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)

28.7.20

Authorship

Authorship 

While it may be true that we create our own reality, as the gurus tell us, and indeed I like the idea that I’m writing the story of my own life, and perhaps even wrote the basic plot outline before this life began — I don’t need to be a drama queen, I’ve been known to remark.  I’ve created bigger and better dramas in my life script than any of the superficial dramas some people like to manufacture (hollow laugh) — still, into these fictions we weave as autobiography, there enters the hand of The Editor to introduce the unexpected: some pruning here, some expansion there, a different mood, a change of pace, perhaps a touch of conflict to spice things up — until the prose suddenly (it seems suddenly) acquires a different rhythm, the tale a new perspective.

Well, it’s always good to surprise the reader — even when it’s me, writing and reading my own story. Or thinking that I do. I have some say, some authorial input, even quite a lot ... and yet The Editor, just like that, can alter it in a moment.

Perhaps that movie about Truman, whose whole life was a TV show only he didn’t know it, the only one not in on the joke, is in fact the truth for all of us? Does a panel of alien extra-terrestrials or a bunch of disembodied supernaturals watch our personal stories, and even the larger planetary dramas, unfolding as entertainment?

Yes, contemplate that thought. But know, even if it were so, not a lot we can do about it. Either way, we are left to work out our scripts, including the surprises / editorial interferences. I say: better write well, better submit the most excellent script that one can before The Editor begins tampering.

And if changes are made anyway, we can still decide to work with them. Perhaps some are improvements. Maybe The Editor sometimes gets it right? Even if not, what we’re stuck with is what we have to play with. If we must revise our plans, must go in a new direction — well, so be it. We can still determine the fine detail, still spare no effort to write ourselves to a splendid conclusion.


Written for Weekly Scribblings #30 at Poets and Storytellers United: Writing as a Metaphor for Living.

21.7.20

Sweet Tooth Lunes

Sweet Tooth Lunes

My sweet tooth
wickedly unhealthy, must be resisted 
but not yet.

I am making fudge 
all for me —
lockdown indulgence.

My friend Bev
whose poems I read online
also shares recipes.

When I eat Bev’s fudge —
sweet, smooth, rich —
it tastes of poems.


These can stand alone or be read in sequence. They are alternating Collum lunes (3/5/3 words per line) and Kelly lunes (5/3/5 syllables). 

Created for Poets and Storytellers United’s Weekly Scribblings #29: Writing about food.

18.7.20

Landscape

Landscape

We are the twisted tree,
the weathered stone, 
the boiling cloud,
the coiled slumbering snake.

Why do we still
consider ourselves separate?

We — tree, stone, cloud,
breeze, odour, light, spider,
grass, ant, wallaby,
snake and hominid —

are landscape.
We are kin.



Found poem. Extracted (with permission) from an 
Instagram post by The Bent Broom, and shaped as a poem.

Sharing at Poets and Storytellers United's Writers' Pantry #29.

15.7.20

Seeing Things

Seeing Things

When they said you were ‘seeing things’, 
they meant you weren’t, not really – 
you only thought you were.

I learned not to tell anyone 
anything I ‘saw’. 
Or heard. Or felt. 
Or just knew.

I became adept
at concealment

walking around visible
but no-one saw 
me. 

They only
thought they did.


(Confessions of a psychic child.)

Written for Weekly Scribblings #28: Seeing Things at Poets and Storytellers United.

14.7.20

On Matters of Equality

On Matters of Equality

‘Oranges,’ she said, 'are superior to apples, far more intelligently evolved. I know; I’ve lived where oranges grow.’

Surely I must have misunderstood her.

‘How can you say that? They’re just different.’

‘Oh,’ she said, ‘I meant how apples are so tasteless, so lacking nutrition ... so nothing’ — her voice carelessly contemptuous.  ‘Oranges are bright, juicy, tangy, strong in Vitamin C. They have a bite. I love them for it.’ (Taking my agreement for granted.)

I was speechless. I mean, I grew up with apples.

I sent an email, a list of links. Let objective facts clarify what I'd been too struck dumb to articulate over the phone. ‘These,' I said, 'are apples which are tasty and nutritionally rich’ – referring her to specific examples of each; adding, ‘Despite apparent differences, fruit is fruit’; elaborating on that. I thought if I explained logically, she must see.

