paddy the Aboriginal I can track..
The Bunyip or Porkypine….
Boss don’t never give me a fair bloody crack….
It ain't no business of mine….hey
Don Johnson
It’s 5pm and sunny in Ohio, 40 degrees
and dropping,
by dusk it will be grey turning to red
then black.
Where is the oyster shell now?
The heavenly picture
of a pale spume-tickled .
An unmarried Tudor lady
applies more cosmetic beeswax
to a Monarch butterfly.
I will see the road from my front window
for another hour.
At some time I will eat a cheese sandwich,
At the same time
Consequently I darkly develop
a sunny-side up dawn
casually dressed omelet.
A Siamese cat, coats a Knight
with heraldic tar from a nightjar.
A clay Madonna carves out
epicanthic folds
from an African twilight.
I believe in chains of associations
leading to all possible outcomes.
House plants rent a niche of bedrock.
Plumes of cigar smoke flutter
in airless Mayan canyons.
Factory farmed Quetzalcoatl’s
hustle the leafy bustles of housemaids
as they feather dust aspidistras.
Mind can join together
one probability or another,
one word to another,
words that seem unrelated
yet together trigger an image
that feels newborn.
An iron skillet, crushes walnuts
on a coffin of dead elephants,
a black casket casts kitchen shadows.
Here’s the thing, this power
that may seem like a weakness,
actually
is the way the multi-universe works.
Camels swim an underground sea,
sand dunes wave over a once boozy tavern.
Humpback whales
recite the scriptures
of aesthetic scarab beetles.
The laws of poetically possible realities
operate for you when you follow
your imaginative mind-stream,
all these co-dependent transitional factors
want to link hands.
A speckled moonlight
chases a hen
around a weather vane
while a barnyard tornado
whisks a can of English beer.
Congratulations, you are now a creator,
demonstrating clearly
that you are a child of God.