Part II

51.	Near The Square

Each day, some sad time ago,
the staunch students milled around
the teeming square to be shot 
by the swarm of cameramen
for the consumption of that 
so called news abroad, and then 
before too long news was found 
already canned for the sending
in the slaughter of protest,
in the light of burning tanks,
before drugged peasant soldiers 
marching in their stiff hard ranks
opened fire at point blank range.
Instructed, taught to do so,
then and there, enraged, told that
the masses were in the throes
of a real revolution,
now a blind necessity,
which in hindsight is not that 
too far from the honest truth.
How much longer can old men 
stamp the lives of others with 
their own brand of selfish ends 
ensuring a lifestyle of 
hidden palace luxury 
denied only in name by
corrupt hypocritical 
societies of thieving
proxy murdering gangsters,
bandits of the treasury,
masterful masters of a
state led immorality, 
men who know no measure of
common decent humanity,
men who know not the deeper
culture of their own country?!
A bickering, back-stabbing
band of faceless men loosing
face, a band of tasteless men
let loose on society!!

52.	On The Beach

1.	O down by the sea today
I found a half dead dolphin,
stranded in the rippling play 
of the surf, struggling to free
itself from a rotting net,
bits of a drifting curtain
of death, although not dead yet!

Shame, shame, there be,
	in that savage month of January!

2.	O down by the sea today
the young mother swore a curse
on that speeding jet boating
maniac skirting the bay.
Might you drown you thick blockhead,
don't you see the children surf
on this beach where you just sped!

Speed on, speed on
	speed the crazy yuppies in February!

3.	O down by the sea today
the early fishermen caught
a floating naked body,
headless, half eaten away.
A poor suicide perhaps,
failed drug runner more likely
caught cheating the local chaps?!

Make way, make way,
	said the Mafia in that mad month of March!

4.	O down by the sea today
saw the pine trees dying,
in the breezes from the spray
washing detergents repay
our political foresight,
passing the buck out to sea
sets other problems alight!

Well washed, well washed
	were all the stormy beaches that April!

5.	O down by the sea today
we found an icy oil slick
on the beach, a runaway,
some bilge-room castaway
dumped in the middle of night, 
one more midnight passing ship,
out of mind and out of sight!

Hooray, hooray,
	please shout hooray for the jolly month of May!

6.	O down by the sea today
found the jetsam and flotsam
high on the high tide line lay,
plastic relics that betray
a wasteful society set 
to end out its days like some
old shipwrecked supermarket!

Thrown away, thrown away
	was the miserable tune sung in June!

7.	O down by the sea today
stumbled on one more needle,
one more syringe thrown away
fresh with blood, used that day.
Angry with the world could yell
aloud shoot all the addicts 
at dawn, boot them off to hell!

Instead cried out
	have pity for such humanity that July!
	
8.	O down by the sea today
stopped to ponder on the way 
how muddy was this sandy 
beach now bleached a dreary grey.
Slash the forests you farm hacks,
silt the rivers and harbours,
drain, reclaim the marshy tracts!

Such lust, such lust
	for land grabbing in that month of August!

9.	O down by the sea today
saw the wrecking of a reef 
so systematic in its way
that even fisherfolk complain
that their catch cannot compete
with days of yore, twice the work
cannot complete such a feat!

Stop thief, stop thief,
	they grumbled all that hungry September!

10.	O down by the sea today
saw a school of floating fish 
all stony dead, an inlay
bobbing on the water, nay,
vomit moved by the surging 
flow of the tide to and fro,
signs of industrial purging!

Discharge, discharge,
	saw poison pollute that poor October!

11.	O down by the sea today
found ourselves swimming in a
soup of untreated sewage,
all raw and ready they say
to boil brains inside out through
meningitis, hepatitis, cholera
and the like, a lethal brew.

Remember, remember,
	that murky month of November!

12.	O down by the sea today
discovered on the incoming 
tide, nearly submerged, a stray 
mine from the Gulf, there in play
a lethal weapon waiting
to blow apart the hapless 
soul in its de-activating!

Dismemb'ring, dismemb'ring
	one poor person that December!

13.	Seeing out in this sad way
one more year all strained and stressed,
staining progress when we stray,
signs of distress in display
when we thoughtlessly heed not 
this way of the world as our home, 
all good living quite forgot!

Loving, loving,
	year in, year out, 
		through such self-governing!
Self-realization,
	through the self-leavening 
			of the relationship!
			...seeing freedom put in play,
				second by second, day by day!!

53.	Shih Written For A St. Valentine's Day

Today should be spent drinking,
	tasting only finest teas?
Alas cannot be present
	to feel the cool mountain breeze.
Up through the mists my thoughts fly
	and then return to these seas.
Find thee pleasantly relaxed
	on the sand under the trees.

54a.	Haiku, Some Composed Whilst Hiking (* = 20)

1.	All singing of love,
	fields of jumping grasshoppers;
	loving silently!

2.	Following fantails.
	Insects rising in my wake.
	Chirping a thank-you.

3.	Inviting valleys,
	mountain peaks so inspiring,
	trudging between them.

4.	A flat rock with moss.
	Halfway up the mountain side.
	Find the perfect "seat."

*5.	Neither in heaven
	nor in the abyss of hell:
	life forms in between.

6.	Between waterfalls,
	find a wee fish in a pool.
	The product of time.

7.	Mountainous hollows,
	inverted valley sky-lines,
	could arrows fly straight?

*8.	The earth is upthrown,
	ground down by the will of heaven,
	how many more times?

9.	In the sunny breeze,
	burnt tears of papery rain,
	first signs of Autumn.

*10.	Distant dogs barking,
	not welcoming the stranger,
	which now be myself.

11.	Stranger than the guest,
	more eccentric than the host -
	the taste of others.

12.	The innkeeper's home,
	taking charge finds officials
	levy higher rates.

13.	Pay the bureaucrat
	the government's fee then note
	the tip to speed things.

*14.	Along the old lane
	the dance hall opens no more,
	swinging sign unhinged.

*15.	Boutique businesses
	competing for the tourists,
	with imported wares.

16.	See the world blinking,
	winking from every angle,
	in a grain of sand.

*17.	Seeing politics,
	hearing its voice everywhere,
	stamped upon the land.

*18.	Trees chopping down trees,
	dams damming the silted lakes,
	cities self-consumed.

19.	Being told one thing,
	digesting what we are fed,
	excreting the same.

*20.	Could this world be ruled
	by the fancy sway of men
	too old to move on?

21.	Fine propaganda,
	beaming photo for the press,
	still the masses cry.

22.	Hiding behind ads.,
	like billboards along the road,
	a glossy smile.

23.	Hear the self-proclaimed,
	then see these self-made puppets
	believing themselves.

24.	One more dictator
	to bite the dust, one more drop,
	vain blood spilt in vain?

25.	Democracy please,
	pleads the new crowd in the square,
	that welcomed the past.

26.	The old grow older,
	and some wine improves with age,
	can the state mature?

*27.	Resist the monarch
	who wants the world for a stage,
	so tragic is fate.

28.	Hunting in deer parks,
	puffed up with hypocrisy,
	these communist kings.

*29.	Power to the people,
	if we all said yes, or if
	we would all say no!

30.	But rulers unite
	the one against the other,
	divide and then rule.

31.	Like a biting flea
	on the camel's hairy hump
	rides the "world-leader."

32.	So tempting for some,
	charades of pomp and power,
	find life too precious.

33. 	Enjoy wandering,
	across the fields, alone,
	no leader finds this.

34.	A problem to solve,
	dilemma - which pot of tea,
	between friends - sharing?

*35.	Find the `real world' rules,
	who will master mind that course,
	like boiling wee fish.

*36.	All love peacefulness,
	and an ego well massaged,
	in this world well-armed.

37.	Thinking thoughts of death,
	the high bleak windswept landscape
	struggles to survive.

38.	Saw the sun waning,
	spent candle soon flickering,
	but my sight beats me.

39.	Drips in drops downward,
	the leaking tap is turned off,
	yet still floods the floor.

*40.	Fear flat earth farmers
	furrowing into the ground:
	life spreads through volume!

41.	The last but ne'er least,
	the world is first but ne'er pushed
	to have the last laugh.

*42. Milestones on the way,
	more like tombstones on display,
	remembered birthdays.

*43.	Rivers find the sea,
	the flowing clouds find the sky,
	all lost in between.

*44.	One step then one more,
	and all the rest must follow,
	thoughts on holiday.

*45.	All the world spread out,
	between pages of a book,
	without finding self.

*46.	Scramble for some coins,
	but what could be more precious
	than the space between!

*47.	The tinder forest,
	waiting for a spark to light
	the regrowth of self.

*48.	Nothing ever lost,
	testimony to a plan
	that traces the past.

