The Rubbish Collector

On a dark silent Korean city street
empty of people, cars, and buses
an old woman slowly drags her sack.
Her almond eyes are dark as stones
sitting deep in her papery face
above high cheekbones.
She dare not broadcast her age
so dyes her hair black.
She spikes empty wrappers, drink cans,
hamburger boxes with her stick,
emptying it into her sack.

National law retired her at sixty
from the department store.
Her children work in
department stores to
raise their own children.
City footpaths are daily crowded
with the stalls of the elderly
hawking fish, fruit, vegetables,
t-shirts, bags and shorts.

This old woman
earns her living
on silent streets
at 3 am.


Previously posted December 2015.

Freedom

My regular old age income
from a strict government
sets me free from
fear of unemployment
the demands of boss, clients
the need to go to
other towns countries
for paid employment.

I am free to live in this little flat
and pay its living costs.
I get up when I wake up,
no one is concerned.

I have no car,
no glamorous clothes,
no holidays on foreign soil,
three redundancies ended those.

My home is simple,
no modern decor or
kitchen accessories.

Yet I feel newly released
sitting with a cup of tea
gazing out at the soft blue sky
at flowers, leaves
waving in the wind
outside my living room window.


Previously posted March 2016.

Retirement Flat

This little flat is my home
now I live on my pension.

Three bedrooms’ worth of
household contents reduced to
two bedrooms worth for storage
while I worked abroad.
My boxes and furniture now
packed in so tightly
it’s hard to squeeze
from room to room.

Square by square
in this Rubik’s cube
I ease contents from boxes
into cupboards and drawers.
I empty bookshelves,
move them again,
return their books
to their shelves.
Daylight comes through
windows as I take boxes
down from sideboards.

I am slowly fitting into
the glove of my flat,
the sleeve of my pension.



Previously posted March 2016.

Suddenly Retired

Suddenly I am retired,
back in my home town
after toiling for a living
in other towns
in other countries.

At sixty five my chances ran out.
No other employer would take me on
with referees far away or long gone.
The community expects I will now
live on my pension.

I move into my new home
Social Welfare give me
forms to fill in to say
I live alone at this address.
They say I will have
a living alone allowance
added to my pension.
They are paying me not to work.

I had always expected
to work part time while
living on the pension.
Now the younger unemployed
are hired first.

What will I do ?
It seems only yesterday
I sat in the library
covering books gluing labels
fifty years ago.

It’s happened so fast.
What to do now ?
with thirty years still to go ?


Previously posted March 2016.

Action Man

Little Brother follows Dad in
the garden at weekends as he
mows lawns trims shrubs hedges
fills the trailer with clippings
takes it to the tip to empty it,
assisted by Little Brother.

At kindergarten he was first to
get his tools to help the teacher
move the compost heap, spread it out.
Last to put his tools away.
He might be tired tonight the
teacher warned Mum at home time.

Ay home he dug, shaped, sand in
the sandpit, made roads for trucks.
Until he found his dirt pile during
the pandemic lock down, a source
of constant excitement.

Three days a week he goes to
kindergarten which has no dirt pile.
Its spacious sandpit satisfies him
there. He dug a vast river , he says
it is our river, and built a pirate
island for his river to flow around.
He told his sisters he carried the
bucket slowly each time to
take water to his river.

Little Brother sleeps soundly at
night even if her rolls out of bed.

Lock Down

In the nation’s lock down we
all stayed home, only allowed out
to doctor, pharmacy, supermarket.
Dad could not go to work but wage
assistance was stretched to feed
children with serious food intolerances
needing strange unusual foods.

To vent his frustrations Dad cleared
the fence line jungles into a huge
heap for the composting plant.
Dad and Mum covered the trenches
taking electricity internet to Dad’s
office, now at the back fence.
They levelled the lawn, moved excess
soil to a heap beside the office then
sowed grass seed on the bare soil.

They stood back, admired the newly
sown levelled patches, saw Little
Brother busy at the excess soil pile.

He pushed cars and trucks up the
pile, across the top down the sides
through newly dug tunnels.

