a day separate from this, the same, where Paul or David A
or maybe Happy K does not go into the Tongue & Groove
   or steps onto the waiting bus but stops, pivots on his heel,
walks into the flow of busy traffic, halts it with his
upturned right palm, or left, looks at the driver's eyes
with his own deadly gaze, intoning nothing as such

like Repent, the End is Near or draw closer now to God
or the things the sandwich-board prophets of Pitt St
   1982 did (where are they now? locked-up, dead?)
but merely in Beckett's favoured silence
and the piercing window-screen smashing look of those
mad, sane eyes does all the work Jesus did

and more, suddenly knowing both the time and the hour
   and with an upturned upheld outstretched hand
that's four fingers a thumb and a sweatless palm
freezes the street and the sidewalk-walkers
and the bus stays and the old woman in brogues
half-way up the steps stays frozen and the

breeze stops blowing, the birds caught in mid-flight
   pause, achingly, forever, and the helicopter above
is caught in the net of sky and everybody
including Paul and David A and Happy K and the shoppers,
shopkeepers, check-out boys and girls in Coles and
Sue in the Book Hog and the pretty girl splayed on the

floor underneath the astrology and new-age wicca section
and maybe me lift our heads and sorry hearts all at once
   to Heaven.

Published in Famous Reporter (Australia).