We who with songs beguile your pilgrimage / And swear that Beauty lives though lilies die, / We Poets of the proud old lineage / Who sing to find your hearts, we know not why ... (James Elroy Flecker)

27.7.19

I Miss the Best Bits, Though

















I Miss the Best Bits, Though


as the bus careens downhill 
somewhere between Inverell and Grafton, 
quicker than my camera can click –
a tree with a bulbous trunk
as if it grew in the outback;
a bare, domed rock half the height
of the tree it stands beside;
a sudden bank of crags.

We have time to see, though I don’t snap,
the wallaby bodies beside the road. It’s not
that car drivers hit them, so much as they
who hit the cars – ancient beings without
road sense not needed when
this continent and its creatures formed.

Now we move very slowly
between thick banks of spindly trees
on a one-vehicle-wide descent.
It’s long. Police let a line of cars, 
going north or south, traverse in turn.
We crawl, then finally gather speed.
I miss a startling gully, deep, amongst
the surrounding trees on level ground.

                    ************

Later, back home, I discard
lots of blurry shots. I notice I haven’t kept any
showing a river shrunk to mud puddles
after the years of drought. I wanted
viewers to see and know – but after all
my quick snaps couldn’t convey the worst.

I live in a green part of Australia.
In just a few days, more showers are forecast.
The view from my window here is far
from that recent bus trip. Even there – 
past the dusty brown paddocks – trees
tangle together, covering distant hills.
Hard to credit how farmers live in despair
for themselves, their crops, their stock.

Are we still ‘The Lucky Country’? Yes of course. 
But some are luckier than others. And 
it was always thus. The land enchants,
entices us. The ancient land, like its creatures,
has not learned the ways of civilisation: 
mother and killer…. Look at my pretty pictures.














Shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #488.

18.7.19

Birthing Perfume












Birthing Perfume
(the scent of the frangipani)

Suddenly I see, my frangipani –
which has grown wide and high in my nine years
living here and claiming I have any
right of ownership – startlingly appears,
the first time I’ve seen (else I’m unawares)
to have sprouted a giant phallic symb-
ol. But quite the opposite: it’s a womb!
It’s a great, hardly-ever-happens pod 
full of new seeds, high up on a limb.…
New trees, heaven-scented, will rise to God.


Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Perfume. Frangipani (plumeria) flowers have one of my favourite scents, and at present the winter bareness of mine reveals this new development, so weird and surprising that I Googled it and made the discovery I write of above. 

As I'm a guest presenter at dVerse over the next few weeks, featuring Poetry Form: Dizain, I decided to write this poem in that form. I always thought the dizain came easily to me – not this time, lol! But I hope the eccentricities of this piece are at least interesting. Perhaps they match the present strange, misshapen look of my tree!

Summer Love #12: Skinny dipping in the moonlight

The prompt at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is for a haiku or tanka on

Skinny dipping in the moonlight
 
in the summer ocean
swimming in our naked skins,
we float on moonlight


(I'm not responding to every prompt, so the numbering system in this series is my own.)


Summer Love #11: Heatwave



Heatwave


after the summer heat
raindrops kissing my naked body
Ah! that coolness

© Chevrefeuille



At Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, we are asked to create a troiku from the above source haiku. Here is mine:



after the summer heat

we replace first one blanket
move closer together

            ******

raindrops kissing my naked body

my skin tautens in anticipation
I imagine your touch

            ******


Ah! that coolness

the soft breeze in our hair
as we dance

15.7.19

Summer Love #10: Sundown












At sundown

we watch the sun erupt in a last fierce blaze, before the gentle dark enfolds us peacefully all night long.

shutting night outside I embrace your light 


A 'one-bun' for Sundown in the Summer Love series at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. A one-bun is an ultra-short haibun with one line of prose (including title) and a one-line haiku, invented by Jim Kacian.



Summer Love #9: Cooling Down


Cooling Down

summer evening
opening both doors 
for the breeze 


A prompt in the Summer Love series 
at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.





Summer Love #8: Sweating


Sweating














hot night
slippery with sweat
warm breath


For this prompt, Sweating, in the Summer Love series at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai, we are asked to write about steamy love without making that explicit. (My photo just seems to me to illustrate being flaked out in the heat.)


14.7.19

Summer Love #7: Hot Summer Night












Hot Summer Night

I dream of you –
a hot summer night
in tangled sheets
a holiday beach …
I dream of our youth


A tanka for the 'Hot Summer Night' prompt in the 'Summer Love' series at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai.

