Norseman 93/4/10 6pm
Who would live in a place like this?
You'd have to be out of your mind!
All there is is the tyres that hiss
And the tourists who unwind.
Forty-five minutes of serving beef
And lamb with veg annd gravy
Stuck in the desert in stifling heat -
I'd rather join the navy!
Kimba 93/4/11 Noon
Statistically speaking, the grasshpopper's hops
Cannot keep it dry from the falling drops
For the cov'rage of the rain as it falls upon the earth
Is a million times as great as the grasshopper's girth.
Yet he does survive as the rain spits down
Spattering the earth and turning it to brown
Nothing seems to hit him as he squats him there
In amongst the rain-drops on the red earth bare.
Mottled is the dust with craters of mud
Each drop lands with an eching thud
Grasshopper sits with a confident air
Then leaps to a tussock and disappears there.
(Monday, May 10, 1993)
Chicken in the roadway and Buzzard in the sky
Eagle on the mountain and buzzy little fly
Humming bird is hov'ring on its tiny little wings,
Everything about me is a cause for me to sing.
Kiddies in the playground, commuters on the train
Truckers on the highway and stewards on the 'plane
Looking for a tiger, ride an elephant
Everything that moves gives a rhythm to my chant.
Cows in the paddock and horses in the field
Weasel in the undergrowth thinks he is concealed
Rabbit in his burrow and badger in his lair
Everthing upon the ground is in my little air.
Eng-e-land and Germany, Netherlands and Spain
Every country's rhythm gives a simple sweet refrain
Singapore, America, Canada and France
Jumping in my head with a silly little dance.
93/3/18
She don't know what it is that's happened to her life
It seemed so simple just one week ago.
They could be lovers, friends, or even man and wife
But now he says he really has to go.
"Will you come back again?"
"Of course I will, you know my place is here"
"Will you come back again?"
"But surely, for my love for you is dear".
She don't know what to say to tell him how it feels,
Each time she tries the words inside, her head just spins and reels.
She can't remember how it was the day before they met
But now he's going, there's memories she knows she can't forget.
"Will you come back again?"
"Oh honey! I can't stay away too long"
"Will you come back again?"
"My lover, not to come back would be wrong".
Try as she might, she finds no way to keep him here,
She knows he has to go, she knows he has to go.
She lies awake at night, she doesn't sleep, she doesn't care,
She knows he has to go, she knows he has to go.
She goes to work each day, stale, worn-out, and a wreck
Her eyes are red, short-tempered, there's a pain inside her neck.
She hates each day, for at its end, she's knows it's drawn ahead,
When he'll be gone, and she'll be here with words she's left unsaid.
She's in her forties, been in love like this before,
But never met a lover who could make so high a score.
She knows that when the plane takes off and he's up there in flight
A tiny part of her will die each lonely, loveless night.
He's off to his home country, that's the reason that he's flying,
The hours tick by like minutes, every second finds her crying.
At Saturday come six o'clock he'll break from her embrace
Go off, to leave an emptiness, a bitter painful space.
The best part of a year they two have talked each day by 'phone
Felt good to dial his number, and to know she's not alone.
By Sunday it will hit her as she leaves to go to church
He's gone, he's gone, she's left alone, unloved, and in the lurch.