49.	Speak words without sound,
	attending to little things,
	without saddened thought.

50.	The glass now fixes
	the pond to the falling rain,
	melting the frosting.

54b.	Miscellaneous Haiku Arranged By Season

Autumn

1.	In the sunny breeze,
	burnt tears of papery rain,
	first signs of Autumn.

2.	Composing poems. 
	Hear chatter of coming guests.
	Alas, falling leaves.

3.	Along the old lane
	the gallery is now closed,
	swinging sign unhinged.

4.	Question - spring cleaning?
	The winds come and sweep the dust,
	the rains wash the fields!

5.	The faces bright pink,
	The sudden antarctic storm,
	flushing out Summer.

6.	The blue-green grasses
	turning brown, then turning white;
	like women’s hairstyles.

Winter

1.	Fields of em'rald ferns,
	divinely crafted carpets,
	never walked upon.

2.	Inviting valleys,
	mountain peaks so inspiring,
	trudging between them.

3.	A flat rock with moss.
	Halfway up the mountain side.
	Find the perfect "seat."

4.	Thinking thoughts of death,
	the high bleak windswept landscape
	struggles to survive.

5.	Now only downhill,
	the best part of the journey;
	alas, meet old age.

6.	Was welcomed back home;
	the log fire burning inside
	went out over night.

Spring

1.	How great timely friends,
	coming this weekend, or next?
	When it will blossom?

2.	A problem to solve.
	Dilemma - which pot of tea?
	Between friends - sharing?

3.	Between waterfalls,
	find a wee fish in a pool.
	The product of time.

4.	Fresh Autumn breezes
	or the blind leading the blind,
	neither hot nor cold?

5. 	Just an in between,
	neither the child nor the adult,
	loosing identity?

6.	Like the golden leaves
	the gilded Buddhas flutter
	all too numerous!

Summer

1.	All singing of love,
	fields of jumping grasshoppers;
	loving silently!

2.	Following fantails.
	Insects rising in my wake.
	Chirping a thank-you!?

3.	See the world blinking,
	winking from every angle,
	in a grain of sand.

4.	The wheat-fields ripen,
	reflecting the golden sun,
	sacrificed for bread.

5.	Beaten when heated,
	hardened in the sudden cold,
	these trees fence the fields.

6.	Saw the sun waning,
	spent candle soon flickering,
	but my sight beats me.

55.	One Shih Written For Peace

The meeting of minds gather,
to plan a long march for peace?
But so much anger parades
could such hostilities cease?
Thousands of words hit the press,
through this political mouthpiece.
Without rectification
sounds the call for more police!

56.  Dinky Di, True Aussie Blue

Dinky di, 
true Aussie blue,
straight from the bush
to a room with a view.

Concrete shack,
concrete cities,
rising ever upward
shifting stone faced yuppies.

Jumping snakes,
just ain't home here,
back to the bush
shall flee this country square!

But, alas,
now urban man,
left halfway home
sporting a backyard tan!

57.	Ironic Verse After The 18th Century Japanese Genre

1.   The government gave us 
		1 cent and 2 cent coins,
and now wants them back 
				again!

2.   The zealous bus driver
left his customers
	running past 
the stop.

3.   The swollen bruise 
				came right	
but my waist-line stays the same?

4.   The garbage on the floor,
now,
	all over the street.

5.   One leaf,
	flapping in the wind,
refusing to go...

6.   The dishevelled tramp
offered me some choice grapes,
relunctantly,
		refuse.

7.   Said the aborigine,
			"you white trash, 
all you bring is weeds and rats 
			and feral cats!"

8.	During the day not much to look at,
	during the night though
you would be soon quickly pounced upon!

9.	The gentle caring poet		[Kind, caring poets:
bashes one more verse into shape    their poems bashed into      
	and then tosses it away.					  shape,
							 and then tossed away.]
10.  Poems for people,
		people for poems,		[Poems for people,
divinely inspired				 divinely inspired for
		for the gods?!					   the gods,
							 people for poems.]
11.  Spend six hundred bucks
	and we will throw in free
two holiday tickets
	if you purchase our accommodation.

12.  The farmers are going broke,
cannot feed themselves
and the banks.

13.  The banks are going broke,
cannot make ends meet,
a dollar can only go so far...

14.  The country's going broke,
its taxed the hand that feeds it,
its fed the hand that faxed it
					overseas...

58.	One More Seaside Sonnet

In dark and wet confines of drifting night 
did hear the sweet heart-beat of washing sea
faintly thudding gently on the silv'ry 
line of surf that signalled such close delight.
And floating o'er this tidal flood in flight 
found my flowing thoughts entwining freely
in one lengthy embrace, in an ecstasy 
ne'er dreamt of, ideas surging with insight...
Anon, the steady rhythms of the rain 
upon the roofing tin released that sleep 
unsought and entering this dreamy world,
all brightly lit, met a travelling train 
of white capped waves arising from the deep;
this land re-kissing with lips moistly curled!

59.	Return To Seacliff I

The fermented smell of mud,
the sweet scent quite forgotten.
In purple misty moonlight
on the ground trace one outline.
The old cottage now long gone,
just an imprint to define.
Find two native trees stand proud,
no more by hedges hidden.

60.	Return To Seacliff II

The formal grass and garden
now just sheep trodden and spoiled.
Some motley building still stand,
in stone where the blacksmith toiled.
No more fields cultivated
by those patient hands well soiled.
No winter mushrooms found, just
dry puff-balls on fences foiled.

61.	Return To Seacliff III

How fickle memories fade,
delights of landscape re-found.
Wonderful hollows retraced,
the same scattered birds still sound.
The wee creeks still twist and turn,
the same ponds and muddy ground.
The sacred bush now allowed
to regrow on ridges crowned.

62.	Each Person - Each Thing

Each person a diff'rent well of being,
a sea of light, oceans overwritten
by the lines of inner myst'ry hidden,
discovered through forms of selfless seeing.

The gulls still scream around the rocks feeding
on the fishlets chased by the tide driven 
rush of the washing flood, each thing given 
its place; all parts the universe kneading.

63.	A Lifetime's Lament For The Departed Bush

A lifetime have I spent
in sad lament,
a lament for the departed bush.

Remember those childhood picnics
in picturesque woods
marred by gorse and blackberry.
In places a remnant forest
would speak to me 
how things were once.
Ferns would frolic in the breeze,
the streams would race
between slippery rocks,
wonderful native trees
would hide me in mysterious glens.
With a friend, or by myself,
would follow trails 
through the beckoning bush.
How delightful such exploration,
felt like those intrepid 
heroes from the past,
each new twist of the path,
each curve of the creek
taking me to another world,
one more vista of 
the splendid bush.
Could never understand why
this treasure would be destroyed
and replaced by eroded fields 
overrun by weeds the size of trees,
monotonous and near useless,
paddocks that barely saw livestock.
Could never understand why
others did not seem to feel 
the same way I would 
towards this mindless savagery.
Each new year always felt 
the same desperate despair,
finding the bush running out,
trapped in pockets,
shrinking, trampled upon
by modern housing,
with no sensitivities
to the local atmosphere.

Have the times really changed?
Now find others with the same sympathy,
or so professed (never confessed).
See television pushing conservation,
the radio and the papers too.
But do people really care, or,
do only real people care;
the people that really count -
the powerless, the less material
in consumer aspiration?
Can real people really count,
be united, give back more
to the planet than what 
is still being taken;
reverse this trend?

Or must I die in sad lament,
cursing national parks 
with no natural heart.
Cursing politicians 
with no sense of vision,
who cannot see what is now
no longer here?
Fewer trees - colder sheep,
colder weather makes thicker wool,
more wool - more money,
or so I was told
by one callous farmer.
Chop the trees down
and plant a few cows
I was told by another.
The lichened basalt rocks 
have saved that farm
from sliding into the sea;
good soil still clogging 
the stream that once,
throughout the entire year,
would ran sparkling over
the glistening gravel
and gritty sand.

Have pity on those skyline trees
thinning each winter,
receding, going bald,
storm by storm.
They too grow old,
start to wither,
lean this way and that,
start to quiver,
get bent, get diseased,
drop, rot away,
stand like eternal sentinels
with crooked fingers 
pointing down the hill,
accusing those that just stand still
and stare at these sights,
these historic sites,
fragments from the past
in such pathetic and twisted ruin.

Sometimes a glade of trees
around some awesome crag
finds itself saved,
in the short term at least.
But, alas, the cattle and the sheep
with their five rambling mouths
trample at random
those living treasures
that nature fashioned 
outside the span of human time,
beyond our comprehension,
or so it would seem.
Thus in turn these trees too would thin 
and heave a sigh, crack,
when that fatal storm came,
wrecking ruin, ravaging,
scavenging for victims 
once all too few,
now far more common 
even though the weather finds 
fewer potential victims to review.

Who is to blame -
ourselves or those
who laboured upon this land?
Could developers repent,
should the banks insist
money be spent 
on so called modern
farming management
that sees the world like 
some chemically treated cheque book?
Who of us to some day praise -
those who insisted
the past must balance 
a vision of the future?
The political flock
of a common feather
that not only insisted
on an ideal but put such intent
into the field of practice?
You and me who reflect,
make our own contribution,
however insignificant in itself;
to conserve a future
informed by a past
that sees beyond 
a materialized present?
Those children shown
the way of care, 
concerned with a world
in need of repair?!

A lifetime have I spent
in sad lament,
a lament for the departed bush.
O must I die in sad lament,
alone, ne'er understood?
Do others care that
this body of the world,
our home, our garden,
our very tormented self is
in the throes of self-banishment?

Have the times really changed,
is there still time for hope,
could one lament without love,
could the dearly departed 
depart uncared for, unseen?
O must I die in sad lament,
alone, ne'er understood?
Feel the absence of the bush,
feel chopped down, hacked to pieces,
left rotten like a well buried log,
jaded in a green shroud of moss,
interred under one's own weight of debris,
returned to the soil without progeny, 
without re-creation, without seed,
without issue, without self-cultivation,
without insurance, without reassurance
forever lost, completely lost;
that dispatch experienced without loss!

O must I die in sad lament,
a lament for the departed bush,
a bush still visible through tokens;
a past that once more
could be re-embraced,
held in a balance, 
shared as a richness
beyond the calculated profit 
of worldly toil, invoking 
a better future 
that could be faced:
re-augmented and naught lamented?!

64.	The Glance That Bespeaks All Thought (After W.W.)

Prologue

There is a divine love 
that leaves behind 
all trace of body,
a synchronization 
of the simple soul, 
a telepathy of dance 
that entrances the person, 
initiated in a glance 
that bespeaks all thought 
in a mysterious rush 
of overwhelming presence, 
in the self-presented presence 
of the present, 
a gift of perfect reciprocity, 
the relationship informing 
the world of itself:

The First Person - Window Shopping

In the doorway we past,
a simple second
longer than
the eternal moment.
A few words said,
more left unsaid.
No name, but never
in that instant 
shalt thou be nameless -
O Lover Of Books.
Such encounter
left me speechless
even though we spoke
a few sacred words.
Such recognition
touched each other
within this universe
of divinity -
such as I see in thee:
a rough complexion
polished in its grain
from this passage we take
throughout eternity?

