In My Own Words – Page 30 – The Poems of David Garlick

Just a man

with hopes and fears.

I make mistakes,

I laugh, I love.

I rise above my baser self,

I sink to levels of despair,

for I am but a man.

Just a man

in purple robes

preaching the word of God.

They listen to me

but I am not Him.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

I lead my country.

Elected by the people,

I do what I think is right.

I can not please them all.

I am lonely and tired.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

Scaling the corporate ladder.

Climbing to the very top

I make decisions.

Some good for business,

some good for people.

All stressful for me.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

I teach, I heal, I help, I do.

To ease their load

people share their troubles with me.

I too have problems,

I too need help.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

A Union Leader.

I represent skilled workers.

I speak for them.

Sometimes they would not know me

but this is how I serve them.

For I am but a man

Just a man.

I work for wages.

I do not seek power.

My mortgage and my family fill my life.

Perhaps I’ll win the lottery.

I yearn for the easy life.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

Art is my life.

I create “mirrors”

for society to view themselves.

Some think the images distorted.

Perhaps they are right.

For I am but a man.

Just a man.

The world has overwhelmed me.

I seek escape in drink or drugs.

I have no job.

I have no family.

I have no future.

I have no hope, past the next fix.

Soon I’ll be borne away

on the wings of my despair.

But to what and where I do not know,

For I am but a man.

Just a man

driven by hate and fear –

to do what I know is wrong

but I can not help myself.

Even in moments of brutality

pangs of sorrow

pierce by consciousness.

I hate myself.

How sad that is.

For I am but a man.

Just a man

with hopes and fears.

I make mistakes.

I laugh, I love.

I rise above my baser self,

I sink to levels of despair.

For I am but a man.

David Garlick, Victoria, 1990

I was a melancholy man

but why

I did not know.

My guilt,

a cloud that topped

a hill.

The one set for my feet

to climb.

So guilty cloud, I wish you gone.

For I can

see you as you are.

You made me

spend my life away,

trying to be

that which I thought

would please

my fellow man.

Sadly the years have grated by.

My legs

are tired with the hill.

My face,

burnt by sun and wind,

turned up

to seek a distant peak,

the one

I cannot gain.

So now I’ll rest to touch a flower.

Come to terms with who I am.

Then write a verse

to tell the world.

I am not what

I thought,

they thought,

that I should really be.

David Garlick, Victoria, December, 1990

I worked in a large refinery.

Part of the local industry

and I was very pleased to be,

a useful person at last.

I was quite young and truth to tell

I worked very hard, was doing well.

So they put me on shift with Ali Abdul

and this is the story of that.

Now “Graveyard shift” can be dull,

when all the controls are doing well.

You could almost wish for an alarm bell,

to keep one awake through the night.

Ali sat there with eyes all glazed

and I was feeling rather dazed,

when he made a suggestion that truly amazed.

Lets have a cup of Chie.

Now tea was not my favorite brew

and coffee I found just would not do,

I preferred milk, water or the odd beer or two

but Ali might be offended.

So not to snub or appear too snooty

I said, “go ahead and make us some tea.”

And as he disappeared smiling happily.

I felt quite pleased with myself.

To make our particular brew, you see.

We put tea and water in a “billy.”

Then boiled it all quite furiously,

Untill it looks ready to serve.

We used a steam coil to boil the tea

and the coil collected a lot of debris,

with tea leaves, flies or a passing bee,

which tended to effect the flavor.

Now it’s one thing to politely agree

to have a social cup of tea but –

if I could have guessed, what was to be,

I might have been more careful.

For hygiene, I think, is a state of mind

and trying hard, not to be unkind;

in the East they seem to be quite blind

to what I take for granted.

After a while, back came Ali.

With this gruesome mess that he called chie.

The surface of which was quite scummy

and with out thinking I said, “strain it.”

“OK” he said, with alacrity.

Which should have been a warning for me,

for we didn’t have a strainer, you see.

He went and fetched a FLY SWAT!

The fly swat in question was old and used.

The red border gone, it was well abused

and I wasn’t even a bit amused

to see what he intended.

This fly swat had killed a fly or two

and parts of a cockroach were still in view

and through this messy insect stew,

Ali poured my tea!

“NOT through the fly swat, Ali”, I cried.

My stomach was churning, I almost died.

“It’s OK sahib Dawie,” he quickly replied.

“I didn’t use the new one!”

David Garlick, Victoria, June, 1986

The nave was hung with a curtain of music.

Heavy organ chords and blasts of sounds

that echoed, chasing each other for space,

overlapping and swallowing one another.

Then the crystal trumpet notes soared

to hang like snow flakes weightless in the air.

The sound of frosted ice bells chiming.

Together a great tapestry stirred by wind.

Emotion and skill blended to cloak us

with thoughts, born so long ago,

by those who gave us this music.

David Garlick, Victoria, December, 1995