Paul J Penton – Songwriter

Zebra stipes at odd angles collide in black and green and brown, shards of colour, that cut into the surrounding background and merge. Military uniforms with muted buttons and high collars, face paint, in complimentary colours , going unnoticed , running on silent, riding with the lights off.

Camouflage, keeping secrets, holding aces to your chest, camouflage your intentions, don’t let the other players know what you’ve got. Not a flicker of an eye, camouflage your emotions, hold them in check. Battleships in the distance, angular shapes make them merge in with the salty sea. Clanging metal monsters that ride the waves to eternity, to kingdom come, fighting for the kingdom. Rumbling tanks on biting caterpillar tracks with netting and shrubbery merge into the scenery.

The young man out on a date- having dinner and drinks , cannot camouflage his intention as he touches her on the arm- is she so offended? Her skin is clammy, she’s nervous, he’s uncertain a great pair they are. Board rooms with secret deals going on in the background, camouflaged behind smoke screens and other diversions so the real deal is not seen until the big reveal; the stock market mouth gaping moment announcing the plunging profit, the abyss the profits have dived into. The salaries of the executives camouflaged in share options and buyback schemes, pure greed, camouflaged in clever accountants’ figures.

Camouflage puts its fingers to its lips and says nothing, says follow me but don’t see me. Camouflage tastes bland , bland as Zuccini or cauliflower, pasty and unnoticed, perhaps it needs garlic and salt to light it up, but then it would be noticed and would no longer be camouflage. The succulent meat and mashed potatoes camouflage the taste of these otherwise boring vegetables.

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Thought we’d try a local pub one night in Fitzroy and wound up at the ‘Napier’. Inside it’s olde world mirrors and exposed polished timber, but to the side behind a locked set of gates is a courtyard. The air was pressing in with another humid Melbourne end of summer day as we set down with our number paddle and a glass of chilled Cascade premium beer. We felt a little old surrounded by mostly university age kids; fresh puppy faces engaging in serious discussions about entropy and engaging in outrageous drinking games. The beer tasted hoppy and sweet and in the heat was very sweet indeed.

In time the meals arrived, mine an island of brown on a sea of salad and shreds of chips, hers a ‘fish of the day’ don’t remember what type but I think it was salmon, crusted in sea salt. My knife ragged its way through the skin of the steak and a gamey smell rose to greet me making my tongue eager to see if the taste matched the smell, and it did. The juices and blood and charcoaled skin seemed to combine into an instant of total gratification, which I followed with a shovel of chips. The salad I worked over with disinterest and by the fifth mouthful of steak I was beginning to tire of the thrill of the taste. How does that happen?

The students were making the usual hubbub of noise and laughter and caterwaul as they do, while we talked about various things to make us feel young. I finally rested the knife and fork giving up on the salad about half way through – all that waste- all that effort to get it here on the plate and I just abandon it, as if life is so cheap!. Back in the bar I ordered another couple of beers. Drips of cool sweat run over my fingers as I deliver them back to the table. She comes up with the usual line about wouldn’t it be nice to have a garden and to be living down by the bay – but on our incomes this little inner city was about as far as we could stretch, for today at least- but it’s good to have a dream I keep saying, good to have a dream. So we left the students sorting out the problems of the universe and headed back to our own entropy

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The bundle of chips I am cupping seem to cut into my hand with the sharp edges, like a well ground kitchen knife, they swelter like a bar heater and seem to weigh as much as a motorcycle as I haul them up to the window. My guilt feels equally as weighty – somehow I’ve just managed to pull about five thousand dollars off of a roulette table- don’t ask me how. Part of me – the destructive part – wanted to stay and put it all on one last gamble, but I’ve learned to walk away from that voice; the voice that sneers at me saying you don’t deserve this, you’re a little poor boy- well it can just go to hell!

Her navy blue waistcoat has gold buttons that glitter slightly as she turns. My pile does not surprise her – is that part of the training I wonder? The chips clink through a receptacle and she starts laying out the hundreds – part of me starts to feel anxious, it manifests as a small revolving galaxy in my guts – I’m going to walk out of here with five K – what if some operator has been watching me and follows me and gives me a whack. More disaster scenarios play out. I will not listen to that voice or indulge in that movie either.

Be gone!

