DW's latest blog post

Hooray for Danny Wong's blog! It's great to hear from the mentor/teacher/youth worker, a wise man of faith working in a mine field. CHECK IT OUT!!!

http://wongletong.blogspot.com/2011/04/my-workplace.html?showComment=1303067018090#c8282955868387378539

SM

Portrait of a Uniform

The jacket is blue and buttoned
to the neck.
The collar is sharp and white:
triangles.
The stretched mouth is screaming,
a dark gaping maw
that sends the picture spiralling
into darkness.
Blurred pink hands grip the chair
like frozen meat.
Pale knuckles.
Black streaks the image, a rain-smeered
window,
eclipsing sightless eyes.
The yellow framing stands out.
Bright geometric shapes
lavish
regal
religous
formal.
Gold, like the genie's prison.

Target Range

Step right up and try your luck
aim for the biggest buck
are you a chicken (cluck cluck cluck)
Wheel the corpse out on a truck.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

The pen is green, the pen is red,
I'll shoot an apple off your head
Stay still or you'll end up dead.
"Meet the targets." the boss said.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Think you can make learning fun?
The pen rests snuggly as a gun.
But when all is said and done
the target is a human one.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Don't loose the plot,
Repress the humanity you got.
No power to the have-nots
The target is a head shot.
Think it's funny, think it's strange -
Welcome to the target range.

Poem dedicated to
*The Dead Kennedeys
*Seamus Heaney
*Rage Against the Machine

Work

Struggling is complex
tangela-blue tentacles
curl around late hours
at the computer.
But failure is simple:
the figures don't add up.

There is either hollow
success or failure, but
we will always struggle.
(With what?)

Existing in circuitous
24 hour faith beginging
to hope makes us voluble.

I will not give up.
I will succeed...
Despite it all.

That Sunday Afternoon Feeling

When I glance at the clock
and my dinner's less appealling,
don't think that the meat is off -
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

When I clasp my hands in prayer
at the alter kneeling,
don't think I'm a pious man -
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

When you find me tie-round-neck
and swinging from the ceiling,
don't think I'm suicidal,
It's That Sunday Afternoon Feeling.

The Weekend is Dead

'Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.'

(W H Auden, 'Funeral Blues')

'Buildings crashing down to a cracking ground
Rivers turn to wood, ice melting to flood
Earth lies in death bed, clouds cry water dead
Tearing life away, here's the burning pay'

(Black Sabbath, 'Electric Funeral')

I.

The clock was stopped,
The Nokia ring tone cut.
I dressed in black;
My funeral work suit.
It was a day of black coffee,
umbrellas and awnings,
cigarettes and local radio:
It was Monday morning.

The End of the Holiday

I
Salavador Dali.
Tonto.
John McClane.

II.
Seven days that melt away
that is the half term holiday.
"I don't like it, colonel,
It's too quiet" - he'll
know the point of an arrow
in his back, just like tomorrow
when we return to the attack,
that whiteboard-and-chair shack,
that SCHOOL - and if not
tomorrow, then tomorrow's tomorrow -
the endless sorrow
of knowing that your time is up ...

III.
Time is a syrup of melting clocks
feeling like a sleep-locked dream,
Struggling against the conveyor stream
of fate, legs like rocks.

You wait for your line,
"I don't like it, it's too quiet"
the arrow is tomorrow:
stabbed in the back by time.

You know where the bomb is,
You know when it will detonate,
But you know you cannot deactiate
it by logical rules of time and space.

Time will march forward.
Monday morning will explode in your face
when that alarm goes off; this is
the worker's reward.

Ballad of a February Morning

Darkness out there.
Warmth and safety in here.
The rude alarm clock
says it all.

The shower is cold.
I look old in the mirror.
Life is worth facing
after a warm shower.

Breakfast is a chore.
Wishing it was more fried
than the cereal-ity
of Branflakes and milk.

No time for a whole mug of tea.

Grave injustice at 7.00pm.
Jamming a toothbrush in my face,
tie, jacket, shoes
and out the door.

Making it to the car
a 20 minute drive and a chance
to become human. Don't think,
just focus on the pedals,

hand break, speed, steering wheel,
coutnry roads (take me home!)
join the matrix masses,
exist until 5pm

or the next cup of coffee.