The Second Person - Seated Whilst Waiting

One more soul remembered 
from the severed past,
all those years have elapsed
and yet you still seem the same,
so sweet and innocent.
One empty chair sits between us,
you cross your legs like mine, 
and I, testing, cough,
the same cough then heard in echo.
Alas, our bodies would betray us
even if our speech must remain
forever silent, in stillness 
our being was shared in dialogue,
transcending location, dislocation.

The Third Person - Met Whilst Flying

Seated I feel thee
lying beside me,
such is the power of travel
in its disinhibition.
Yet its not my intention
to divine your thoughts, 
such intuition comes 
quite naturally.
Who may see the further
is not the point,
such meeting of minds
is a union shared
and I feel such two way
traffic like crystal clear 
leaves us both naked
to the other's inspection?
Would, alas, that these eyes
could be given this same gift
but then my thoughts 
would betray that trust
that lets us enter 
into the being of the other
more perfect than
material penetration,
which be in truth
pure fiction, never fact;
an act that might contain
such hidden recognition,
a vehicle that might
present such revelation?

Epilogue

This tension then do I find:
all relationships are
born to die, finding termination,
being deathward bound, and,
yet, in some inner inward heaven
find all relationships are held
in perpetual union,
transcending time and space,
above the race of causation,
beyond the trace of ego,
each its own unique world 
expressed when revealed,
sealed though kisses with fate
that passes all comprehension!

65.	The Telephone Company Minus The Generals?

In a country not too far away
the telephone company has gone
private without the generals,
although my friends sometimes wonder?
A local call on a public phone 
is now a chore to be dreaded:
for a local call deposit 20 cents 
the blinking sign at the airport 
kept winking, flashing seductively;
not bad for the price I unwittingly
surmised and duly obeyed.
But before long, having just connected, 
or so it seemed, the same sign
now re-signalled some new urgency
for a local call deposit 20 cents -
my credit now suddenly zero.
Fortunately I found another
20 cent coin and duly obeyed this drill.
Continued the conversation,
mentioned the rapacious phone,
a novel phenomenon for me to handle,
transformed the conversation
into a succinct telegram
and before I knew it re saw the same sign
for a local call deposit 20 cents 
flashing even faster, a frantic search 
finally revealed one last local coin 
and with little grace found myself
soon severed by this mercenary machine.
Well all arrangements were completed, 
well just, I sure he would understand 
I was now reduced to sudden penury.
Remembered once how friendly was the phone,
would dribble a few coppers into its slot,
and that was that, take your time...
Now this prominent company seemed 
to rule the roost, big offices everywhere,
sponsors for this and that community announcement;
all calls taped for two hours too!
So no obscene telephone calls from
your personal phone please, no abuse,
or what you simply thought and felt:
one complaint and it would all
hang out in court, now permanently
taped for posterity, for the papers
in the morning to deliver it back home.

Now, what if computers could listen in, 
siphon off the careless chatter, 
all be paid for, of course, by 
the same customer, each expletive being billed
according to some dictionary of dialect
indexed with price, pre-judged accordingly?
So don't be paranoid you would be paying 
for the service and all its frills,
smile for the camera too and don't
complain if it destroys your bankcard
on the spot, for your penultimate curse 
on the telephone company has just 
wiped out your account, and it kindly
couldn't be bothered swiping those 
last debased coins from your purse
				...beep, beep, beep...

For a local call deposit 20 cents -
your credit is zero, your credit is zero.
				...beep, beep, beep...

At least we can curse the telephone
company when the phone is on the hook,
or so we think, or so we thought... 
and see the sign suddenly flashing -
your credit is zero, your credit is zero,
your number has now been disconnected,
you will be called up and re-enrolled
when your account has been reconnected
upon payment of a reconnection fee,
this is a free telecom announcement...
				...beep, beep, beep, click.

66.	The Infinite Variety In Falling Water

In fascination
watch the waters race.
Dripping and dropping,
splashing into place.
Leaping and jumping,
tumbling down rock face.
Seduced by the wind
in a smoke-like trace.

67.	Puzzle Shih (Sleep)

An artform unlearnt,
forgotten in play.
Difficult to find,
mastered end of day.
Creeps up upon you,
in a death-like way.
This practice takes thee,
must take thee away.

68.	Returning To The Icons Of My Childhood

To a new house I returned,
the home of my mother,
like the previous two,
echoes of similarity,
panelled hallways,
replicated gardens,
same style, same taste,
neatly put together,
equivalent furnishings,
pictures from my past
upon the walls, ornaments
easily recognized like last
year's friends, the same smell 
of the cocktail cabinet,
the old plates, the table 
and the chairs, the knives 
and the forks, the ceremonial
bone china tea cups and their plates,
those biscuit tins, that jam too;
that thick home made jam
in jars with cellophane lids,
all remind me I once was here,
even though this place, this house,
was never lived in by myself,
never seen before in the flesh
by these eyes whose inner sight
recognizes this feeling 
that I once lived here.

69.	Not One Thing Is Ever Lost

A novel tune is whistled,
out into the ether flies.
Not one thing is ever lost,
no memory ever dies.
Dissolved every context
allows the new to arise.
And in turn the now faded
uncovers those `new' replies.

70.	Can An Artwork Lack Adequate Self-Integration?

This question now haunts me,
must an artwork to be an artwork
possess its own unique unity, 
could such production lack artistry 
if, in its temporal extent,
it possessed no adequate integrity?
A play within a play suggesting 
to the audience no real motivation,
loosing all semblance with actuality,
making sense of mere possibility,
forcing the re-viewer to perceive
connections unintended, ambitions
never conceived by the artist
in residence even though their rooms
have no name above the door,
only a sign that says, not in today,
gone away, may be back some other day?

71.	Could The Parts Of An Artwork Lack Self-Integration?

Even chaos is structured, always in flux,
but never is this world ruled by pure chance!
No parts to a real poem if there did not exist
those tiny unseen fingers almost unfelt
massaging a message, or intoning a chant,
little commercials marketing a plant
that manufactures the sense of meaning structures
bent on contriving some possible resemblance
of a truthful-like reality unfolding 
what might have been if it might have been...
this document was written on the face of the
constructed world, whose art transcends all strictures,
what then is mere simulation and simulator,
deconstructing all images written in pictures!?
An art-world may be mere association
but the parts of an artwork cannot be
dusty fragments, figments of imagination 
held together by the ligaments of lie 
that must belie all art as personified creation!?

72.	Could The Context Of An Artwork lack Integration?

An art-world may be found 
through mere association;
that between product and producer,
that between a marketeer and consumer;
however unsavoury it cannot be 
a place of perfect unity, static,
unchanging; nor, a faceless mask 
of constant anomaly, in continuous flux 
so perfect it leaves no trace 
of the power formed through degrees 
of self-transacted destiny, always 
listening, informing a potential
for an art that crafts an artistry
that crafts an art in the shadows
of its own aesthetic intensity?!

73.	Could An Artwork Be Two Or More Artworks Or Vice Versa?

Could an artwork be merely 
the collected series of choices
of a connoisseur
whose taste allows us
to speculate that more value
resides between the parts,
or between the notes, 
or between the small sets of words,
or patterns of images,
or whatsoever that constitutes
that nomination of art?
Or is art merely an artfulness
that contrives to hide between
what ever atoms in evidence
are designated and put on display;
an ongoing stream of meaningful metaphors
set up to be seen and also felt,
sparks that recreate a world of sense
beyond their crafted embodiment?

74.	Through These Portals

Through these portals I once came,
now such barely houses thee.
I knocked, pushing the door down,
made one reluctant entry.
Now door is in better shape
in this sad inventory.
A fancy mansion remains 
in time one vain fantasy.

75.	Exits And Entrances

Ev'ry entrance way is stuck
as an exit half uncleared.
A doorway that must function
upon itself all prepared.
In the sudden instant see
an opening self-declared.
In we go and out we pass
as those labels disappeared!

76.	Chaos

Chaos restructures the world,
and not order,
for all chaotic order is
`structured' and structured `structure'
is only degenerating chaos
that must collapse at some point
through the wonderful
lens of the magnificently
and hopelessly unpredictable!
So you believe otherwise;
that all action
and all reaction
is founded upon 
a dumb conformity 
to the laws of nature, 
itself unmoved, frozen,
fixed in the unwound
determination of all time?
Start this clock 
and the rest must follow:
tick, tick; tick, tick; tick, tick...
as perfect as it would be boring!
The formal following
of a course set down
on the pages of a menu
that never changes,
never misspelt,
never delayed or brought forward
like bus time tables
trained never to err
one second either way.
But thankfully the world
is just as unreliable
in its expectedness
as the person with a date
to keep, a date with 
disappointment, an appointment
with fortune unknown;
except to perfected intuition,
fated perhaps to divine these 
happenings and mis-happenings
from the entrails of passing traces,
passing shadows, reshaping
the efflorescent present?
To be human is to expect
the unexpected, not to expect
the same old performance,
for if routine be obeyed
it merely happened that way
in the end for chaos
rules supreme in nature,
as in human nature,
giving back to the world
its own self-made sense
of inner mystery. 
An unravelling
that cannot be tied up 
in theoretical knots
prepared by schedules
unbending, unyielding!
In essence the mastery
of a fascination for the
majesty of the unknown 
that manages to creep up
and take us unaware,
and take up center stage
shaped in the splendour
of the existential richness
amassed in the momentary robes
of consequences uncalled for
but which must be patiently
accepted and transmuted
into the greater successfulness 
of that unique royal occasion.
Opportunity self-seized,
forever present in the moment 
that raises life beyond 
the boring chores of robots
and establishes a domain
that transcends itself,
part inside out and beyond 
the pain that inevitably follows
the vicissitudes of fickle fate.
Celebrating an inner dimension,
immanent and transcendent
to the laws of physical prediction,
beyond the probabilities of
a mindless sterility
that would destroy
all passionate possibility!