Ten hundreds make a thousand – five thousands make my five thousand. Those green plastic slivers start to add up and fatten- she ties them up in bundles of 1K with rubber bands and then a big fat one to contain the lot. She shuttles it across with a smile. It feels a lot lighter now it’s ‘real’ money. I drift through the casino with its bells and lights and cries of ‘winner’ and ‘yeah’ coming from various tables not really knowing what time it is. Hard edged poker faces stare down the cards and make instant calculations. Maybe I could have a ‘quick’ round of black jack – but is there really a quick round? I will not listen to that voice! I will only listen to the voice that says ‘keep walking, keep moving, get out the door’. And what will I do with this guilt money once outside – I didn’t earn it honestly. Maybe I could give it to a charity? Maybe I could rationalise the ten thousand I lost making it?

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Dentist

Went to see Doctor Danny
about my teeth
why put it off?
almost been a year and a half
I was meant to see him this time last year
for my six monthly
but I got the call to remind me
and I was in Adelaide
and it just was never a priority
but something kept eating away at me
and I did it
and it was fine
just the standard scale and clean
that little drill that claws at the edges of your teeth
where they meet the gums
occasional spike s of sensation by way of pain
but purely temporary
assessment of no fillings
a rinse for a minute with the fluoride treatment
so I was free after 20 minutes
I enquired about teeth whitening
the $ 500 special
just for me
I’ll consider it

Chadstone

So ‘I’ve an hour and bit to fill
before the next appointment
and I drive to Chadstone
surely by now
it IS the largest shopping center
in the Southern Hemisphere
I get their and go in gateway 1 to find it’s blocked off
of course they’re doing more extensions
so I’m railroaded to an uppers storey car park
and take a few minutes to find a spot
maybe I should just give up
no
I’m on mission
lunch at my favorite chicken bar beckons
I descend some steps and drift through David Jones
through the welcoming sights and smells of the ladies cosmetics department
with beautiful painted ladies
displaying the best lipsticks and foundations
from their
chosen product lines
ready to explain
the benefits and disadvantages of one thing over another
and to make you a
‘one time only offer’

I make it through and hover on marbled floors
one storey up
transported across rows of apparel
looking down on the lower walkway
and all its tantalising offers
30% off today only!
etc
The escalator deposits me gracefully on the food court level
I walk through taking in the various smells of
Chinese and Italian
Japanese and Korean
it’s a world of food here
I see a man and woman in the midst of the tables
who look like they’re courting
or doing that thing that pigeons do
sort of cooing to each other in body language
I move straight through heading for the chicken bar
that I will not name
the one I wouldn’t mind to own If I had a spare 500 K

To keep aligned with my diet plan
I’m thinking it’s a salad to go with the chicken
but when I enquire about the price
I’m knocked back by the accountant inside
$13.50
for a chicken salad!
I can do better than that!
I storm back toward the food court
my outrage distilling and then disarmed
by playful kittens in the window at pets world
there’s three of them on the ground floor completely asleep legs stretched at ridiculous angles
soft grey stripey tummies
and serenity on their faces

I scan the food court looking for options
a chicken and avacado gets my attention
with orange juice I start to wolf ,
but then I get something crunchy in my teeth
a piece of unwashed spinach perhaps –
I let it pass
then another and another
should I take it back?
should I complain?
no I’ll just work around it
but maybe next time
I won’t be the nice guy
I’ll have changed

The clock gets close to two
so I leave for my next medical meeting

Cardiologist

Looking for consulting room fifty
down three or four sets of echoing corridors
and the trail runs dry,
backstep and realise I missed a turn
into a light filled corridor full of much older people
have I got he right place?
I check on the wall
a whole load of names
in Greek and Russian
and there’s my man.
I enter the reception area
I’m greeted by Amanda
who’s more than ‘there’
a stripey jungle pattern top
that sits on one shoulder
and the drops to the other
she’s constantly adjusting
I wonder if the other boy in the office
is getting turned on

I shuttle outside to fill in forms
name address and date of birth
next of kin etcetera etcetera
I leave them for her while I sit and listen
to a man on mobile who’s come out of the rooms
to talk to someone about his fathers disease
we hear him explaining about the bladder
‘if he doesn’t get it done
he could die as a soon as tomorrow
but the old man’s stubborn and doesn’t believe
doesn’t want to be seen inside a hospital
just like my old man
and here I now am in the grip of the machine
maybe it makes sense of those outrageous premiums

