The vultures fight over their pickings while the world suffers on to die...

I trot this one out around election times... it never grows inappropriate.  Not to me.  Not when the world remains in the mess it is in...

Hark! The birds of prey assemble,
and blood dripps from their sharpened beaks,
So our leaders do resemble,
Hear their pre-election shrieks,

Clouds of doom are fast approaching,
Despair : the mood of every man,
Greed and hate are thus encroaching,
on each and every life they can.

Portents of an evil morrow,
Mongers of a violent age,
Spreaders of the world's sad sorrow,
Breeders of the world's new rage.

Suffer all the little children,
Victims of a world insane,
Of war, of sickness, and of famine,
Losers in a world of gain

Star-crossed lovers.

He thought about her, about the shape of her face, about the beauty at her legs .... and sighed.

She thought of the proud way he had held his head, silhouetted against a full moon, a lovers moon, and cried.

He recalled the vision which was her entire being that had slipped into view like the blooming of an orchid.

She played over and over the warmth of his gaze and the promise of futures that would never be.

He dreamt with open eyes of a life together.

She looked into the oblivion of loneliness to see his face everywhere.

He was an old ram but made young through her beauty.

She was mutton dressed as lamb but made new through the love in his heart.

A broken heart, a pitiful bleat, the loss of hope.

Lambs to the slaughter of an uncaring and unkind fate.

The flocks moved on, hers one way, his the other.
Ram and Ewe, promised in a glance, separated in an instant,
Love grown in a single view, divided by a farmers fence.

They were but sheep that passed in the night.

The Space Adventures of Starship Toothgroper in the 76th Galaxy

The story that inspired the humorous sci-fi novel that I am currently pitching to publishers...

Captain Titanius Catknobbler (known as Tobyjug to his friends) sat at the controls of the Starship Toothgroper and contemplated his future. It was a very short contemplation mainly, if not wholly, because his was a very short future.

Things HAD been going brilliantly. They had stretched the lightspeed continuum really well, knocked out a couple of extra parsecs on the dimensional rebound, and even juggled the caterering figures to the extent that they would be the only ship to have made a profit in on-ship waste recycling.

In fact, he had been well positioned to win the coveted Space Captain of the year award. Had been. And then this had to happen. Goodbye to the 20,000 dinion prize money; goodbye to the complimentary six week holiday on the planet of Gurgley Wormsuckers; and definitely goodbye to the much sought-after sex voucher entitling the bearer to one overnight encounter with Gladys McNude and her dancing nobb-danglers.

The problem that faced him was a simple one. Nothing to do with quantum cross-pollination of universes - that he could handle. Nothing to do with temporal facsimile overflows (or the tens of thousands of mutant air traffic controllers that usually resulted) - that was a piece of cake. Not even a hyper deplosion of the meganoid ultrascollops as experienced by the most ill-fated and much pitied starship the Mandrigal-Hyperbonker - Captain Titanius would give his right tentacle (if he had one) for such a problem.

No. The problem he faced was simpler than all these yet far, far more problematic. And, worst still, embarrassing. He, captain of the year (probably), with a record ten years unblemished service (if you ignore that incident with the nudists and the spiny wagglethorn on chundertruss 6), all-round-good-guy and fun-chappie-with-the-captains-hatty, had just discovered that the presidential galactic transport vessel, containing every single member of the galactic government assembly had been accidentally sucked up into the faeces reprocessing tubes of the Starship Toothgroper, and transformed into (edible) yellow slime.

Captain Titanius Catknobbler wondered what the punishment was for total annihilation of the Galactic government - and whether or not he'd like it.

Probably not, he thought.  Probably not.

On My Way.

Dedicated to the Hon Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister of Australia.  Another in my 'PM' series...

On my way now.  The future, yes, the future!  It’s nearly here.  I am certain about that as I have never been certain about anything before.  My time is coming.  I work hard, I study hard, I live hard.  Hell, I even drive hard.  I have driven myself  on, certainly, and the end of the journey is now in sight.  Except that it isn’t the end, really.  No, not the end – rather the start.  My life is the journey and I have started it at full speed. 

For most people, the future rushes towards them and they are like seaweed in the surf.  That’s not me.  No way - I’m no budgie smuggler.  I don’t ride the waves, I make the waves.   And I am making waves.   I am rushing towards my future, meeting it not in retreat, not even half way – I am meeting it on my terms.  Yes, on my terms.

I only know one speed and that’s fast, and I only know one direction and that’s forward.  I’ve passed, I know that - passed my HSC.  Just like I passed that old Holden a few moments ago.   Just like that new Ford a couple of streets back.  Passed them in Dad’s old jalopy like they wasn’t moving.  I’ve passed my HSC just like I passed those cars.  Just as easy.  Got my big ticks, as they say.   HSC?  No problem.  No worries mate.  There’s no doubt.  It’s in the bag.  It’s a done deal.  I drove myself to get the grades and now I’m driving myself down to the post office to get the official results.  ‘Official results’ that will only echo what I already know.  I have done well.  No, not well.  I have done brilliantly.

When I get there, I’m going to ring the old man and tell him.  He’s always been there for me, supported me.  When I read what I already know - that I’m up there in the high 90s, about as high as you can get I think - well then I’m going to call him from the post office phone itself and tell him the good news. 

And, as the future usually does for me, it all went according to plan.  Mostly. 

I called him with the good news.   “Dad” I said, “I’ve got good news.”  But before he could speak I added “And some bad news.”

“What’s the good news?” he asked.

“I did really well in the HSC,” I said.  And I had.  I really had.

“And the bad news?” he asked.

“I pranged your car on the way here,” I said.  And I had.  I really had.

Sometimes the future still manages to meet you on its own terms, it seems.