Haiku

He flops on the couch

like a grounded zeppelin --

big fluffy white cat. - Jeff Barnes

Haiku

The town I am from

doesn't exist anymore.

It's there but it's not. - Jeff Barnes

Haiku

Decaying city --

old buildings like broken teeth

bite the empty air. - Jeff Barnes

Australian Dream

Last night when I slipped into slumber

I had a dream about the Land Down Under.

I was surrounded by lorikeets and wallaroos,

wallabies, dingos, koalas, and emus.

I felt rather stoked and jolly.

I was out woop woop with my swag and brolly

when I encountered a kangaroo,

who hopped about while playing a didgeridoo.

I said, "Now I feel a bit drongo,

because I should have brought my bongos

so that i might accompany you."

"No wuckas!" said the kangaroo.

Then he finished playing his song

and jumped into a billabong.

He invited me to go with him.

He said, "Get yourself nuddy and we'll have a swim!"

"I never learned to swim,"  I said.

"I think I will just walk instead."

Just then a wombat and a platypus

drove up in a Volkswagen minibus.

I asked if I could bum a ride

and they said,  "Sure! Come on inside!"

We drove to the sounds of Accadacca,

then got hungry and stopped at Macca's.

Then a kookaburra swooped down on me

and carried me up to his old gum tree.

It was just a dream, or so I believed

until I woke up covered in eucalyptus leaves. - Jeff Barnes 

Displaced

I'm a sunflower

growing out of an iceberg

drifting in a northern sea,

an octopus hanging

on the uppermost branch

of a California redwood tree,

a meanderer lost 

in the Sahara Desert

with no transport but a canoe,

an emu wishing

he were a wedge-tailed eagle,

flying in a sky of prozac blue. - Jeff Barnes

Punchline

You took the idea

of heaven and hell

as seriously as

you took life,

which is to say

not at all.

You always said

that life

was a joke,

that there 

was no meaning

to it, only

a punchline

which everyone

is told

at the moment

of death,

and I believe you

on spring evenings

like this.

I feel your presence

when I laugh in time

with the croaking toad

outside my window. - Jeff Barnes