this fellow on the phone
he doesn’t realise he’s the entertainment
who magazines for June 2008 don’t compare with what we can hear
quite plainly form the other end of the corridor
all these old sick people
are tuning into his radio station
and I start to get lost in a cloud of concerns
over all the things
that have been happening
this tickling spider inside my heart
the elephant visits in the middle of the night
how they sit on my chest and constrict my breathing
and I can’t see that I’m doing anything different
to what I’ve always done
maybe now I’m on holiday
what I took to be stress
‘is manifesting
as some sort of disease
and it is
its’ dis- ease
An elderly lady comes out quickly
followed by stripey Amandal who mentions her surname
‘my ears prick up at the mention’
of it-the same as a former girlfriend
I surreptitiously peak
but the old woman doesn’t remind me of who I think she should be
and perhaps its the same with me
would she remember what I looked like from 1996?
She enters into conversation
with someone she knows
who’s just walked in a
nd I hear the name of ‘Nolene’
and ‘my other daughter’
the neo-natal nurse
and I know it’s her
my how our memory can play tricks
she’s nothing like
what popped into my imagination

My name is called out
and I meet the surgeon
he seems happy and relaxed
we transit to his office where a model heart is dead on the table
he explains the meaning of the suqiggly lines
on the E.C.G
and the operation of the right ventricle
how this is a classic case
of the syndrome owned by me
W.P.W
Wolff-Parkinson-White
it seems the heart has developed another junction box
that sends a pulse via an alternative route ,
sometimes in sync
but more often not
‘which Is why I experience this jiggling spider inside me
I hope the cure does not involve swallowing a bird!
He works through the whys and wheres
and then gets to the how
I will undergo a procedure
including a mild anasthesia
I can take my I-pod if I care
but he will guide a micro fibre
through my veins
to that place where
the problem seems to emanate from
and he’ll send a pulse to asses how strong
or weak the problem is
if it’s bad he’ll kill a muscle and the problem will be solved
if not he’ll leave it

I talk about the elephants
he says he’ll ‘have a look’
at the arteries while he’s in there.
I am quite assured of the procedure
though he does mention
’someone with a sever case
died on the table
but they bought him back to life
:’with the paddles”
hmmmm
am I ready for that?
we set up appointments
and I pay his fees and go to Medicare
for reimbursements and in two weeks
I”l be on the table
If I last that long
these elephants are starting to hang around all day long
mildly worried
after speaking to my sister
about Angina
a narrowing of the arteries
but from what I read on the internet
this usually manifests when you play sport
so why do i have it now when doing nothing
this is more than hypertension
more than stress
there’s definitely something weird going on

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Gas Leak
Man fixing some pipes
in front of the bakery
there’s a scar in the sidewalk
about one knee deep
the smell of gas
and a yellow hat
He works away in a faded green jacket
layers of dirt exposed
the story of the earth
diving through the concrete
as deep as your forearm
the pipes exposed
like an oil refinery
he’s acting like a nurse
bandaging them
with some sort of dressing
is that going to hold the gas I wonder?
More cursory digging
taking place
with a wooden handled spade
a funny thing to be using
in this day and age
surely they would all be plastic…
wouldn’t they?

Sunday mornings

Sunday mornings lying in bed
Letting the week drain out of my head
trying to guess
what it’s all been about
another working week

Chain smoker

A desperate smoker
comes out of the store
lighting his cigarette,
shielding the match
against the wind
keeping it out of his straggly hair
he’s about 60 plus by my reckoning
dressed down – a lot
might be on a pension
He’s keeping that match alight until the third puff
and as I walk past
I get a strong whiff of petrol vapour
mixed with nicotine in the air
right next to the petrol bowser
right next to where he’s just been standing
was it an accident waiting to happen?
His desperation
putting us at risk
in this situation?
I’m so preoccupied
that I drive off
without securing my petrol cap
or closing the door
someone gets out of their car
at the lights to alert me

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Legacy

Thinking about my legacy
and leaving a mark on history
what is going to be left of ‘me’?
The things I write?
The things I think?
And if nobody’s listening
what’s the point in anything
The purpose of life
is to touch a heart
the purpose of life is to love
how far short am I falling?

Chapel street

The refurbished Sony shop
you walk in and it just smells ‘new’
the combined odour of manufacturing
of carpets,
of M.D.F.
of cabinets
of televisions
everything is so new
just down the road
a Greek looking grandmother
sitting right outside that store
the one I can’t identify
when I’m sitting eating breakfast
she’s wearing a scarf on her head
and a long sleeved dress
with stripes in muted blue and green
looks like she’s been sitting there a life time
what’s she waiting for?

That mystery store I realise
not only sells clothes
it has a range of action figure and figurines
from Batman to Robocop

At the Coles carpark
[why don't I also refer to it as Safeway
they share equally?]
A skinny man with a pink cap
is calling out for Jonathon
is this a lost child,
or an imaginary friend?