The Bracelet In This Photograph
















The Bracelet in This Photograph

This trinket here displayed
larger than life-size, on
my larger-than-life-size freckled wrist,
is no mere ornament.
Though I bought it on eBay very cheap,
it’s a treasure; and although it’s made
of common things like wood,
leather, metal, and either glass 
or hard shiny plastic, it’s a gem.

The large, staring eye looks back
at any ill-wishing gaze that might
approach, invade or damage me.
It mirrors and deflects 
all possible intentional harm, after first 
discerning same. It is a radar,
it is a shield, it is a weapon, it is a spell –
this strange and quirky, pretty little
trinket (as you think it).


For the Just One Word: Trinket prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads.' And directly inspired by one of Magaly Guerrero's Instagram posts on a similar bracelet.


13.7.19

Funny ...


Funny …

The Duo-rhyme is humorous.
At any rate, it suits light verse.
It has a twinkle in its eye.
You chuckle, and you say, ‘O my!’
It does not tower up on high,
so lofty it might reach the sky,
but plays down here with you and I –
would rather make you laugh than cry.
You say it can be serious?
Surely nothing could be worse!


13 July 2019
I found this tucked away in my 'recent writings' files, 
dated 7 June – only five-and-a-bit weeks ago and already forgotten. I don't recall, either, where I found instructions for the Duo-rhyme (though I have now located some at Shadow Poetry) but evidently I tried one for fun and immediately dismissed it as a piece of nonsense. Now I've come across it again, I think it's a fun bit of nonsense, worth posting.

23 Jan 2021
Worth sharing too, I trust, for a light-hearted mood in this hopeful new year. Linking to Writers' Pantry #54: New Dawn at Poets and Storytellers United.

12.7.19

The Ghosts


The Ghosts

And still they go on living in one’s head,
all those we’ve said goodbye to all these years –
the undeparted, ever-present dead
for whom we shed so many anguished tears.
I promise you that no-one disappears!

My husband wanders down the corridor
from his old office which he had before:
pauses, smiles, vanishes. My little cat
nudges me with her head or gentle paw,
invisibly. No, love's not ended yet.



Written for dVerse, where for the next few weeks I am guest hosting Poetry Form: Dizain.

Also linked to Poetic Bloomings P.E.O.D. Memoir Chapbook Challenge, July 17: Haunting

8.7.19

Out of One's Territory [Prose]


For the Pantry of Prose at Poets United this week, we are asked to write 313 words or fewer (excluding title) about being Away from Home. This one is 313 words exactly.


Out of One’s Territory

They met on a train. He was far from home, exploring the world; exploring a society very different from what he knew. 

She was beautiful. I’m sure he was charming; he could be. And she was bold, prepared to take risks for what she wanted. She longed to escape her restrictive environment. She proposed he marry her.

I imagine he thought it an adventure. Being the hero would have appealed to his ego. And she was beautiful.

I imagine she was desperate, and he her only opportunity. And he was charming. He’d have seemed financially resourceful.

He met the family. (They pretended it was a real romance.) Her mother was worried but acquiescent; her brother welcomed him as a friend. They married immediately. He was required to adopt her religion and change his name – though it was not a genuine conversion.

He had no income. He left her behind, seeking work in Europe – with little success. They managed a few reunions … back in Morocco … on a visit to France (her brother escorted her) ... He discovered he didn't like her much. 

She kept demanding he do as promised and take her with him. He claimed she was rude to his friends. I think by then he was looking for a way out of what he’d got into. Easy to be a hero in fantasy; less so when it gets practical. Mutual disillusionment! Soon, suddenly, he divorced her.

She was left there, not knowing what future she had – legally unable now, again, to leave. She talked bitterly of becoming a prostitute. She and I let our email correspondence peter out. So did her mother and I. We were no longer family.

My son discarded the religion he’d never really had, along with his impressive string of Muslim names. I was deeply glad of that at least, six months later when 9-11 shocked the world. 

7.7.19

Summer Love #6: Sun Rays (haiku)















This Weekend Meditation at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai is also part of the July 'Summer Love series, and the theme is


Sun Rays

a warm summer day
a meditation outdoors –
held in rays of light

We were asked for 'traditional rules' including 5-7-5 syllables. I prefer short-long-short, so I would rather this version:

warm summer day
meditation outdoors –
rays of light


(The photo is mine too.)

6.7.19

Best


Best

My best poem is the one I just wrote.
(Except when it’s the one I’m about to write.)
My best friend is named Helen,
Linda, Pam, Maureen, Marian, Angela….
The best cat I ever had is every cat I ever had.
The best mango, the best chocolate: I just ate.

