Long Barman Poems

Five rings for fifty-one again and once more winning brings,
another pot of loser’s beer for throwing rubber rings.
That’s twenty-seven ‘freebies’ in a row, so by now it looks
like I’m the bloke who changed the record...

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One day in early summer Murphy the Irishman came to town,
He rode upon a matted mule , his face was burnt and brown,
The corks that hung from his bushman's hat persuaded flies to keep away,
But...

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Sally had been to bed with a few guys in her time, but she had never been to bed with a guy who had managed to find a lump on her breast. He told her...

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I was strolling to the entrance of the Barley Tavern,
when I was passed at quite a rate by angry Billy Brown.
He’s mumbling and cursing before he kicked the Tavern cat,
and blamed it as the reason...

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‘Beasties’ is a bar that’s run for all the local pets
It’s quite easily found because it’s next door to the vets
The barman is an Emu but he gets it in the neck
The locals call him...

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"50 Words for Poe: Strangelove"


Strangelove was waiting  
in Holdnerness
He was anticipating 
with a certain glee 
The “Arrival” of 
Ms Bon Vivant, her sharpness
and sharing conversation 
over Kumquat Jam, Scones and 
clotted cream at High...

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Out of the west, amide a beautiful sunrise… came a pie eyed son of a gun.
Looking for Armadilly Billy the Sling Shot Kidster… water gun… in hand.
He rode a very slow plug, an inchworm called...

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He enters looking bedraggled, tired and worn out, his skin like Vellum, blank and pale. Lifting his eyes to catch their gaze he gives a slight nod to acknowledge their presence. He scans the room...

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Above a cloudy jar of brine
That floated greenish hard boiled eggs,
Beside a Schlitz beer waterfall
That told bar time (ten minutes fast),
A taxidermied Jack-A-Lope
With rabbit ears and tiny rack
Stared marble eyed into the dark.
“We don’t have...

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Peg-Leg Pete the Pirate was a very evil man,
He used to eat his dinner from a filthy frying pan,
And when he’s finished eating he’d play “catch me if you can”
With his desperado first-mate known as...

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At ten o’clock each morning, the Barley Tavern opens up its door,
and every now and then I saunter down, just making sure,
that Ken the barman hasn’t slept in, so he might need a call,
to satisfy...

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Sirens, alarm bells and unscheduled drills
Intended to teach us emergency skills
On land we might jump up and run for the trees
But where does one run in these vast frigid seas

It has to be said that...

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Me gambling that once held me up now I’m afraid to utter,
has left me really in the dumps and struggling in the gutter.
No more flamin’ pokies will I play; no horses shall I back,
I’m prepared...

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A young woman named Meredith
took a cook’s job on a great ship,
raven-haired and dark of eyes,
she stood slender as a whip.

For five years she traveled wide
across the ocean’s of the world,
seeing so many exotic places,
an...

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...Gutshot snarled at Sid’s strange reaction.
“I don’t care if a century’s gone by.
You murdered my brother, and I made a vow,
to take vengeance for Paul before I die.”

Sid just shrugged back at the bandit’s cruel...

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Why do you stand to stare, old man,
Over these fields of grass,
It must be a terrible boring time,
There's nothing here to see.

No, nothing now, but I look with inward eye,
For twenty thousand years did pass
Since...

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There was a Ringer in the Basalt, Tiger Davis was his name
As an acrobatic stockman, he was gifted with some fame
On the station quite a hero, but a maniac in town
He didn't win too many,...

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2 Cowboys just been paid

1 named John
The other
1 Wayne

Walk into a Bar at approximately
2 o'clock on a tuesday aftenoon

In Old Wild West
Tombstone , Dodge City

And after 12 or so hour's later

A bell peels

Gentlemen drink up...

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The sertraline queen of New Orleans
Getting high on her brandy and coke.
Perched on a bar stool, surveying the scene,
While she lights up another smoke.

Tom Waits is playing on the radio 
“In the neighbourhood”, plodding and...

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'Buy me a pint', the old man said 
as we sat in an old Bristol bar,
'An I'll tell thee a tale that's a little bit gory 
and all for the price of a jar'.

So I...

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I once dated a weatherman
At first he had a sunny outlook…
He had our future all mapped out
But he suffered periods of deep depression so our relationship got rained off

I once dated an optician
He said he...

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I’d been droving for some months now in the harsh drought ridden outback.
Through the stations of East South Australia and along Strzlecki’s track.       
By the time I reached a...

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I remember very clearly a rendezvous’! 
It was with a nineteen-year-old Swedish girl on holiday with her friend. 
They had a room in the hotel I worked in. 
My colleague and I, a barman, 
became...

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Bloody, bloody Ezra Pound
I never got my head around
his magnum opus: The Cantos
I’ve tried so hard but goodness knows
he didn’t intend it to be easy
for me or his mate Mussolini.

Perhaps obscurantism was his policy
or perhaps...

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I'm standing here in limbo as 

I see him wander in.

That no townsman has warned him

is truly a mortal sin.

 

He slides up to the bar and 

takes a curious look around.

He orders a shot...

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