Printing

I have only nine print outs for a class of 14
and In my mind I’m making justifications
as to why
I don’t have enough copies
I could say it’s about the expense
or the environment
but the truth is it went slightly wrong
I should have had more
I was doing my best
trying to print out on both sides
but the machine made a mangle
and some only got half
of the lousy print out
so I have to make more
waste more paper
and I’m not even sure
if anybody’s going to read it
In the class it seems quite normal
to share a copy one between two
but I didn’t know that
before today
so why did I get into such an inner dialogue?
Explaining and justifying
why I had only bought
nine copies.

Train trip

Thin spiky haired blonde
looking an like ex addict
talks about her father to another chap on the train
it’s out there for all to hear
no boundaries.
He appears to be listening
but I’m suspecting he just wants sex
while she is f’ing that and f’ing this
about her situation
she says that so and so is really keen on XYZ.
And there seems to be some incident
regarding a surfboard.
Am I being too judgmental by assuming
her intelligence level is not university?
Am I being terrible to have such thoughts occur to me
and do other people judge me
by the way I speak and the way I act
how terrible!

Terminus

Inside Flinders
there are arrows and missiles
tracking platforms
they cross paths
and move in similar directions
all getting on with the business of their destinations
they form a criss-cross lattice
and their lives are creepers that embellish
Like a hundred international flights
criss-crossing Europe
everybody is on their way somewhere
to something
to homes and families
to imaginings
to hopes and dreamings
everybody is crissing and crossing

TRAFFIC LIGHTS

No longer are we faced with a bulb and a lens
nowadays it’s light emitting diodes
look really close
and you’ll realise
this is no longer a light bulb
but a series of tiny spikes
in the form of a circle
the mind fills in the spaces
I stare at them
there must be more than fifty
aligned neatly.
First impression
up close
is the shape of a cross
and each diode
has a luminescence of its own
it becomes fuzzy and merges
with its neighbour
giving the impression
of a whole
a circle unbroken.
They’re brighter
than the globe driven models
and more dependable
they don’t need changing remotely as often
they’re secret silent servants
obeying the commands of switching mechanisms
running on their own little programs
controlled  at traffic central
by hawk like eyes

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May 17 sunday walk

Marina

A collection of Suzuki coupes
down by St.Kilda marina
squat little things
must be a car club meeting
they’re gathered around
gesticulating
talking about options for improvement I guess
I note on the way back some of them have a badge
‘cappuccino’
maybe that’s what they are then
Suzuki cappuccinos
right next door is a range of BMW’s
and a couple of Western suburbs poster girls
I’m thinking it’s a photo shoot
one well specked BMW is parked on the boat ramp at an angle
and they’re preparing the girls
for the shoot
plying them with bottles of water
hopefully their orangey tans won’t wash off
and those high school dresses won’t flip up in the wind
or maybe someone might find it exiting
I realise on the way back
it’s another car club
they’ve hired the models for the day
to give the owners the pleasure
of thinking they’ve ‘made it’
to the big time
there’s a line up of Beemers by the time I return
I scoot by and look at the million dollar yachts
reflecting in the water in oily shifting shapes
I note a number of them are for sale
is that the Global Financial Crisis?

Walking

A clear day air slightly frosty
the You-Yangs clearly visible across the bay
not obscured by the city haze

a tot in a pink dress
riding with her father
she wants to ride up onto the recreation field
but he’s got other ideas
a negotiation takes place
and she backs down

undergrowth and shrubs
along the edge of the water
have a rotting musty smell about hem
the same as Phillip Island
where the Mutton birds come to roost

Surprised by how many foreign languages I am hearing today
form South American
to Russian
to German
are they all on holidays?

 
Dogs

Small dog tries to retrieve a stick
right on the edge of the water
part way in
as each wave arrives it lifts its front paws
so it’s almost like a prancing horse
and gets hold of its objective
Greyish West Highland white
with a weight lifter body
thick and shaggy needs a wash
reminds me of a polar bear
some dogs let loose from the leash-
a beagle and a golden retriever
free to run now the beach restrictions lifted
-March to November,
they seem uncertain but exited
A Daschund trots long and fat along the parapet
 the owners must have put it up there
he’s not agile enough to have done it on his own
Footprints
 
soft pads of footprints in the sand
echoes and reminders of what’s been
but now the wind has smoothed out the definition
you wouldn’t know who’s been walking here
all the footprints become equal
all human
all one

Heart

No shortness of breath
no dizzyness
but there’s this pain
just above the right breast
about he same place
as the other on is

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