I thought she’d have a bit of a laugh at herself, like, ‘Goodness, silly me!’ And I’d laugh gently with her — because, after all, she couldn't possibly have meant....

Days passed. No response. I realised she must be feeling insulted, hurt.

Meanwhile it was necessary for her to reply to something in an earlier message. She did, saying the right, expected words for that topic. She closed without love or kisses — instead, the farewell she always uses after physical meetings: 'Go well'. So I understood she was saying goodbye. She’d know I wouldn't miss it.

‘Bugger that,' I thought. 'You don’t get rid of me that easily'. It was her birthday a few days later. I sent good wishes, and gratitude for all the good qualities of her birth sign, of which I’ve been on the receiving end these many years.

If her silence was only embarrassment over her remarks, she'd surely answer.

Nothing.

Well, I had to try. Such a long, dear friendship. And never any cause, before, to think she despised apples.

I might have let it slide, it being her. But, just one day before that conversation, I'd made a vow: always to speak up in defence of equality whenever occasion arose. The Universe tests us, when we make a commitment! 

And no, I’m not really speaking of apples and oranges.



I'm always glad and grateful to receive comments on my work, including this, only I don't feel able to respond to anything you may care to say on this (sadly non-fictional) piece.

Shared with Writers' Pantry #30 at Poets and Storytellers United.



11.7.20

The Young Widow Reflects

The Young Widow Reflects

Forgiveness comes hard
for the blue-bearded man.
I remember the love and joy
I offered for his charm.

But the bodies in the closet,
their reek of decay
and the dried blood
have made indelible stains
that won’t leave his hands.

Hands that felt so tender.
Strong, long-fingered, elegant hands.
Hands once filled with roses
or with jewels. Hands
that turned the key in the lock
on that little room.

I can still see the staring
decapitated heads.
He would have killed me too.
I had to do what I did.


Written 2005; recently rediscovered. I think I would rewrite the tale rather differently now – and perhaps I shall – but I think this version has its own validity.


Shared with Poets and Storytellers United's Writers' Pantry #28.

6.7.20

Léon Pereira, Apothecary

Léon Pereira, Apothecary

My cousin remembered seeing, among family papers, a document signed by my great-grandfather. So we knew his profession.

Those papers didn’t come from India to Australia. Destroyed? Maybe left with another branch of the family – long-lost to distance, time, our ageing and dying.

I know some of his story. (Tassie nights around the fire. Older relatives reminiscing, conjuring a different world. We kids, agog, kept quiet so they wouldn’t remember us and send us to bed.)

I heard of his wooing Jane, the legendary beauty (‘very fair’ they said – which I understand differently now). The note smuggled into the orphanage. Escape, elopement.

The nuns were scandalised. Only 14! A High Court judge's daughter! She shouldn’t have been in the room when he came seeking a bride. Spying him through the window, immediately smitten, she snuck in, sitting on a pile of books to look taller. Yes, he chose her; they hustled her out. However....

Now I ponder, what was a child with an important father doing in an orphanage? In the British occupation of India? I think I know.

And he? Pure Portuguese? Another mixture? Anyway they married.

He made her rich. She was nicknamed The Countess. Legend said, if she wanted one cotton-reel, she’d send out for a gross. When she travelled, she hired a whole train for her servants, her dogs…. (My Nana, her daughter – Mum’s mother – was always followed, I remember, by a troop of little dogs.)

Nana – who thought herself a plain girl – crept into balls and parties, hiding behind her glamorous mother. She described dressmakers draping jersey around Jane’s elegant figure, stretching the fabric tight.

He died, the apothecary.

(I never found out how much older. A young man, already in business, needing a wife – up to ten years? Surely no more. But probably not in his teens when they met.)

She married again … died in her turn….

I know what happened to her: deduced her beginnings, know the ending and things in between.

He went looking for a convenient marriage, fell for a beautiful young girl who fell for him – seems they both did well. But I know nothing more of prosperous Léon with the mellifluous name, my great-grandfather.

Note: ‘Tassie’ — an affectionate abbreviation of Tasmania.

A 369-word piece of prose, linking to Weekly Scribblings #27 at Poets and Storytellers United: Things Were Different Back Then.