The annotated budak

Crabby verse

Will you walk into my parlour?
Said the spider to the fly
'Tis no trick of verse or voice of colour
For now I've shed my thin disguise.

Come and share my daily spread
'Tis finer fare than fish or bread
For I toiled and troubled in a tree of beasts
To procure thee this virgin feast.

In her world of haploid sisters
This Amazon hunter will no more wander
My leap of bad faith has saved her neck
From a loveless life of treetop labour.

Tree ducks

Three ducks in a pond.

Two stood on the lawn.

One stared at me with scorn.

Invisible birdies

It pays to be unobtrusive. And the little zebra doves that trot about in parks and island getaways are masters of urban camouflage. Barely noticed as they peck around the feet of thirsty campers, the doves maintain an unflappable distance that is just close enough to captivate but too far for rapacious flights of caged fantasy.

The larger spotted doves that patrol footpaths are somewhat noisier and generate an explosion of wingclaps when stomping feet penetrate their zone of comfort. Their nests, too, are hidden in plain sight within shrubs and low trees that defy suspicion. But by and large, these little pigeons blend in so well that few bestow more than a cursory glance at the ambling figures that seem more like flickering visions of brown shadows on a sunny day.    

The only columbid likely to arouse sentiments of foul hopes is one which has traded the lost cliffs of rocky lowlands for the high crevices of cavernous cities. Yet, this is a creature of human connivery that arrived in man's wake as a homing device and breeder of fancy feasts. In this day of structural diseconomies, the obsolete flocks huddle under bridges and forage for scraps of suburban kindness. For all their myriad services to sapient souls, these feral children of big town blocks should count themselves lucky to earn the benign disregard of pigeon-holers who are wont to wake up from their daily sleepwalks to discover with dismay the imaginary fears of flying packrats.

Asteroid shower

The rain ran out with the haste of lovers in a cloud of afterglow. But the morning storm and choppy straits did little to dampen the spirits of half-awake hunters who tramped about the reef in search of actiniarian prey. The tongue of sand that penetrates the heart of Cyrene had shifted southwards, threatening to lick the pool of seagrass that lies near the navel of this flat. On both sides of the bar, legions of sea stars advance with imperceptible speed, breaking the thin wall between salt and spray with their circlets of hard knobs.

Bold red and black are the colours of choice, but the world of sightless stars offers no objection to mavericks in pink or trailblazers bedecked in brown, beige or blue. Armies at arm's length meander on beds of tiny blades and the rubble of dead reefs. Waves of backwash from passing freighters on the West Keppel Fairway and East Jurong Channel caress the shoal's northern fringe. The southern flank is occupied by supersized octocorals in varyings shades of shock and a gauntlet of traps that will take their toll of subtidal visitors. An entourage of death stars lurk by the cages, drawn perhaps by the fresh aroma of decay that wafts through the grills to mock the memories of wasted lives.

 

Matching shades

Sensing perhaps the dangers of dallying around ducks that display an excessive fascination with blue birds, a bananabird flashes its cyan mask from the safety of a high branch at Mt Tamborine.

Redhead alert

Suffering as I do from a mortal fear of wattled galliforms, the omnipresence of brush turkeys in Greater Brisbane reduces my otherwise dignified duck into a pile of gobbledygook as incoherent as the heaps of leaf litter these megapodes leave in their wake.

With rude boldness, the big black birds stalk parks and gardens, hills and vales. Some threaten the windows of rural homes or turn up uninvited in defenceless pantries. But mostly, the feathered fiends lie in wait near picnic tables to launch sorties that sow panic and devour unpacked goodies. Brandishing blue leggings to show his affiliation to some local mob, this individual at the Botanic Gardens harassed a nice little girl bearing treats meant for cuter ducks.     

The bare-headed beasts enjoy the benefits of ill-breeding from the very start. To get their bits in some booty, males host hen parties on make-out mounds that end with all evidence of misbehaviour buried under a metre of earth and rotting leaves. Not one to count his eggs after they hatch, the deadbeat dad maintains an unflappable pretence that whatever chicks spring out from the torrid mass are no business of his. It's no wonder the young turks are hoodlums that fend for themselves by forming gangs to terrorise backyards and lay waste to flower beds.    

 

There are sadly few safe havens from these peckish overlords. Even high boughs are infested by roosters that refuse to budge and regard lowlier fowl with raptorial interest. It's a relief to be back in a land where the birds and the beasts get short shrift by citizens who shun the flutter of wild minds for the comfort of gilded cages.