Paul J Penton – Songwriter

It’s hard to separate Democracy from politics and government… they all merge into a fog of lies and truth that swirl in their own pea soup. Somehow, I get the sense that democracy of itself is like a town hall that’s stood for centuries, made of solid brick foundations and fine craftsmanship, built with honest hands that believed in the idealism of freedom. Freedom that flew like a flag in the breeze waving to all and acknowledging equality, liberty and justice for all. But when I look at politics and parties, public opinion and the media – it’ seems to be a long way from those origins.

The noblest ideal is to serve your fellow man, and many enter into politics with that weighty purpose, wearing it like a crown. But they get worn down by the circus, not many hold onto their ideals – they’re pressed into place by back room party deals. They wind up riding on the back of a circus pony with a long trail of feathers, smiling for the crowd, knowing they’re eating their own hearts, their own insides to accede to to the need of the party creed. There’s trumpets and parades and wild tigers in a cage, subdued and hued down to monochrome by the weight of the party machine, left wing, right wing, conservative and hawk. Democracy is far removed from the every day.

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Full of secrets and hidden things, mysterious places, other worlds, curious compartments a trapdoor leads to interesting places – lofts, coal shuttles, basements, escapes….

I see a metal plated door at an angle, it’s got a squeaky hinge that rotates to the left, it squeaks like a pump that’s almost run dry, and then shudders in a thunderclap as the door judders open. There’s a black hole before me – I feel its intrigue sucking me in, almost as if I’m standing at the edge of a tall building and swaying in the breeze and could topple at any moment.

The Fat rectangle of the Dolphin Torch sears a beam of light into the gloom, dust motes undisturbed for aeons catch in slices of light, they dance in slow motion ballerina swirls. It sort of smells and tastes! dirty. There’s a matting of constricted dirt all over the floor as I begin descending the stairs, the echoes are deadened quickly by the almost complete lack of surface for them to bounce off. It’s a bit spooky, I wonder if something might come jumping out of the dark – a trapped bat perhaps. Sweeping the searchlight over walls, there’s a collection of hovering spider webs in the corners, pellets of rat droppings on the floor so somewhere there’s another way to get in and out of here. I imagine the trapdoor closing above me and I hear that screech of the locking mechanism and capture a moment of the terror that would flood me if it were to happen.

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HMS Victory, Portsmouth UK, a square rigged man of war in dry dock. Decked in yellow and black unmissable, don’t mess with us! No yellow submarine this one. Inside, in gloomy compartments and layers are rows of cannon with spiralling barrels as thick as your arm, some as big as your head on other levels. As a child I go filtering back through time, through every pirate movie I ever saw, with scabbarded seamen wearing flapping bandanas.

The smell of gunpowder and cordite fills the air, the boat is shaking as if it’s just stepped into a chilly Boston morning, cannons are being reeled back, loaded with wadding, cotton wool wadding, gun powder and the cannonball. It’s heavy, seems to require more than one man to carry this tiny sphere, this world of destruction that will spin across the galaxy of the battle field. It’s a cold sphere of death, smooth but with pitted edges, as if your running over a day or so’s growth, freindless, dull grey metal in its basic state.

The fuse is lit and all stand back. The cannon roars and kicks back like a colt that refuses to be broken. Time to reload again. All along the walkway men are running through the procedure knowing at any moment an enemy cannon ball scould come splintering through the oak, blinding them with shards of wood or impailing them . The fear and excitement of battle are a soup they all drink in as they focus on their task, on their duty. Wadding, gunpowder, ramming, fuse. Yells and screams of ‘contact’ and ‘fire’ strain the air and indeed the screams and moans of those injured lying in bloodied pools.

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He knew the right eye was OK, but the left- well it had ‘gone’ a long time ago. He had to make it through this for the training to continue – his employer had shelled out a cool $750 to put him on the course.

His hand covered his left eye in a star trek salute while they ran through a series of charts. Apprehension grew like a basketball in his stomach – the right eye wasn’t as good as he remembered!- those last couple of symbols were starting to form lines of dancing Egyptian serving boys- and a puzzled look swept the face of the tester.

Swapping his hand to the right eye the real code breaking began. He had been training at home – recognizing outlines, words and letters from fuzzy abstractions and trying to memorise the shapes. He’d heard about one Air force pilot who knowing he was not 20/20 had memorised every chart in the known world to pass his test!

With his hand forming a bat wing over the right eye he descended another pyramid of letters. He reeled off the first three lines with ease, – at line four it began to become jumbled shapes and by line five it all seemed to fuse into a long line of licorice with nothing discernible. On another chart he followed the marching feet of letters easily to line four, but from here the parade seemd to halt. Swimming hazy outlines seemed to be trying to hypnotise him into believing they were something they were not! Panic rose as if he’d just taken a hot pie out of the oven without gloves, the embarrasment and frustration seared at him, layers of skin seemed to be peeling off while he looked for a benchtop to dispense his woes onto.

