least said…

Curiosity is an irritation,
an itch in the back of the mind.
Oh, the temptation to scratch it…
to break the heavy silence
between light and flippant remarks,
to type but not delete this time.
But…
Don’t ask questions
you don’t want the answer to.
Better to let the irritation fade to a tickle,
than scratch it and leave an open wound.

1000 January 30th, last day of summer holidays

10 o’clock and all the have-tos are done,
a hundred should-dos, but not a single one
appeals as a use of a summer day
and so another one just drifts away.
The list of could-dos has items still
but the days, though long, so easily fill
with things that are almost the want-to kind,
until of a sudden we look ahead and find
those endless days that seemed so long
have rushed right past, and summer is gone.

 

I saved up all my annual leave in 2022 so I could take most of January off while the kids were on school holidays. Tomorrow they go back to school and I go back to work, and there are so many things we didn’t get around to doing. Even little things – I meant to spend more writing, do a bit of painting, more gardening. I didn’t even take my clarinet out of its case. But I guess I really needed to do a whole lot of nothing after last year. Now I feel almost ready to go back into the fray, but I’d still rather not. sigh 

winter melts

Winter lies sadly melting in the sink.
An ice-blue sky reduced to an anonymous puddle
in a plastic zip-lock bag.
And for what?
To make way for bargain priced minced meat.
“I’m sorry” I say to the little one,
who just shrugs.
And for a moment I consider telling her:
“It remembers what it was. Water remembers.”
But I do not say it,
because she is not so little anymore,
and would just roll her eyes and say “muuummm”
at such sappy Disney bullshit.
She accepts that snow must make way
for ‘reduced to clear’ minced meat.
And I am sorry for that.

Written for the dVerse prompt “poetics: the blizzard of the self“, to write a poem about winter. I used a bit of poetic licence here, it was actually a bag of hailstones rather than snow that was taken out of the freezer a while ago to make space for ‘reduced to clear’ meat. But snow somehow fitted better with the broader theme than giant hailstones which are themselves due to climate change.
 

not a poem for S

I read a poem today and I thought,
you would like this.
But then I remembered that you despise me
and I detest you.

And I was sorry
for a moment
that I couldn’t send it to you.

But what is there to be done about that?

Other than remind myself that you despise me
and so I detest you.

M&M

Dedicated to two of my very special colleagues:

M1’s young in head,
though no longer a boy
but he’ll still run to daddy
when he wants a new toy.
This week what he wants
is a badge and a whistle
to show that his role
is prop’ly official.
Given his druthers, he’d
dress the students in brown
and have them salute him out
on the parade ground.

M2’s old in heart,
(though not in tooth long)
in style he’s sans dance
and also sans song.
He’s not here to lead,
and he’s not here to manage,
he’s just here to stand by
and point out the damage.
It’s above his pay grade
(so he lets us know)
to do any work
(though he’s an aspro).

 

Aspro = associate professor. In Australia we use the British system: tutor, lecturer, senior lecturer, aspro, professor.  So an aspro in Aus is quite senior, not like an American assistant professor which is roughly a tutor. 

success couching (redux+)

This is a re-post from a year ago, with an update…

We’ll get us a success coach
to train up our success
he’ll pump us up with slogans
until we are the bestest.
He’ll elevate our excellence
right up to the sky!
And as the gas comes whooshing out
our excellence will fly!

what to plant in autumn

I planted the mice
all in a neat row,
and this year I reap
what last year I sowed.
Now gnawing of seeds
bids me understand
that again time for planting
of mice is at hand.
So I lay out my traps,
with a morsel of cheese,
tomorrow I’ll plant them
below the snow-peas.
And I hope that this year
– a change would be nice –
I’ll harvest some peas
instead of just mice.

Things to plant in autumn in the southern tablelands: peas, broad beans, broccoli, spinach, mice. 

scheduling cats

I was sitting in my room when one of my sons walked past the door and asked if I was writing a poem. I said “no”. He said “write one about your day, they’re usually funny”. Well, I spent my day chasing late timetabling forms (almost half of them) and querying ones that didn’t make sense (about a third). So not a good basis for a poem. But, here it is anyway.   

 

Herding cats
is not my calling,
but it seems again that
it is to me that job is falling!
Am I really asking for that much?
I just want clarity on what you need
for your lectures, tutes and labs and such,
and so it pains me when on your form I read,
that you want lab weekly for zero times two hours,
well, I’m handy at arithmetic, and so, numerically, I assume
that you want nothing – a welcome change, and within my powers,
until I read further and discover that you’ve requested a specific room…
I cannot help but think there must be some mistake here,
Perhaps this is a typo, you hit zero instead of one?
Although on the keyboard they are hardly near
pondering the keyboard, a conclusion comes
you must mean nine times two hours lab,
well, I can schedule that in for you,
oh, your timetable will be fab!
Now, tutes – twenty-two?

in your eyes?

For dVerse Tuesday poetics “after St Valentine left the building“, poems about lost loves, the what ifs, and never could have beens….

 

I wonder if you remember
that moment when we stopped talking
and (for me)
the sky, the grass, the pavement,
just melted away
(like a corny special effect,
but for real)
and all I saw was your eyes,
for that moment that lasted
just one heart-beat to the next
and forever.

Until, interrupted,
(did I blush?
I know I babbled gormlessly)
the moment was gone.

(I’m lying,
it wasn’t gone –
I wrapped it up carefully,
and tucked it into my pocket
for safe-keeping).

I will never ask,
because…
what if you don’t remember?
Or, worse, you wondered why
I was staring at you.

As long as I don’t ask
I can imagine
that you still have that moment
tucked into your pocket too.

what I wanted to say…

…in my Friday and weekend emails and “chats” to the 10% of my colleagues who cause 90% of the problems because they either ignore the grade submission deadline, discover they don’t know how to use the system until after the deadline and expect help on the weekend, or are just too bloody ODD to do anything properly and on time without having to be asked five times and then argue about it:  

 

I’m the parent that’s less fun

(the one that makes you brush your teeth)

I’m the teacher that’s more mean

(the one that won’t let you in the lab barefoot)

I’m the director that sends the angry emails

(the one that makes sure marks come in)

 

Or here’s another way of looking at it,

I’m the one that:

keeps the kids healthy,

the students safe,

and makes sure the system works.

 

Did you ever think that maybe I get tired of

     being the grown up?

     being the responsible one?

     being the bad guy?

and would like to not give a shit about

dental costs,

legal liability and

graduations,

either?

 

Did you ever stop to think that if you

JUST

DO

YOUR

FUCKING

JOB

then I won’t have to be the bad guy?

 

Let’s do the experiment and see what happens.