Everyday Villainy

I saw my neighbour in town today.

She’d just started back at work

after three months. She’s a cleaner

at Sunnyside Shopping Centre.

She was injured, and they made her

get counselling too, for PTSD. Why?

She saw these two in the car park

bashing an old lady and spitting on her.

‘They came back to go her again,’

she told me. ‘But I put my body

in front of hers. That’s not on, I thought.

That’s someone’s mother or gran.

‘I was wrestling the man. But they

picked me up, and threw me  

against the wall. All these other people

were standing around, just watching.

‘No-one would help. I lost a whole

three months’ work out of it. But now

I’m back earning my money.’ She smiled.

‘You just do what you think is right.’

Which is the worse villainy – a raging

attack on the helpless or watching,

doing nothing? I know one thing:

‘Wow!’ I said. ‘Good on you. You’re a hero.’

More details:

I left a copy of this poem in my neighbour’s  letter-box. Next morning I got a note from her, correcting  ‘picked me up and threw me’ to ‘pushed me ’, and adding the following:

‘I tried to wrestle the man. He went over the top of me and he got the lady again, then he and the female spat in my face twice. I did move them on though, then I stayed with the lady until she was in a taxi.

The man shoved me against the wall. Police and security came after. 

Today I sat with an 80-year-old man who slept in his car at the shopping centre and “wanted Jodie”. Two ambos* came. Sad day. I laid him down on sushi lounge as he couldn't breathe. Broke my heart. I monitored him from 5am and sat with him from 8am to 9.30 until he was in the ambulance.

I just care about people that need help. Not a hero, but thank you.’

*In Australia, ambo is slang for an ambulance worker. 

Poetic Asides April 2021 prompt day 7: A villain poem.

Sharing this, a few  years later, with Poets and Storytellers United, for Friday Writings #138: Loving One's Neighbour, as it depicts both the loving and the unloving, and also mentions a neighbour whose goodness I love.

All These Years Later

 All These Years Later

A poet I first met

on MySpace – the old

MySpace, before it was

bought and wrecked –

starts a facebook group

for the old MySpace poets.

A bright inspiration!

We swarm to reunion.

‘Who else is still around?’

we ask each other, somewhere

in the middle of the first

glad greetings. And,

‘Who have we lost?’

The list of the dead begins.

And grows. And grows.

I myself add two dear names,

later remember a third.

They were our most vibrant!

Many who join, I don’t even

recognise, never got to know. 

In its heyday, MySpace 

was crawling with poets

proliferating: with what joy

we kept finding each other.

I’m quiet in the new group.

‘I can’t help it,’ I say 

to myself only –

‘I am falling through space.’

(Pun inapplicable.)

You can’t go home again.

Poetic Asides prompt, Day 6: A Change and/or Don't Change poem. I'm not quite sure if this is either or both. A change, and then another change to try and correct the first....

The First Word

 The First Word

The first phrase, we are told, 

or commandment if you like

(and indeed, whether or not

you don’t like – that being

the nature of commandments)

was ‘Let there be light.’ 

At least, I think I got that right.

So long now since I read my way

through the whole of the Good Book.

As books go, very entertaining

with sensational plot lines and

a rich variety of characters.

Even the most extraordinary 

managed to have more than a touch 

of the ordinary. Which is the point,

really, isn’t it – Jesus being 

human too, or even mainly … I think

I mean simultaneously. But anyway –

Yes I digress. But so interesting,

all those wild old stories, and besides

I read the King James, which may be

a less than accurate translation, but is 

in the language of poetry, which to me 

counts for a lot. It rolls off the tongue.

So – if that was the first 

phrase/command/sentence, then 

the first word must have been ‘Let’. 

Allow. Permit. Have it come to be. I like 

that permissive implication. Gives me 

a whole lot friendlier idea of Father God.

Poetic Asides prompt, day 5: Title: 'The first —'.

Sharing (a couple of months later) with Writers' Pantry #73 at Poets and Storytellers United.