Here's the brief bio: From California, (John Dolan) taught at UC Berkeley for several years, wrote a dissertation on the Marquis de Sade, got involved in Irish-Nationalist stuff in San Francisco, took a job in the English Department here in Dunedin, "...the quiet limit of the world," the southernmost city in New Zealand (next stop Antarctica). Now I teach speaking and writing to 600 med students and brood on my eventual, vengeful return to America.

YOU AND YOUR DAMN CLOUDS

Once I thought it was very principled
Not to look at the weather
Then I got older as opposed to famous
And thought I'd do weather poems if it would pay
But it didn't pay
Too many sincere weather-oriented types had used it all up
And now here at the end of the world New Zealand
Why New Zealand you ask well it's a long story
Now here way too late I have a corner office with cloudscape
I assure you fifteen hours a day
And I go to these clouds like sure fine where were you
When I was young and liked people and could've been talked
Out of the ten year sulk that landed me here in the first place
Where I'd never have had to see your Mobius strip face
In the first place
So I sulk at them and they know it
They feel it the clouds don't let them tell you they don't
They don't look at me and I don't look at them
As a general rule not counting now
We could have been friends but no

What is the moral of this story
How about Get famous while you're young and can have sex all the time
You don't like that moral feel free to make up your own
Just pay me for use of those ten rotten years enclosed herein
On which you and your precious clouds are walking at this moment

MY FAMINE GIRL

Just got an e-mail message they were at a celebrity tennis tournament
Where Dustin Hoffman refused to put on a body mike
And as they walked out they passed the fat man from Saturday Night Live
With a prototype blonde on his arm
My correspondent suggested Russia as a solution
But I doubt they're quite poor enough or us rich enough anymore
Should've gone in '89 when they were really starving
Lately I've seen too many BMWs in the Moscow background shots
I think Ireland of the famine might be better
Dandle a chunk of cream cake over her
As she lies dying in that famous ditch
Crumbs of cake fall on the grass stains around her lips
She wakes to the dream odours of cream and chocolate
And groans Ah am I in heaven then your honour
No only Cavan I chuckle and lift her into my carriage
Light as a feather but we'll fix that

John Dolan

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