But my best daughter is my only daughter –
who was not born to me, but chose me.
And the very best man of all I’ve loved
is – well – each one of them; and yet
some are a little sweeter than others. 
I confess, best of all, I love – who? You, dear!



For JULY P.E.O.D. MEMOIR CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE, July 5: BEST MOMENT. (And yes – instead I'm being slightly subversive about the idea of 'best'.)

Also shared at Poets United's Poetry Pantry #486

5.7.19

Summer Love #5: Beach Love


A tanka for day #5 of Summer Love at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai:


Beach Love

I remember 
that golden summer beach
your warm body

secluded behind rocks
pressed close underwater





Summer Love #4: Ice Cream … Troiku


Ice Cream … Troiku












Source haiku:

snow fall in belly
adding lusciousness to feast 
vanilla ice cream


My troiku:

snow fall in belly
the splash of sudden cold
painfully welcome

adding lusciousness to feast
slow licking tongue
circles the cone

vanilla ice cream
the most cooling of all
for the child in me


Written for day 4 of 'Summer Love' at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai

Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay: free download.

4.7.19

The Fracturing


The Fracturing

Uncertainty does not make good poems,
it makes me dither and fumble.
Mine is a new uncertainty, at a time
when I expected none.
After all these years of life, I expected
to keep on knowing 
who I am, what I do, my ideas, my loves,
the places I’ve arrived at
and am well used to inhabiting –
not this strange new
wavering, flickering, drifting, out-of-control
process of rediscovery.

Am I becoming a new me?
Vistas open for a moment and beckon,
seem to close over,
then I glimpse them again. This repeats
constantly. It's unsettling.
The truth is, I am alone, and life keeps on
happening rapidly:
new people, new events, changes
to dress and home.
Pretty soon there won’t be a trace
of the me you’d know ...
if you used to know me. I don’t know me.














I looked for an image of a cubist face but couldn't find one that was clearly out of copyright, so I scribbled one of my own.

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: Poems to weather uncertain times, and for Poetic Blooming's JULY P.E.O.D. MEMOIR CHAPBOOK CHALLENGE – JULY 3: THE HARDEST THING which asks us to write about one of the hardest things we've had to deal with. 

3.7.19

What Makes Me Laugh


I'm joining in the July P.E.O.D. Chapbook Memoir Challenge at Poetic Bloomings. This (a bit late!) is for July 1st: Laugh, Laugh.

What Makes Me Laugh?

My funnybone gets ticklish
at the ridiculous
plus anything quirky
(and that’s no malarkey). 

A shaggy dog story
also does it for me.
But slapstick or farce –
sorry, I’ll pass.

Adore Rowan Atkinson,
loathe Mr Bean;
I prefer the badder
wit of Blackadder.

Love me a Goon,
also a Python.
I relish the movies of PJ Hogan,
while Kath and Kim are wickedly Bogan.

The amazing Chris Lilley
is brilliant, not silly.
But the absolute kingpin
is Mr Tim Minchin.

See, it’s the satirical
gets me hysterical!

Summer Love #3: Summer Cocktails

In the Summer Love series at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai today,
we are asked for 'an impromptu haiku' on

Summer Cocktails

warm night –
over raised glasses 
eyes meet





2.7.19

Summer Love #2: Two Hearts Together


Two Hearts Together

I met a stranger
at a friend's summer wedding.
He had bright blue eyes,
sandy-blonde hair, and a voice 
light but husky – intriguing. 

In his tiny car,
a group of us crowded in
to get a lift home.
I was on some fellow's knee.
(That was back before seat-belts.)

Much later, he said
he was surprised by envy,
wanting me on his –
but he'd only just met me,
and of course he was driving.

When he asked me out,
he told me he loved swimming.
'Oh, teach me!' I begged.
He never did. At the beach
I got into the water.

He was used to girls
who claimed to love swimming, but
they never got wet,
instead lying on the sand 
all day, perfecting their tans.

We went on a boat,
not much more than a dinghy.
I sat on the side
with the spray striking my neck.
I'd grown up on fishing boats.

That was it for him.
A girl who liked the water
for real – a keeper.
Twenty-seven years married,
two sons, many adventures ...

He made his living
from the sea: a fisherman.
It provided well.
We liked the beach and camping,
boats and the ocean, summer.



















For the Summer Love series at Carpe Diem Haiku Kai. Prompt #2 is a tanka suite: 6 - 12 tanka telling a story. 

This is the condensed  and simplified version of a true story.  (I'm afraid that in the interests of the narrative I've lost some of the more poetic qualities of the tanka.)