Mum and Dad daren’t move the
dirt pile. Little Brother is loudly
vocal on matters close to his heart.
He urges visitors to view his dirt
pile – no refusals accepted !

His once beloved sand pit lies ignored.

Covid 19

With Zoom finally downloaded
he rang from Australia.

Mum stared at her phone
ringing on her pillow, spoke
to him cautiously took the
phone to the dining table –
didn’t faint ! Gave it to
Little Brother beside Auntie
Jo. Tottered back to bed.

Little Brother talked to
Uncle Mike a few minutes
then ran outside.

His sisters took the phone
talked to Uncle Mike for
nearly an hour about school,
after school, hobbies, while
Auntie Jo did Mum’s tasks.

At last power drained from,
Uncle Mike’s phone. Reluctantly
he said his goodbyes, distress
homesickness resonating
through his mobile phone.

Still not settled at forty, people
relationships jobs are all too
hard. Reading, writing take
so much energy. He is fed up
with his adult relations
enjoys the children.

He wants to come home but new
air fares and $3000 compulsory
isolation are beyond him and
his pandemic stricken family.

Two Young Brides

Two young brides in the family album
embraced new wifehood at twenty-two.

In gossamer gowns on their blessed days,
in rituals of womanly blossoming,
they walked towards wifely happiness,
caring for husbands, raising their children,
all well loved in their homes.

Two young brides born across new thresholds
found a stern code of law in their homes:
wives and children grimly ruled,
daily obeying their breadwinner.

Two young brides in the family album
sixty three years apart.

One young bride, hre own art extinguished,
burnt his art in glaring flames
on his final funeral pyre.
Her release was quiet widowhood
in her home now untroubled
by the breadwinner’s ice cold demands.

The other young bride found
release in departing,
joining her teenagers’ exodus.
She made a new home,
new kitchen, new garden,
which grew in time to
swarm with children, grandchildren,
and a cheerful husband
flipping steaks on the barbecue,
filled up wine glass in hand.


Previously posted February 2016

Gardening

Mrs Jones’ mother grew
exquisite carnations in
magnificent flower beds.

Mrs Jones grew gerberas,
pink, orange, red,
with long thin petals
as her mother did.
She set up a rose garden
filled with sweet smelling flowers.

At Mrs Jones’ gardening circle,
so essential for compleat housewives,
women brought their best blooms
to each meeting, vying for prizes:
bath salts, boxed handkerchiefs,
or soft toys knitted by Mrs Smythe.

After some years of traditional blooms
the gardening circle derailed
with broad petalled gerberas,
fat carnations, and unscented
strange coloured roses.

Mrs Jones tried to keep up
with these trendy new comers.
She bought a dirty mauve rose,
unscented, called “silver”.

She tried to love her new
purple flowered tree,
but it changed its name
from lassiandra to tibouchina.
How could she love it now ?

Not a gardener at heart
Mrs Jones was so glad
when her husband retired
and took over the
herbaceous borders along
with the trees, hedges, and lawns.


Previously posted February 2016.

Beads, Make Up And Pink

The writing on the sticker inside
Mrs Jones’ wardrobe said
“Likes to wear beads and make up.”
“Loves pink.”

Each morning after breakfast in bed,
after ward staff shower Mrs Jones,
they dress her.
She chooses her clothes for the day,
checks they brush her hair
as they should,
stares at it in the mirror
beside her wardrobe.
Her hair is blue rinsed and
set like the Queen’s every Thursday
by the rest home’s hairdresser.
They powder her face –
her hand is unsteady –
then carefully apply her lipstick.
Finally her beads,
she must have her beads,
strands of them
looped round her neck.

One morning her dresses weren’t
back from the laundry !
After much rummaging
of clean dry clothes
they found a pink jacket and dress
in the clothes baskets.
“Ah ! Mrs Jones’ colour !”
What a huge relief ! for
Mrs Jones was outspoken,
yes, strident as times.

The pink outfit she was
pleased to accept
and graciously paraded
in the residents’ lounge.


Previously posted February 2016.