Gods of the Bog

It’s dark in here,

the bulb’s blown,

you can’t read.

God won’t see you behind the locked door, so

think anything you like,

all those thoughts you never knew were there.

Close your lids.

Luminescence drifts past your sightless eyes,

weightless, shapeless, portentous.

You are God of your own universe.

Watch new galaxies unfurl.

By any other Name…

We called it the dunny,

much to our mother’s disgust,

to whom, toilet, was too base a term,

reminiscent of

effort, labour, discomfort.

We snorted at, ‘A Lady at her Toilette’,

Mum shook her head and sighed, ‘go to the lavatory’,

cold, clinical -

if only.

The dark, warmth of the dunny,

spider ridden,

a whiff of the devil,

as his scabby, scaly tail

scrapes out of sight.

But he’s there,

Watching, waiting.