Peter Goldsworthy: Decalogue

Decalogue

 

1.

When I was ten I believed

ten rules would see me out,

 

or even, fingers crossed,

through, but by mid-teens

 

I’d forgotten one or two,

and broken the best of the rest.

 

Some were asking for it.

Thou Shalt Have No Other Gods

 

Before Me? Excusez-moi?

I despised vanity, especially

 

in others, therefore, Lord

of the Brats: Me before Thee.

 

2.

Why not Take

Your Name In Vain,

for Chrissake?

 

It was never

only in vain

anyway, but also

 

to good purpose:

impressing bigger

boys or smaller

 

girls, or just venting

steam, preventing

breakages of sins

 

far more tempting.

Thou Shalt Not Kill,

anyone?

 

3.

I never killed just

anyone, Lord of the pale,

plumply cherubic baby

 

Flies, only bad people

who were asking for it,

and only in pleasant,

 

slowly premeditated

daydreams. A rough

body recount: one

 

unimpressed bigger boy,

two teachers who spake

with forked tongues,

 

many war parties

of Germans and Injuns.

Oh, and my brother,

 

serially murdered, since

he wouldn’t stay dead.

But family doesn’t count.

 

Nor should victimless

sins, done in the privacy

of my own head.

 

Unless I was my own

worst victim. I never killed

girls, even in pleasant

 

nightmares, just kissed

them all, all over,

and made myself cry.

4.

I shoplifted in broad daylight,

never less dreamy, never wider

 

awake: poetry books mostly,

their desirable covers just asking for it.

 

Third time unlucky: a safe getaway,

home-free, quietly reading the loot,

 

and I got careless. I only took

my eye off myself for a moment,

 

and was ambushed

by guilt. I stuck the slim

 

stolen goods back inside my shirt,

caught the bus to the poetry bulk

 

store, stole inside and snuck

every book back onto its shelf,

 

acting much more suspiciously

than when I first nicked them.

 

It wasn’t my fault, Your Worship.

My conscience made me do it.

 

5.

Remember

the Sabbath Day

and keep it Holy.

 

Fine. Define

Sabbath. Must it always

lay waste to weekends?

 

Why not Friday prayers,

like them others? Or

a one-minute Grace

 

before Happy Hour?

Define Holy. Day Five

of an Ashes Test?

 

Visiting Bunnings

on Sunday arvo

and coveting stuff

 

that’s asking for it?

Sleeping in till noon

with my darling?

 

Define sleeping-in.

 

6.

Honour Thy Father

and Mother?

Too easy.

 

And so say most of us,

not necessarily

in that order.

 

It runs in the family,

if not the phylum:

images of both

 

household gods

are graven in Ur-script

base pairs

 

in every nuclear cell

in every mammal

and her dog.

 

No free will brownie points

for honouring the civil

molecular code,

 

but free thrills

aplenty on the low

unselfish road

 

of the self-modified

genetic reptile,

and his snake.

 

Too hard?

Never.

Too Greek.

 

7.

I don’t have Hebrew,

but in the older

Greek Testaments,

 

Thou Shalt Not Covet

Thy Neighbour’s Things

includes the neighbour’s

 

wife. Or wives.

Now it mostly means

his lawnmower.

 

Or hers. I’d be happy

with either of theirs.

The lawn always looks

 

greener between the white

pickets of their fence.

I’ve thought of asking

 

for it, nicely, but,

with a little bit of luck,

Lord of the Loot,

 

with a little bit of pluck,

when I break into their shed

they won’t be home.

 

8.

I didn’t do it, Mum. I didn’t bear false witness. My brother did it. He looks like me. He isn’t born yet? That’s what I’m trying to tell you. My teddy did it. No, you can’t ask him. No-one’s seen him since. He wouldn’t talk anyway. No, I didn’t drop him off the jetty. Ask him, he’ll confirm it. Maybe a dolphin ate him. They aren’t very nice fish. They’re mammals? My point exactly. Wolves in fishy clothing. Forked tails, forked tongues. The humans of the sea. Maybe it was a baby fur seal. They have suspiciously sentimental eyes. Like my baby sister. She isn’t born yet either? Who says? Some other vicious fish? All the shifty-eyed lambs in sheep’s clothing? All the humans in false gods’ clothing?

 

9.

The last two poems

in the series

were the strange ones.

 

That fright-line about

not bowing down

before graven images!

 

Graffitied on the walls

of my freshly white-

washed brain, I liked

 

the look of the words,

but what the Hell

could they mean?

 

10.

And what the fuck

was adultery?

No adult would ever

 

commit

to an answer,

even though

 

I was always

asking for it.

Thou shalt never

 

grow up? If so,

the grown-ups were all

as guilty as sin.

 

Peter Goldsworthy