Off-World Ghazal

by Stuart Barnes

 
… I could hear 
the wild black cockatoos, tossed on the crest
of their high trees, crying the world’s unrest.
—Judith Wright, ‘Black Cockatoos’

with a nod to Kahlil Gibran & Robert Frost


Are you ready for the round-up, World?
Put your atlas down and feet up, World.

Give me the keys, the GPS. You
thrashed the hell out of the pick-up, World.

What’s your pleasure? Horse’s Neck, Monkey’s
Gland, Cobra’s Fang? The night’s a pup, World.

Once you were razor-sharp, a Global
knife. Like stainless steel nerve cracks up, World.

Riled black cockatoos cried your unrest
(more than a storm in a teacup, World).  

You unsealed records of days and nights
when earth’s giant oak was wrought-up, World.  

Into fantastic garlands of white
-leaved willow you wove buttercup, World.

You provoked Arctic ice, synthetic
ice, ICE. Your pick never let up, World.

Your coal mind and mechanical eyes
turned the sea of light downside up, World.  

Glued to a screen you approved line
-ages’, languages’, lands’ smash-up, World.

Do not move a muscle. I’ll freshen
your drink. You look like death warmed up, World.

You built tall walls with stone-boat-loaded
stars thrown from an arc interrup— [World]

You guzzled every radif but one.
Your takhallus you covered-up, World.

Peter Panesque you gurgled, thought your
-self clever, and never grew up, World.

Thunder, lightning didn’t meet again.
In smoke your ambition went up, World.

Umpteen charges valuable as
Mar-a-Lago. Each is trumped-up, World?

A defamation suit? Colourful,
flimsy. In court it won’t stand up, World.

No more tricks and abracadabra.
Your fascination is used up, World.

You wish to go the way of all flesh
imperially? A death cup, World.  

You won’t feel a thing. So long. Farewell.
Arrivederci. Bottoms up, World.

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