77.	Crisis

A little chaos goes a long way,
for the continuation of rigid order
only prepares the day for the flood
that must follow this damming of reality
behind the walls of such imprisonment.
A little spice or a selection of herbs 
makes the stale re-baked bread more savoury;
a dash of the blackest pepper, a few slivers 
of the reddest chilli unseats the blandness
of a meal that should otherwise be eaten 
by a timid and fruitless anonymity.
A few drops of dissonance, I say, and 
discharge the electric static before 
the spark crosses over and melts the magnetic 
difference that expresses `personality.'
Better now the flux that must restructure,
re-organize the release of pent up rigidity
that could well snap and cancel out 
the institutionalized farce that passes 
itself off as a well ordered harmony!

78.	Catastrophe

Minor perturbations in our daily orbits
can deflect us from taking a more
predictable turn around this inscrutable star
called self and named a thousand ways.
Identity through activity, interaction
with others, desires, habits, constellations
of potentials undreamt of, beyond our
present ken, affinities never before discovered
except through their momentous activation.
The smaller things in life have the most sway; 
a simple observation, that wayward thought, 
that look, all conspire catastrophically to inspire 
the novelty of a new way forward, like a meteor...
The directed being of thought itself flashing
a simple sign that the world is written like this,
fixed in freedom, freely fixed in carefree play,
always on the crossroads of choices, seeing out
each and every different day in a different way...?

79.	Controversy

"Controversy" - even the pronunciation is controversial,
begun with a "con" dependent more on dialect or pretence,
the letter "o" - posing a mystery, how is it meant to sound;
what class of person would embrace merely one alternative,
the sound "er" - a two-way river channel or minor stutter,
the rolled "r" - like a ripple on a pond or breaking surf,
"sy" - sounded short or long, like a narrow lake or wide open expanse of ocean; a difference so subtle that to the drowning person it would make little difference one way or the other; and this is my point in passing that if we would just beg to differ we might be able to agree to disagree without endless flight or fight before the rightful might 
of others to tout their own situationally imposed habits, manners in speech, whose exercise must change from one decade to the next, dependent upon situation or person; 
every person an insightful point of light, a guest on the face of this planet blessed by this self-correcting tendency 
to process successfully the manifestation of such variety?!

80.	Confidence

Confidence had the con-man,
plenty of tricks up his sleave,
but, alas, few scruples, if any
when he sold the Australian public
`cheap' tickets to the electronic zoo.
Discarded sales tickets were produced
and extrapolated, a promise was declared,
take this prospectus and enrol,
your shares will give you automatic 
entrance to the electronic wonderland,
the greatest Australian business attraction
with local programmes that simulate
the natural world in dramatic licence
in a flat three dimensions so vividly
you would never know financially what was 
pure fantasy and what was real reality!?

Confidence had the ad-man,
plenty of tricks up his sleave,
but, alas, few scruples, if any
when the Asian entrepreneurs
sold one more Australian company
back to the Australian public
through its production lines.
O what a feeling the ad keeps on
telling us, and I bet they are right,
for I am sure that company gets
a kick from selling us designs that 
merely massage our corporate 
and public egos, images that solve all our ills!?
Be sexy they say, be successful, be posh,
be as fresh as the alpine trash in the ashtray,
be a good mother, and wife, and slave away all day!?

Confidence had the tax-man,
plenty of tricks up his sleave
but, alas, few scruples, if any
when berating the dole bludgers who took
a few pennies more than the few
they were left with at the end of the day;
when business got the public to pay for all its perks;
when the company was too honest
to manage its books for all the lurks
those creative accountants really spend 
their time scratching away for day by day.
Now we have read your receipts and faxes,
and all your bank statements,
we have your wages accounted for
and all those pointless investments
so vote please for those new extra taxes!?

Confidence had the law-man,
plenty of tricks up his sleave,
but, alas, few scruples, if any
when his commission came to an end
through one more scandal.
Bag men, and hatchet men too,
all contributing for the house 
in the country, that long party too, 
and those trips overseas to London 
and New York, for the show must go on...
And the show did go on
poured into the same mould
contributions came in from far and wide,
enough to run a few sidelines,
bribe a few more politicians,
pay off the lawyers and all those court fines!?

Confidence had the con-man, the ad-man,
the tax-man and the law-man, and all those
other specimens that live off 
the plight or labour of others;
and that puts us all into the same category.
Confident as the con-man, 
superficial as the ad-man,
taxing as the tax-man,
as mighty as the law-man,
as fallen as the next person
only there is a sense of proportion
that salvages such extracted patronage.
Confidence has the culture 
that patronizes itself,
patronizing the confidence
that cultures itself!?

81.	Beneath The Surface Of Reason

What if the world  
was like an illusion,
worse, was just an illusion,
an uninterrupted form of theatre 
framing the flux of absurdity;
theatrical forms of vanity,
degrees of senselessness, 
shades of hopelessness
defying all reasonableness,
unfathomed, drowning out and
suffocating all aspiration?

A flat world like a pool table
whose sole meaning is manufactured
to relieve itself
of those colored atoms of self
into the distant isolated pockets 
of gaping nothingness,
sinking as the end 
and the real object of the game;
the collapse of all beauty,
the exhaustion of all struggle,
the moment wherein all meaning 
losses its substance, 
all substance looses its meaning.

The slow terror and sickness 
of this thought has struck me,
a penetrating stabbing grips me,
rips the hollowed fabric of my being!

In the darkness of the cinema
imagine the curtain before the stage
torn apart, rent from one side 
to the other, feel presented 
with an empty stage 
that once was there;
therein see the real play 
within a play, within a play...
without actors, without scenery,
without plot, without theme,
without an audience,
without aesthetic salvation,
without an inner trace of redemption?

Now the screen flickers into life
with just as much sense of purpose,
a flat surface torn apart,
worlds within worlds, advertisements,
mere dreams, reflections in a glass,
fragile, soon shattered, beyond 
the grasp of finite understanding.

All meaning is merely metaphor;
the hero crosses the bridge of life,
shaken to its foundations,
fallen from a great height,
merely postponing the inevitable
splash, transference into a ripple
that forever dissipates itself
by proxy, on our behalf...

The dim lights 
of the real world
are turned back on,
the patrons file out 
like black sheep,
merely stunned,
not yet slaughtered,
the suffered misery 
of that terminated world 
being still seen 
on a few sensitive faces.

Passing friends meeting
friends in passing
introduce you to pass 
the time of day
and wonder how, in meeting,
the other person 
could ever be known
in those formal fragments 
of time just frittered away?
Could they too find 
some recognition,
share in coincidence
not merely coincidental,
or is all passing 
merely a passing play
of what was perhaps never there,
what never could be there,
could never stay...

A few pleasantries,
bits of trivia
swapped and added to,
see a spark of affection,
find a smile betraying
a mind more troubled 
in the problematic nature 
of its being, 
finding an identity
equally perplexed 
but enjoying 
a deeper conversation...

A few questions, please,
for I would like 
to get to know you,
get to know you well,
although, I might add, 
all said without 
such informality?

Does that bother you,
I think to myself,
for it bothers me,
for how is it possible 
to know someone else
when I wonder if 
its possible 
to know even oneself;
really get to know
the inner mysteries
of the nature 
of one's own self?

What are the modes 
of personal interaction
that might allow one 
this privileged access,
allow one to see
behind the mask 
behind the mask,
to find the real face
of reality self-presented?

What's your name,
how old are you;
Where do you live,
are your parents alive,
what did they do,
and your brothers and sisters?

Do you work,
do you study,
and if so what,
what do you do then
if none of the above?

These questions
might capture a slave,
or a desperate criminal,
describe a car,
could they encase the essence
of a sought after friend,
or lover, or merely
stamp the passport
of one more acquaintance?

So you hate your
next-door neighbour,
hate him kicking the dog,
prefer pussy cats,
support the bush,
like the colour blue,
like this, dislike that.
So you admire the qualities
of your wife,
or the wife of your best friend,
or just your best friend?

More questions 
and answers traded,
like a jigsaw,
except more serious;
perhaps no more serious
than another game,
one more among many?

Why all these questions,
you may well ask,
what can they tell me,
perhaps nothing more
than what you are not, 

and what I, too, am not!?

Or does asking a question
only tell me what 
I more or less
already knew;
that you have a name,
know your age,
have some idea who you are,
have some idea
you know who you are,
where you might be going?

Then let me enter your presence,
be allowed to stay awhile,
be allowed to live with you, 
eat with you, drink with you,
may be work beside you,
end up sleeping beside you,
share in your pleasures
and delight in your treasures,
take aural delight
in your verbal wit, 
read your books,
be party to your opinions,
meet your collection of friends,
take a fancy to your wife,
or the wife of your best friend, 
or just your best friend?

But will I still know thee;
but then I know that
embodied thou art,
located in time and space,
tested by change,
confronted by a continual
crisis in the grinding 
fault lines of identity;
learn to profit from the past,
anticipate something,
perhaps someone, 
still being there for you 
in the unfolding of the future,
eventually accept the passing 
passage of the enduring present?

In the mirror of nature
I will observed well
your interaction in this world,
glean your general disposition,
although intuition
has already given me
such an exposition;
still your every thought
outlined through action
could dissemble apparent intentions
that would thwart
any thorough attempt to
genuinely know thee,
interpret thine inner state?

Later, you spoke your thoughts,
what thoughts you wished to speak,
told me what you desired, 
declared your dreams;
then, silently, 
more like friends,
more like migrant 
bothers reunited,
we half embraced
that party night
under the yellow glow
of the pale moon 
away from the glare 
of the cheap disco lights.
Going home we sang and sang,
half-faking drunkenness,
walking home arm and arm,
welcomed by your waiting wife,
made welcome despite the time;
such perfect pleasure 
that finds a pleasure
in the pleasure of others.
Shared too in your simple joys,
played with your latest toys,
you even lent me your car,
let me look after your house 
in your absence;
still, I wonder, do I know thee,
could I ever know thee well?