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The jaws of a billion billion cash registers open every day and those black square dish teeth gnash upon our hard earned salary. It’s like they’re gobbling up the pie we can’t get enough of, the piece that always screams more, more, more. For some it’s regular, for others it’s a dream and the government salary is the only thing they’ll ever see.

Even when those virtual dollars do turn up in your bank account they’re virtually gone in moments, assigned to pay mortgagaees and credit card disease and crispy bills that hang from the refrigerators with their long poster tonuges. All these things that want to have another piece of that pie, divide it up, divide it up. Like the flash of a memory card or a firely that dances before a windscereen briefly you take in its beauty before it’s taken a away like a prisoner and you’re left juggling jangling coins and pennies to get you through to the next deliverance where it all begins again. The slippery eel just wriggles through your fingers leaving you slimey reminders of interest like banks do!

How to make that pie bigger? Work harder – more overtime, increase your skills… become somebody else – whatever it takes. The more you have the more you are – or can become- is that how it works, is that the equation? I am imagining a salary that is divided into bar graph amounts of saving and spending that talk to a budget like a fitness consultant – dolling out discipline – encouraging it to do one more push up, spend one less dollar at the super market- do without one lesss product….

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Pages turning in the half light seemed to grow heavier and heavier as she read the fairy tale to her four year old daughter. In child’s mind cartwheels of pastel imaginings were flowing; she merged and suffused herself into the landscape being painted by her mothers’ words. She seemed to be swimming in a pool of soft yellow custard, it was all sweet and sticky, her hands were plying through lanes of smooth edged dessert. Lines were unclear and undifferentiated and for a moment she paused and licked the custard from her finger tips. Crazy ants of taste spun about in her mouth and filled her with glee before she continued swimming to the other side.

Emerging from the pastel pool she was immediately dry and slipped on a flowing embroidered gown that sat about her like finest silk, smooth and slinky. A pair of glass slippers waited for her. As soon as she had them on she was transported into the air – was flying at will going where her imagination called. She flew over a Hansell and Grettle sweet house and let out a hand to capture the corner of a coral roof, it tasted like icing from a wedding cake. She passed over a tufted wood and caught sight of a young girl donning a red cape – she thought she caught a shadowy glimpse of some forest creature in her wake- perhaps it was a wolf, but soon her dreamy soft focus thoughts returned back to reality just as her mother was saying “and they all lived ‘happily ever after’ “. Her tiny head merged with the pillow and the world of dreams began all over again.

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Innocently you’re driving along a suburban street. You note a patrol car donned in red, blue and white and think nothing of it as you glance down to ensure you’re at the speed limit. A second later there’s a whoop from behind and blue and red psychedilics are performing behind you. A pang of icy fear grabs your heart – a sweep of guilt paints your mind examining the last few moments to see what you might have done wrong – but you’re marginally perplexed.

You watch the world in the side mirror and a lanky officer marches toward you in a slightly spastic fashion, as if he himself has had a few drinks. An explanation and reading of the appropriate riot act follows. “This IS a random breath test, this IS a breath testing device and you will be required to give a sample by blowing into this here tube.” “Take a deep breath and blow into the tube please”…. You take in a small hurricane of air and expel it in anger into the device , knowing full well you’re clear and what an inconvenience this all is. “Right thanks sir”… he walks away.

The flat taste of that tiny white probiscus still sits on your tongue. The sense of humiliation that always comes form being pulled over, a slight quivering in the legs. Should I drive on now? Should I be on my way? Will they follow me – am I doing the spedd limit – have they disappaeared yet? All these things rush through your mind like speedway cars as you settle down to the normal task of driving from here to there.

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We all stood in a naked yard, the grass beneath our bleeting feet had been worn away through wandering and scratching away every day, plotting and scheming means of escape. How to get through that bed of barbed wire. Guard towers ringed the fence every 50 metres, so going through the fence was impossible, digging seemed to be the only real option. Some clever dick had recently made an attempt at escaping underneath a lorry, so we had all been lined up to have our names and numbers called and checked. Our personal guard -’Fritz’ we called him – walked the aisles touching heads, making sure we were real bodies – a few months ago we had made a decoy out of a mop and bit of stolen cardboard while one of the other chaps raced across the fields – we never heard of his fate… but we were put on limited rations for a month as punishment.

Our barracks were equally as stark as the exercise yard, thin pine slats that ached with cold in winter a pot belly stove that supplied a lick of heat and two blankets per man. The Red cross parcels were always welcome – of course the huns got to them first and took the best bits – but how would we know? In the numbing winter nights though those red cross blankets could not erase that chill that crept around fingers and toes and strangled our blood – we longed for a humble English bed and crackling fire.

The huts all reeked with the stench of uniforms worn and re-worn and worn down to almost nothing – Fritz was not going to supply us with any clothing, but the officers tried to make us maintain some form of cleanliness regime. Discicipine is what got us through until liberation. Thankfully we had not become a ‘concentration camp’ , yes we were thin, but not in the way some of those horror stories that later emerged were……

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She tapped the side of the just warm sphere against the benchtop in a circular motion so the sides grew a ring of fractured shell. It crunched, the same sort of sound as when you’re walking along a beach that is mostly shells. Her mind cascaded back to a childhood memory of her family walking along that beach, gulls cawing in the air, waves rustling against the shore, feet disturbing the layers of shells.

As abruptly, reality zoomed her back to the now. Long well tended fingernails began to grapple with the mosaic of broken shell and found their way beneath a solid slab. Humpty Dumpty obligingly lifted his head and the rubbery surface of the hard boiled relented enough to release the bottom section. Water from the kitchen tap shot a blast into the galvanised sink and another sphere was born again. She placed it with the other 4 she’s already granted salvation.

The rest of the salad was already done, fresh green salad leaves and seasonal plump cherry tomatoes, diced olives and some avocado. The egg would sit like an alien amongst it all, it’s blizzard white skin and traffic light yellow yolk stealing the show. The draw still had that tendency to get stuck and she had to flex her muscles like a sumo wrestler before it conceded . She found the knife she liked to keep super sharp. Should she give it another whip over the sharpener now? – No – The eggs were lined up on a wooden board and she quickly guillotined her way through…..

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April 22

Ford Falcon rounds the corner
as I’m waiting to cross
a defective muffler
that shouts at me as he plants his foot
to beat the traffic racing the bridge
he doesn’t know just around the bend is a ‘divvy’ van
with checkered police
eager to test his breath
like they did with mine
I was clear and free
not a drop of wine
maybe a residue from that Mount Pleasant Chardonnay
from the previous evening
but nothing to be alarmed about

A woman sits on the beach
her husband and child
playing in the wet sand
building a castle
she’s buried in a camera
I hear the pictures electronically tick over
as she relives yesterdays moments

The tide is out
wet sand on a higher part of beach glitters
where the moisture is
feet squeak along compacted sand
meditative and repetitive
putting me in a state of mind
where you can be doing one thing
and thinking of another
and you let your mind wander

sand bars made by the outgoing tide
are ripples and shades of brown
dark and light
like corrugations on well travelled dirt road
accompanied by the bells of annoyed plovers

not much seaweed here
just thin sea grass and bulbous poppers
footprints untouched by the tide
waves are triangles that collide into each other
meditate repetitive waves

SATISFY ME

I know I need to ‘get a life’ ,
but I can’t think where to start
someone said I was ‘living in the past’
another said you’ve got to ‘live from the heart’
another said ‘action’ would provide the key
I’ve tried those things but none of them seem…….
to satisfy me

Someone said I should get laid and find a loving woman
I went to bars and drove fast cars but couldn’t meet none of ‘em
I tried the papers, internet and (everyone I knew)
all the personal columns
tried coffee shops and adult courses
still I’m sailing in the doldrums
no matter who I meet I just can’t seem to make it happen
I’m the only one I know who can make me happy
I’m the only one I know
who can satisfy me

so many experts and corners criers seem to know me
my expectations aren’t too high of how it should be
I’ve seen it all on panavision
on the dreaded television
and why don’t life just seem to work
the way it does on TV
now why don’t life just seem to
satisfy me

is there a happy ending
a resolution coming [to be]
I guess Iv’e come so far to fall before I am free
I’ve got to have the latest thing now hang the expense
I know I can’t just get by with just false confidence
so put me in your trust and tell me all that you see
and let me know the things that i need …
to satisfy me

HUNDRED TIMES A DAY

What are you thinking?
You ask
a hundred times a day.
I offer no reply
just disconnection and waiting
for something to happen
no reply.
Even if you ask me
a hundred times a day.

Do I love you?
Am I, ‘in LOVE’.
How would I know?
What is it anyway;
Obsession,chemical?
Spriitual, mystical?
Obsession?
cannot say.
Even if you ask me
a hundred times a day.

The best for us
is to sep-ar-ate.
find your feet,
in all you’ve created.
Where you can know
what you want.
What’s in your heart.
Something else or me.
I’ve no answers you see,
even if you ask me a hundred times a day.

No promises
that change will come.
Reasons, there are none
don’t seem to make sense.
Step back, take in the vision.
come to understanding,
of all that’s been,
and what might be.
I don’t know which way,
even if you ask me, a hundred times a day.

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