All these outward signs
are only signatures
of an inner design,
motivated in its rhythm
beneath the surface of reason,
perfect in its freedom
to be perfectly imprecise,
not always played by the rules,
recreating your own standards,
and criticizing them too?

Thus only from the distance,
albeit transcendental,
of a shared insight
can I say I might now
know thee well,
find an inner companion
overlapping with self
now redefined continually
through thee as thou art now
redesigned through me,
and yet, still, given
one's own point of view
must I find the self mystified
through the dis-concealment
of one's own embodiment;
a corpse alive
that sometimes dances
to a new tune
suddenly heard 
and now preferred!

Such is life,
I thought I knew thee well,
through some great unknowing,
more a taste enjoyed through travel,
having walked along this
vast vista of the via negativa;
and now at the end of day
I stand back in wonder
that fate could unravel
within the embrace of self
on the same pages
of this self same book,
standing naked,
an open document
imprinted with your features
showing similar sentiment
with the same authentic look...?!

Alas, with sweet resignation, sigh;
such a goal cannot be sought
although its worth seeking
as long as the seeking 
alone be sought, 
realize at last the moment 
can never be captured,
only captures, takes one enraptured, 
ruptures a frozen past fixed in time,
transmutes those flaws 
into works of art,
authenticates the real person,
reveals each person 
as a hollow point of light, 
like black-holes but empty, 
yawning chasms into which
the whole world forever pours itself
leaving only a trace of a trace.

A continual surging 
of the life-world,
a purging of the past,
a forging of the future
through the suspension 
of the living present,
a rushing onrushing 
of potential current
electrifying the instant
shocking convention to its core,
locking the appearance of actors
on cue with a dialogue of death
moment by moment,
in the stillness of the moment,
in the free ecstasy of the pregnant
bursting with the return
of the truly significant.

Overwhelming is presence
through its very absence,
shattering those dreams,
those presentations, 
those puffed up fictions
upon a river of nonsense,
dispersing to the four winds
all those reams of paper 
only pathetic philosophers 
could ever master;
rushing torrents of sense,
those structures of chaos
that restructure the passing 
foundations of freedom,
enfreeing the person without pretence,
allowing the meeting of minds,
constituting such a meeting,
instituting all forms of encounter.

Find the entire world shaking, 
shaking hands with itself,
without a body, without embodiment,
establishing the vision of body
as a point focus, an explosion
inward within, dragged inside out,
a mere excuse for enchantment,
imploded beyond the confines
of logic, a logic trapped in poetry, 
signs on paper, mines of meaning
and meaningfulness without design?
Only phenomenal patterns,
strings of letters, mere sequences
that struggle, strangle
the illusion of a reality
and the reality of an illusion!

Interrogate this document,
torture its intent, for no 
definitive sense can ever be meant,
feel the agony and the ecstasy
discovered in the moment,
see emptiness reconstructing
all forms of sentiment,
perceive otherness at work
constituting the mere performance
of all apparent content!

So the world is like an illusion
but what an illusion;
passing shadows, empty shells
mistaken for reality
into which pours 
the infinite cosmos
in every instant,
making sacred one presence
that blends heaven and hell,
transcendent and immanent,
through sacrifice,
without the expense of blood,
giving birth to death
each moment by moment
in the living womb 
of the eternally vacant..!

82.	Puzzle Shih (Chess)

This world is still square, 
absolutely flat.
Here white rules supreme
only in attack.
Soldiers fight to win,
death with no regret.
Taking positions,
fighting tit for tat.

83.	Winter Ills

Winter cold, stopped work,
sit on garden chair.
Next day, at scented
fl'wers can only stare.
One more day, alas,
hear the perfumed air.
Hints of heaven, sun,
senses reappear.

84.	Twelve Shih In An Imagist Mode (Invoking Themes In 									Chinese Painting)

1.	Visiting A Country Friend

Down path, over bridge,
under cliffs, past tree. 
Near the falls, just heard,
steps, worn, not moss free.
No friend, but the door
ajar, note I see:
In forest picking 
some mushrooms for tea.

2.	Who Left The Temple Gate Open?

Temple gate, open,
raked gravel kept flat.
Fighting dogs, enter,
get patted, exit.
Monk reading, then thought, 
perfect subject that.
Retired, to the side,
rolled out one old mat.

3.	Scholar Or Fisherman?

Painted poetry,
poetry painter?
The landscape mountains,
rocks, trees and water.
Fisher or scholar,
scholar or fisher?
Inward invited,
picture's reviewer.

4.	Like The Sound Of The Wind In The Pine Trees

Master chin player,
same note - diff'rent sound.
Like the pine needles
gently blown around.
Heard in antique paint,
those brushstrokes renowned.
Patient listening
and the reward's found.

5.	The Visiting Official

"Thanks," in stated speech,
set before event.
Looking the fine part,
from capital sent.
Regrets being late,
waiting always meant.
Kept here from plotting
the next incident.

6.	Viewing The Moon

Night time, see some geese
o'er the waters white.
A plaintive call sounds
from trees out of sight.
Cups of tea welcomed,
conversing through night.
While we pause, notice
other souls in flight.

7.	Wandering Into the Mountains

Travelling merchant,
out upon the road?
Heading towards hills,
beside fields just sowed.
Beneath the forests
small patches well hoed.
Into the mist more
ridges just followed.

8.	At Dusk

Past fields, in the grove,
A church - temple spire.
The sad sound of bells,
faster pace inspire.
A fun'ral progress,
the end of desire.
Alas, the site still 
without a buyer.

9.	The Harvest

Hard at work, harvest,
wheat already sold.
Traded long ago, 
some pieces of gold.
Barely pays its way,
half feeds the household.
Heart breaking labour
for those growing old.

10.	Falling Water

Freedom of the soul,
waterfalls in paint.
Patches on paper
left blank or left faint.
Sounds of emptiness,
archaic and quaint.
Resonant meaning,
flowing, without taint.

11.	Selling Flowers

Seller of flowers,
beside the highway.
Fragile tokens grace
the table, decay. 
Now signs of money
not wasted today.
Alas, the moment's
a smile left in play.

12a.	Parting

Tears of sweet sadness,
friends parting once more.
Beside the river,
on the waiting shore.
The swaying willows
such sorrow ignore.
Falling pine needles
recarpet the floor.

12b.	Parting

The swaying willows
such sorrow ignore.
Falling pine needles
recarpet the floor.
Tears of sweet sadness,
friends parting once more.
Beside the river,
on the waiting shore.

85.	Guilt - Real Or Imagined

Which is worse,
being guilty 
or being thought guilty?
One's every action
self-watched,
being again 
re-interpreted.
Pity the first lie
invented 
to keep away
those first suspicions
best prevented.
Alas, however
good the intention
one more invention
follows to cement
the first,
which if investigated
would more than likely
tar the brush
that merely wished 
to keep itself
clean, claim
a place among
those not seen
to suggest otherwise.
How powerful the look
that can invest 
the condemned
with such guilt
through association,
make connections
merely thought
but best forgotten,
or best left hidden?

86.	Sun Burnt Land

Sun burnt land, 
set on fire,
heart's desire,
burnished sand.
Wind polished,
roving grit,
blasted spit,
unfinished.
Struggle on,
desert light,
thorny site,
rains long gone.
Tinder dry,
explosive
and pensive,
waiting sky.
Lightening
striking out,
melting drought,
still burning.
Forest fires,
leaping and
scorching sand,
life retires.
Shattered seeds,
spinifex,
twigs and sticks,
fragile weeds.
Grasses rare,
were ravaged
now salvaged,
native fare.
One furnace,
smelted down,
country town,
in earnest.
Welcome fire,
micro lots,
macro spots,
all conspire.
Breathing in,
breathing out,
all about,
now begin.
Let the past
take its course,
takes with force
such a cast.
Renewing,
restoring,
repairing,
reviewing!
Continent
set alight,
left alright,
left content!
Aussie soul,
bronzed and burnt,
lessons learnt,
kicks a goal.
Sets alight
desert tract
left intact,
oversight!
Oversees
burnt outback,
finds on track
a new breeze.
Interact,
exercise,
exorcise,
re-contract.
Plant more trees,
torch the wood,
if you could,
would you please!?
Hand in hand
with woman 
and with man
as if planned!?
Elements
shape the land,
make the sand,
mere moments.
Under sun -
water, air,
earth and fire,
act as one!

87.	Reflections On The Russian Coup

Revolution preached 
for more than seventy years;
long drawn out down trodden years;
year after year after year...
Then suddenly it appeared, 
or so it seemed, that there
were signs on the Wall;
crumbling cracks of a facade 
that had lost all integrity,
the last vestiges of some
hopeless inhuman ideal.
Could the state that must lie,
maintaining the same fiction 
without seeking change,
endure forever? - Never!
An empty void waiting
to swallow up the hollow
fabric of its rotten self; 
a decayed decrepit corpse
propped up through greed,
layer upon layer,
tissues of falsehoods
transparent even to the blind!
Sad the state that enslaves
those souls it calls free,
forcing them to self-declare
a freedom that retreats 
to the very edges of their being;
a dim flickering light 
that can never be put out!
Like the damming of a river 
with no passage for the excess
and the flood will some day 
drown that foolish structure;
those imposing impositions
on the civilized landscape;
monuments all so human,
monumental scars of untold misery,
seas of inequity that 
will still torture masses,
unthinkingly distort the way they, 
and we, will look at the world,
the way we think, 
the way we work and play,
what we do and what we say!
Alas, alas, alas...
do we ever learn,
do we ever unlearn
the moulds of our own history,
transcend the shackles
of our own self-imprisonment,
our own self-enslavement,
subvert our own internment?!
Actors unite, the world 
is but a stage, an illusion...
just a jot more real than 
the sheer theatre of that 
theatre of the absurd...
and just as surreal, 
just as banal?
How bizarre the thought then
that this wonderful world 
might still maintain 
its sense of humour;
the last laugh 
at human endeavour;
finally laugh out of court
those forms of human misadventure?

88.	Scholarly Authenticity?

	Black storm steers towards
	the cool mountainside.
	Angry demons clash
	as both forms collide.
	Thunder shouting forth,
	heard from far and wide.
	Taking those traces
	as our spoken guide!?

Interpreted description
versus described interpretation,
or, sacred and secular texts
treated as plastic classics;
either encased in coloured transparency,
or, treated as perfectly opaque;
sadly entreated one way or the other?
Better to take that middle path 
between the signs, betwixt the noise
of all this signified and signifying,
extended to other texts, or,
intending some significant
direction provoked through 
the resolution of dissonance -
a discharge of intention
set up to be attended to
(heard in waiting,
waiting to be heard)?
But that a text could only be
just a mere text is patent nonsense,
the understood relationship 
between signs, between the traces,
cannot yet be a new sign,
only a trace in passing!
Now a presence lost 
in the passing present, a moment
self-presented then re-presented
through the presence 
of other signs, a trace
then named, an appropriation
arbitrary in its signature
yet arbitrated in its placement,
made to feel at home, bedded down 
in the shifting structures 
floating cloud-like on this 
puffed up world of sense
subjected to continual clarification;
extracted when called,
called forth when named.
What scholarly authenticity,
what scholastic achievement
when merely treated as plastic;
pure seeing self-described,
or, the merest fancy self-imposed
upon the surface of that event;
sheer relativity this private
thought evocatively elicited
yet published publicly?
The spastic scholastic
versus the elastic scholastic;
the rigid authoritarian
versus the facile authority
lost in perpetual book reviewing
within a book review,
the text forever escaping them
although this scholar now
no more imprisoned within the text,
just locked out in the cold.

	Outside see the snow, 
	fragile flakes falling.
	A glistening realm,
	paradise calling.
	A new perspective
	on sense installing.
	Digging down too far,
	in the mud crawling.

Here the book of nature
could be interpreted as Winter?
But, then, it could be Spring,
or, ever so foolishly,
it might be passed off as
a storm of Summer seeds in flight
even though this Autumn of reason
froze that flood of ideas
in its earth bound tracks;
punishing that hermeneuticist
with their death notice
published one cold week later?!
But then we should only claim
the death of the text
in the death of that author
who died when that text
fell frozen from that pen
of another text already frozen
in this textual wasteland,
this prolific, prolix desert
where hack scholars interminably 
keep up to date peddling and 
recycling some inbred fashionable
form of authoritarianly ilfashioned 
soul destroying inauthenticity?!?
Producing unproductive traces
like commentaries commenting
on their own commentators, 
recommending commendations 
on their own recommendations 
self-presented retrospectively!
A vicious cycle that can only be left
when the text transcends the text
through the person of the person
in and through that moment of insight 
that knows no such limitation!
When the phenomenon of interpretation
meets the interpretation of phenomena
from that transcendental point of view
face to face, when the designed
signature signs itself off the surface
of that text in that encounter
that encounters its own resignation!

	The tempest stands down,
	sun treking through cloud.
	A landscape of peace,
	smiles cried out aloud!
	The white world's melting,
	peeps out through this shroud.
	Living metaphor,
	dying disallowed.

89.	How Proud Is Angry Pride?

What price puffed up pride, concretely
propped up with no sense of proportion?
What price that angry aggression 
that aggravates all opposition?
What price verbal hostility
passed off in indignant distortion?
What price has that humanity
that knows no human resolution?

90.	A Travel Poem: That Journey Spent In Flight

"Hurry, hurry, its time to flee,"
shouted the villagers to me.
A loud banging on the window
urging me to quickly follow.
An obvious message announced
by distant mortars more pronounced.
Sickening thuds and rumbles deep
dislodging the night sky from sleep.
And getting up I swiftly dress,
in the dark, all my fears confess.
Bid farewell to the nervous cat,
well under the bed, crouching flat.
Stuffed a pillow case with some bread
wrapped one meal already prepared.
Grabbed something to drink from the store
and one large cheese, the cake ignore.
Bundled some papers, and one book,
a local map as the ground shook.
The front rooms bursting into flame,
retreating quickly from the same.
But now I found the back door locked,
remembered passage that way blocked.
Then off its hinges blew that door,
escaping across the charred floor.
Out into the back lane I fled,
bullets passing above my head.
Machine guns splattering the wall,
while crouching feel the plaster fall.
In straight traced rows stuccatoed trills
clearly re=signal those death squad drills.
Slipping past those is such pursuit,
going west by an alpine route.
Strafed by planes bombing the terrain,
targeting the quick and the slain.
A living hell on earth takes hold,
now see this civil war unfold.
High up upon this mountain side
see this misery countrywide.
The morning plane spread out below
looking like a toy war on show.
Fields on fire and tanks in transit,
screaming jets in deadly pursuit.
Reached the pass when the sun went down,
hid with a friend in nearby town.
Avoiding one last border post,
all lit up like an eerie ghost.
And scrambling through the twisted wire
this moving target dogs aspire.
Short circuiting electric fence,
down and over the tank defence.
Coldly gunned down, all search light lit,
in a hail of shot badly hit.
The mine fields already run,
life as a refugee begun.
Battle scarred and wounded, homeless,
amid the starving and stateless.
Unwanted, a new life to find,
to a new language now resigned.
Those past thoughts now found depressing,
two homelands proudly professing!

91.	One Hermeneutical Interpretation

One Chinese communist newspaper proudly
told its readers that the decadent West
excessively pampered its canine population;
pampered its poodles most inappropriately.
That this ridiculous treatment of pets
was just another sign of the rotten decay 
that the West was forever struggling
to overcome with no hope of success.
The disconcerting connotations of this 
condition could be manipulated in China 
by the thought of all that extra food wasted,
unproductively squandered on such animals 
in a country of immanent `political' famine, 
social memories on this subject still keen.
Even today a good half of the population 
is part mobilized in some way to help 
bring in the communal harvest while 
the same people also contribute relatively 
more from their self-directed efforts 
on their own profit motivated plots.

So how does one interpret such a text;
should one search for an intended subtext,
or, perhaps seek a counter-text in hiding;
ready and waiting to be self-exposed?
However, might not some party hack 
just be in residence composing fine 
memorials praising China's moral progress
mindlessly churned out to order?
Or, might not some free spirit
playing the establishment to the hilt,
each detail in strict accordance with 
the party line, really go over the top.
Making a mockery of the party propaganda,
publishing for all to see, for all 
those who really see and patriotically care, 
that the system was such a fool 
that it could not recognize that	
it was being taken for a jolly ride
using its own tricks and tools exercised
in this pathetic insulting trade?!

92.	Hey There: Semi-Autobiographical Sketches

1.	Remember Me, We Met One Cold Night

Hey there, remember me, we met one cold night
reading latest poetry, always recent, never stale.

Would you recite the same poem one hundred times,
rather die than hear myself repeated too often?

Might believe those lines so churned out and chanted,
know well enchanted lines need the unique performance.

Recited propositions almost delivered to the beloved,
alas, wasted pearls of poetic sweat, shared elsewhere.

Probably just as well; who would in their right mind
think this regulated soul had something to say?

No exotic travels to the East, no grand tour yet beneath the Acropolis, around the Pyramids, under the Ponte Vecchio...

Haven't climbed Ulhuru either, yet, may be some day a visit to this sacred center although would prefer to see the 												    Olgas.

2.	Keeping In Touch

Hey there, I still treasure your smile, those warm hugs,
those kindly words of shared insight, treasured moments.

Still get the odd letter, keep in touch, know all meetings 
are finally severed, but what the heck, still persist.

No longer sacrifice those dying relationships, or myself,
time does a better job of that for us, so why interfere.

Guess what, routine allows me to travel elsewhere,
during the daily chores I day dream, guess we all do.

Vicarious experience experienced, like a quiet vacuum cleaner absorbing the background; or reading about it.

Even during those daily rituals happily trade places with
that other me, thinking thoughts freed from boredom.

Untying knots self created, creating little jokes, jokingly trying to see other points of view, laughing at self.

3.	A Promise Is A Promise?

Hey there, a promise is a promise but does that mean
I promised I would keep that promise too?!

Unexpected is the changing flux of personal choice,
expect otherwise and you will meet no one, just no one!

A robot perhaps, or human equivalent; what a shock to find 
that the most inconsistent person I know is myself, yes, me!

Consistently inconsistent, yes that's correct, I think...
but jumping jack let me change my mind, be less persistent?

Decisions, bloody decisions; should install a roulette wheel 
of choice: tea or coffee, Twinings, plain, perked, instant?

As the moment pleases; such excitement, such suspense
not knowing which way the wind will blow, will blow again?!

Giving freedom a gentle push from time to time, then seeing how the falling dice re-make their fateful landing...

4.	That Treasured Relic

Hey there, why do I treasure a few old pots and plates 
of times now long gone, looted from some tomb or city?

Why listen to Bach's harpsichord music, organ music; the many sweet delights of the viole de gambe, such refinement?

Ssssssh, tell you a secret, those relics have voices,
silent messages for those that listen to such listening.

Soul stamped measures, aesthetic fragments of others,
symbols of a yearning that transcend such material.

Such integrity had that potter, silent poet on the wheel
turning out these humble masterpieces, poems in clay.

Also long for a beauty to inform my own performance,
relishing those little poetic touches of activity.

Doesn't really matter what you do, but how you do it, or there abouts, don't reason why just question, and be open.

5.	Your Smile Entrances Me

Hey there, your smile entrances me, signifies an entrance,
an entry to trance, a leaving behind of an everydayness.

May be I am just a flirt; maybe its your trousers or shirt,
may be the way you walk, work, wake up in the morning...

May be just the way I speculate, spectate, salivate, levitate when near you; but don't think I savour just those

Parts, for I am in love with the whole, the total you, your quintessential essence; that potential for interaction...

How we interact, attract, activate, instigate a wider world for each other, just being there for each other being there.

Even if out of sight, out of touch, it makes no difference,
your smile breaks into another dimension between you and me.

At the end of day just thinking what few words I might say to you if you were here, or telephoned, or just wrote.

6.	On The Beach

Hey there, you like the sun and I like the shade, you like the rocks and I like the sand but both of us like the waves.

The crystal water riverletting over your olive torso,
sparkling like a sea shell under the brilliant sun...

That ritual again with the sun cream, public touching,
well rubbed in strokes oft repeated and returned...

Now hide myself in a book, you under that floppy straw hat,
or should I remould the sand a thousand ways in re-creation.

The roar of the surf as a forgotten backdrop, casual words
passed back and forth, now and again, melted thoughts...

Hey, watch the passing parade, that passing trade, trading
glances, glancing back, backhanded, measured, shared...										   
Compared, psychologically analysed by the very subject who in turn analyses yourself, perhaps had in equal pleasure?

7. 	Routine Transcended Through Minimalization

Hey there, I get up, get showered, take breakfast, read the paper, go to town, take lunch, take tea, go to work, go to 													 bed.

I get up, get showered, take breakfast, go to town, then read the newspaper, take lunch, take tea, go to work, go to 											 bed.

I get up, get showered, take breakfast, read the paper,
go to town, then take lunch downtown, take tea, go to work, 										go to bed.

Today, feeling sick, shall stay in bed, take breakfast, read the paper, take lunch, take tea, read a book, remain in bed.

Tomorrow night will later watch the moon, drink fine tea, party under the light of the lanterns under the plum trees.
The next day I'll get up... same old routines, but, still never quite the same, always finding subtle variations on a 										    theme.

No cliches avoided, only transmuted and transposed;
through minimalization all routines routinely transcended.

8.	A Night Of Sex On The Town?

Hey there, a night of sex on the town; well teenagers dream about it, and parents only remember it long afterwards?

And the old they might boast about it, of course with a conscience clear, all metaphorical and a bit theatrical.

Definitely not worth chasing, a public relations discrepancy, but if you must - just better thought about.

Try gardening instead, or entertaining a few good friends,
going for an exotic trip, a challenge through the bush!

Still some part of us likes to go a hunting although the more pretentious prefer being seen to be above all that.

Better to substitute a few drops of love into the equation,
not lust, beyond mere passion, part channelled into longing?

A pining for the beloved in residence just out of town,
forever under the same roof, always in the same bed!

9.	Forever Catching Buses

Hey there, forever seem to be catching buses and trains;
the more wealthy, I see, prefer to travel by taxis or plane.

Go shopping down town like all the others who commute,
and find a few tourists doing the same beat.

Fancy Melbourne for lunch and Adelaide for tea,
breakfast in Perth, a siesta in Darwin, supper in Brisbane?

Not really, much prefer the perfection of my own table,
exactly what is wanted without too much expense...

Watch the waistline; mind you, how many nouvelle cuisines have I seen these last few months printed on floppy menus!

A simple dish outpriced by a side salad that should have been included, fresh water never to hand, no token bread...

Better to run a restaurant taking pleasure and profit from a few customers happy to return known by name, and eaten 												    with?!

10.	Why Complain?

Hey there, on the television now see how poor communists suffered for their beliefs, went along with the system.

Helpless, used, abused, heckled, hounded, rounded up
in the middle of the night, shot before dawn or jailed.

Everyone's a political prisoner, even at the top; power plays only last so long, and only the dead smile forever.

Why complain, be grateful human rights have been traded for food, and simple housing, a happy dictator working for you.

Human rights simply traded for bread on the table, or rice, or millet, or corn, or some diseased potato or dried
										  biscuit. 

Why complain, you shouldn't eat cake all day and night; better democracy and soup kitchens and our wonderful way of 											life?

Why not complain bread is never the equal of freedom to be
traded like some common coin of the realm to be given away!

10.	If You Read A Book...

Hey there, if you read a book you see the world like a book,
if you watch tv you see the world like tv...

I think a lot and see the world through thought,
drops of intentionality taking poetic flight?

When I dance I see the world in a glance swaying in time,
keeping simple rhythms to a beat subtle and deep.

If you garden you see the world as a gardener,
as a monarchist you see God as the principle power?

If you enjoy your friends you take democracy on board,
and if you love you accept a selfless part.

The sleeper sees the world as asleep,
the dreamer as a world within a world of dream.

The sick person sees the world as sick, the joker sees the world as a world of humour, the healthy person as getting 											better?

11.	Why Not Go On Holiday?

Hey there, what malicious fool invented the working week, 
and worse wished to see it invade the weekend?!

Early agricultural man and woman were so affluent,
two months working holiday and ten months free to spend.

What a bargain; what a price to pay when the tax collecting bureaucrat came and collected the dues owing to the state?

What, another pyramid this week, what’s wrong with the last one, do we need another war, empires are so costly?!

And what palace pampered pussy cat would know that fact,
all empires need more money, more than can be sequestered!

And back to work, sweet salvation of the idle soul;
a necessity better done away with if only we could lower our 										   sights.

Deconstruct the myth of production, we produce too much,
more than enough; better services traded, and communicated!

12.	Reproduce Or Perish!

Hey there, reproduce or perish, produce or perish;
who needs another identical suit or piece of furniture?!

Who needs excessive production, who needs excessive reproduction; manufacturing babies like traded commodities?

Manufacturing, factoring, motoring, mobilizing, billing, billeting, letting, permitting, paying, paying off...

When will it all end, will it all end; consumerism consuming
commercials, commercials consuming consumerism...

A dollar a day spent each day will hardly keep that financial depression away, will hardly pay off that ecstatic 										   shot...

Of what ever trip you're on, hardly fast track that trick
that makes your next trick one more treat more tricky than 										the last...

Buy it man, buy up big, if art's your trip then treat yourself big, everyone's a junkie, never reformed only re-							formed, do you dig man, dig!

13.	Playing Chess

Hey there, a good game of chess is like a work of art, and I confess, like going off to battle without the spilt blood 											and gore.

Enjoy this mixture of emotions, mental sweat, a beating heart, an identification with a crippled heroic king.

Find the mobil queen exhilarating, and the treacherous knights and crafty bishops a little taxing.

Inspired by the promoted pawn, the foot slogging of the soldiers, so stubborn, so masculine, so disciplined.

Better they than me, better those pieces than hacked to pieces; a better world that could see this difference!

Almost as good as a work out at the gym or a run in the park
but a lot more fun, such a swift move and so beautifully 												done!

Pity it wasn't my turn to move though, so much admired, beat me any time with such a surprise, so sneaky, cheeky, well 												done!

14.	Working and Playing All Day Everyday?

Hey there, so you think life is like a grand chess game;
a simple task of mating, some tit for tat in passing..?

But may be we are like pawns, and no more, playing life as a bizarre piece of theatre without definitive interpretations?

To be partnered by those close fingers of fate massaging some fickle fantasy always too late for that important date.

"Timing is of the essence," only appreciated in retrospect,
a looking back over our shoulders into the future?

Being is without substance, be-coming is taking a stance,
moving with the tide of play, happily working within the 													 day.

Without the rhyming reason of time there would be no motion, nothing delivered, nothing thought, no date kept and 											  interacted with...

No checking, no mating, no laughter, no coming nor going, no birthing nor dying, neither poetry nor crying..!?

93.	Who Are These Humble Keepers Of The Culture?
		After some comments of Simon Lyes 1974/77)			

Who are these humble keepers of the culture,
preserve it through adversity, keep it free, 
or relatively free, of passing ideology,
do not inward bend to the iron will of the state;
that totalitarian desire for anonymity,
that vandalization of historic monuments,
or worse, that horrendous destruction 
of that textual dimension in all its depositions?

Although hollow in pretension, empty in substance,
reflected upon by the detached academic, 
reconstituted through the `art' of the thoughtful,
yet, despite such intentional receptiveness,
the perfect transmission of culture is there enacted
among those people who live out its ritual.

94.	The Necessary Deconstruction Of The Great Helmsman

Deconstruct the cult of personality;
such `nobility' of presence
was the joint fiction 
of a thousand artist-slaves
whose forced iconography borrowed
from religion and the trappings
of the imperial past!
A dead carcass in the middle 
of the road must be removed!
On this sacred highway
can you not smell the lingering 
odour of its decomposing decay,
see the metaphorical flies 
still crawling about on its face, 
gnawing away at its shattered 
and shrivelled flesh?!
Such deadly power converted into this 
frozen simulation of immortality
in a kitsch marble bunker 
protected by armed soldiers from
its inevitable desecration 
by the people; natural justice 
even if a few years too late.
Double speak remaining the order
of the day; a menu that could not 
be cooked unless already pre-cooked.
No necessary rectification of names 
here, every slogan subverted:
power to the people, indeed,
especially to that one person
in power who feeds on its
intoxicating self-fortification.
The friend of all the people...
if you are not an owner of land,
a successful merchant, a foreigner,
a person of a cultured background,
a capable administrator or leader,
an intellectual, or worse,
a good and honest artist; someone 
the dictator knows they must fear!
Be warned if you are someone 
who would have disagreed with 
his definition of being democratic...
In death the helmsman 
has slumped over the tiller,
the sheer material burden of his
grinning corpulent presence
refusing to let go,
clinging desperately as in life.
Even in death the paranoid tentacles
of personal power exerted over others,
such `nobility' of presence,
ensures that the political mandarins 
of the system must desist from
deconstructing this myth 
fabricated about their master;
this monster padded out in a saintly
smock lest they undermine the fragile
illusions of their own legitimacy.
One more dynasty whose first leader 
was a tyrant, whose influence
churned the waters after death,
ostensively destroying 
the iconic landscape
and the simple lives of the poor,
and all others, callously 
trampled underfoot! 
No sovereign has had greater power
over the life, and the death,
of his people; all those millions
upon millions sacrificed for the good
of the country spent maintaining
his power at the center
like some giant spidery panda
which had spun a net of death
for all those who wished
to consort with her hairy, 
heavily waxed corpse of 
mummified mortality.
Look closely, the leader 
still decays and so does the system!
Long live the leader;
a long life systematically 
enshrined in one mausoleum
placed in the dead center 
of that ancient imperial capital,
a cadaver whose heart
still beats within this political
beast that rules in your name.
Alas, not quite so ruthlessly, 
or, rather, not so effectively,
now that the system continues 
to undermine itself, feed on 
the putrid oozing sap crystalizing 
on the sickly propped up surface 
of that facile mask re-made for public 
consumption; a serious of decrees
valiantly trying to hide from view 
its own inner weakening vitality.
The real pulse of political life 
slipping southward through
the fingers of those faceless 
bureaucratic clones who can only dance 
to the crazy tunes of a drunken 
psychopathic power hungry fiddler.
Subvert the system before 
the system finally subverts you
even after your death,
happy to rewrite your history,
the state unhappy to rewrite its own,
or rather, the latest official version 
of this sorry saga; truth 
changing its spots far too often!?
The culture with no deep roots
will be blown away,
and the sooner the better!!
The truly patriotic will consider it
to be their duty to ensure this occurs
when the right time comes,
to assume this awesome task;
needing some cataclysmic catalyst
and acting in this pre-text 
as the new focus of power 
in this dangerous transition,
this real rupture from an ephemeral past
grotesque in its ghastly life time
expended in bloody purges and putsches,
masterminded by elegant butchers.
My best wishes are with you 
O true masters of destiny,
may our best thoughts be with them 
in the final re-unfolding 
of this unfortunate tragedy!

95.	Poetic Time

Should the poem encode 
the vision of some moment
for that moment, for some other
time, or, for the posterity
of time immemorial?

Gone is the fleeting flickering
in the passing of the second
and now no longer appears there 
for the pleasure of some other time 
long forgotten or one not yet here?

But the taste of the temporal 
lingers on as a trace of a trace,
as a shadow of a shadow,
that can cause the crossing over
upon the face of a smile or a frown.

As for posterity who could
comprehend its awesome magnitude,
apprehend our appreciation 
of such an infinitude, recognize our
arrogance in stating such a claim!

Not yet known is the fate 
of this star studded universe 
but back into the furnace 
of our reddened sun is cleansed 
this leftover world of art.

But don't despair the workings 
of this craft need only insist upon
the reproduction of the moment,
the recreation of its provocative
flashing in its own firmament!

A winking blinking nudge nudge
say no more revealed through 
the veil of its own revived
embodiment, the re-interpreter
re-presenting the acting-poet!

96.	In The Heavenly World Of Poets

To My Dearly Beloved,
			
Sweet source of inspiration,
last night dined with Shelley 
and with Pope.
After coming home late
said good night to A.D.Hope, 
finding good old Walt Whitman 
already in bed
waiting for the moon 
to raise its manly head.
In the morning
wrote to Wordsworth;
in his last letter
he sent an ode warning
about pollution 
and urban planning,
mentioned Colleridge
in passing, and noted 
the good reverent Swift
was now two centuries dead.
At breakfast found Anon,
our greatest poet,
still quite drunk 
and terribly vague,
and just as difficult 
to pin down. Later, 
after eating at the cheap 
hotel "Celestial Light,"
found William Shakespeare
signing in for the night
with a very young dark lady
of indeterminate virtue, 
and sex, and still 
not being able to spell 
his name quite correctly.
Tomorrow having lunch 
at the Regent with Wyatt, 
Sydney and Donne;
and then meeting Auden and Byron
for a few rounds of golf
and a few hours of fun
drinking your health.
Spoke to shy Manly Hopkins
the other day who mentioned 
his old fashioned views
about the impending harvest 
of souls; however, 
had to tell him there 
had been a computer error 
at the beginning 
and that the whole scheme 
was now abandoned
much to the pleasure
of those sinners and hacks
who deserved to be
left unpardoned!
Recently read a 
few more passages 
from Dante's latest sequel;
by the way its called:
"Earth In Peril,"
with a philosophical 
foreword by Goethe.
Late last week finished
a short humorous book of verse
by Banjo Paterson entitled:
"How To Make It Big 
On The Gold Coast 
By Digging It Up
And Developing It,"
a terse account of 
local body corruption, 
turning swamps into canals, 
building concrete cities and 
other things considered nice.
Taking lessons with Basho,
and drinking tea with Li Po,
find as I get older
in this lowest of heavens
the time's getting faster
and so wishing you all the best,
but, before I go,
don't forget to send Schiller
that latest thriller 
from the pen of our good
friend Edgar Allen Poe.

			Yours, with lots of love,
								N.

P.S: For a treat Sappho dropped
by with an ode or two,
and a long winded complaint 
about that chauvinist Homer
so don't be surprised
if those two don't speak
for a few more centuries
although I hear Virgil on 
the Board For Equal Opportunities
might get them to meet
in a decade, or two,
with the view to settling 
their differences out of court; 
a difficult chore 
to navigate, and no doubt,
a terribly frightful bore!
		   		      N.

P.P.S: Oscar Wilde, 
your dearest friend, 
has quite recovered, 
I do comprehend,
and although always 
the jolly wit
I wish for the love 
of God he'd quit
just winking at women 
all night without end!
			       N.

97.	History As One Long Interwoven Story

Life is like a series of twisted ends
that never quite meet and never quite end,
a knotted fabric of strings that pretend
to have a start and a finish, but bends
and bumps and that yarn soon comes to a stop
to be surpassed by the latest gossip,
how distracting then a story started
and before you know it your've departed!
So how then did that story unravel,
so rudely interrupted through travel;
could life ever have a happy ending,
an afterlife forever transcending
those eternal themes in variation
that link this chain in one long narration?

98.	Puzzle Shih (Tea)

For the rich and poor
a sober perfume.
Described by colour,
circumscribed by room.
Finding a palette
to match this bloom.
Then its mixed and drawn
ready to consume.

99.	This Ship Of State Battered By Time

Mortality murmurs a siren's song,
soft and seductive, a lilting chant
that lulls all attentive thought
into a state of insensible amnesia.
But the moment something goes wrong
the siren sounds an anguished wail,
and remembered then is the refrain:
May be no tomorrow, may be no tomorrow,
may be no more today, life is such sorrow?

Laugh then at those people who think
they will live forever and who plan 
their lives as if they would do just that.
Money into the bank but never taken out,
cupboards filled with lifetimes of food,
schedules planned into the next century,
time tables executed as if nothing 
could ever go wrong, could ever break down.
No hip replacements, no triple bypasses,
no strokes, no accidents, no fevers,
no tooth aches, no back aches, no pain...?
Then we see them thinking as clear as day:
Maybe better tomorrow, may be better tomorrow,
may be better today, life is such sorrow?

Alas, even more disconcerting is the discovery
that others too are mortal and interrupt
our plans, inconvenience us, die on us 
without them telling us first 
and apologising for their thoughtless
passing away; then others hear us think;
written on our foreheads as plain as day:
Not coming tomorrow, never coming tomorrow,
not coming today, death has such sorrow!

Alas, this ship of state battered by time
sees out but the very last storm, then sinking 
from view, that moment in a blink of an eye.
Could a gust of wind last all morning,
could sorrow have such depth without some 
form of relief to contrast such disturbance?
Relish those moments of calm, those sweet moments 
in port, those remembered moments of parting:
May be coming back, may be coming back tomorrow,
might come back today, just accepting what might 
									follow...

Each person like a puffed up bubble of flesh;
fragile, frail and fearful; mortal to the `core,'
but in our perfect transcendental freedom 
found immortal, an appearance without 
an innermost substance; empty, overflowing, 
responsive, responsible, flexible, hollow;
continually, perpetually, eternally reconstituted.
Survivor of the moment, re-presented presence
through absence, perfected sense sensing nonsense, 
suspense, suspended animation re-animated, 
enamoured, enraptured, encaptured, encirled, 
all meaning merely borrowed; surpassing here 
and there, here and now, authentically rendered
each instant by each instant by each instant...
Be it then, or be it now, or be it tomorrow
life and death merely follow, follow, follow..?

100.	A Second Set Of Haiku On The Subject Of Plum Blossom
							   (Early September 1991)

1.	One more year has past,
	Yet thoughts rapidly written,
	Like falling blossom.

2.	One more year, drink tea.
	However fragile the bloom
	The taste lingers on.

3.	The plum has its stone
	And the flower has its heart,
	Could the tree feel sad?

4.	Falling like faint snow,
	A blizzard before the wind,
	Stark stems tinged green.

5.	Singing plum blossom,
	As kettle comes to the boil?
	Tea leaves thrown outside.

6.	Lead weighted blossom,
	Falling quickly to the ground?
	Startled, bird droppings!

Appendix I

	Two More Sets Of Haiku On The Subject Of Plum Blossom 										(101a/b) 

1.	As points of bright light
	Exploding on the plum trees, 
	Falling like fireworks.

2.	Plum blossom all year
	Would be barely noticed
	Unless found fallen.

3.	Well tuned instruments,
	White upraised gloves and batons,
	Conducting insects.

4.	Blossom at white heat,
	Not a silent spectacle,
	Forging baby plums!

5.	Fl'owers not found scented,
	Waiting trees in the still wind,
	Perfume the next breeze.

6.	Fleeting perfection,
	Fragile fl'wers so delicate,
	Ten thousand mirrors!

	*****************

1.	In the morning mist,
	Each plum tree hidden from view,
	Behind plum blossom.

2.	At noon no shadows
	Under the orchard plum trees,
	When in full display.

3.	At dusk am surprised
	To find virginal blossom
	Turning a pale pink.

4.	Bees in their bonnets,
	In their Western wedding gowns,
	Plum trees in flower.

5.	Survives the down pour,
	Stoic plum blossom waiting,
	One or two days more.

6.	Under lantern light,
	Mysterious Milkyway,
	Heavenly blossom.