Points

 

Look closer, fool.

There are five points

on this star, not six. 

No need to bash me

(or stab or shoot me)

for being a Jew. 

Though 

you might want to burn me

for being a witch.

More reasons than one, today

to hide my pentacle

under my shirt.

Them

(Sydney, February 2026 )

We stopped calling them pigs

decades ago. 

So long since they rode their horses

into us

or charged us with batons raised

and wielded.

I sort of knew there were still

bad apples …

(I suddenly become aware) I thought I

was immune

with my white skin and my

middle class.

I watch the news tonight

and now

I know that no-one’s immune from

the bash

and none of them is immune from the

power buzz

as they wade into the crowd with

active fists.

One night is all it takes. At 86, instantly

I’m re-radicalised.

(I dare say it’s very unfair to

real pigs.)

Of course, what this doesn't address is, where do their orders come from? (Rhetorical question.)

Reality

 

I invited my friends to write love poems for Valentine’s Day. ‘Glorious love!’ I proclaimed. 

But that was before police in Sydney knocked an old woman down so violently that it broke her spine in four places. It was before they held a young man on the ground and kidney-punched him over and over – which was caught on camera. It was before they forcibly dragged away a group of men who were sitting and praying; also caught on the news. 

The police have assured the public these things did not actually happen. 

The Police Minister told the Parliament, vehemently, that any future protest marches would be ‘antagonising the police.’ (Corollary: marchers will deserve any violence they receive.)

Only love can overcome hate, our great teachers have always told us. I believe them. But sometimes loving our enemies becomes difficult – our enemies who are supposed to be our protectors.

Yesterday I was still thinking, ‘Well at least we don’t live in America.’ But the sickness has spread.

We can barely believe what we are contemplating now on our TV screens.

I shut my eyes

those images remain –

I shut them harder 

See also (and for back story):

Guardian cartoon by First Dog on the Moon:

Written for Friday Writings #214 at Poets and Storytellers United.

At Lancia's Place

 

In my friend’s garden

there are always flowers

every time of year,

and birds at the feeding box

her husband built.

The years go on;

we are all getting older.

Looking out across her lawn

over the descending hill,

I’m grateful to still visit.

A Quadrille for dVerse, 44 words (minus title) which must include some form of ‘flower’: Quadrille  #241.

(Photos all taken in Lancia and Ern's garden; just a few of the many over the years.)

Extremes

 

Oppressive winter sinks my spirit in a pit of apathy – a stilled, frozen depth of indifference; I just want to hibernate. In spring, however, my flesh sings alive, I waken to renewed love of this world our home; I open to delight.

For Friday Writings #213 at Poets and Storytellers United, we are invited to  include any or all of these sets of words: 1. flesh/spirit, 2. spring/winter, 5. love/indifference.

Groundhog Day – or Not

 

I don’t understand Groundhog Day, not being American. I thought, because of the movie, it meant the same things happening over and over: one day endlessly repeated. But Frank Tassone, using it as a poetry prompt at dVerse, tells us it’s the day when the behaviour of a groundhog is used to forecast either coming Spring or a return to Winter. 

Puzzling. Spring always arrives, doesn't it, sooner later? 

But then he connects it to the Christian holiday, Candlemass, which he tells us is about anticipating when to plant seeds. Aha! so the ‘sooner or later’ of Spring’s arrival is the point.

I look up Candlemass for more detail. Instead, Google takes me straight to an account of the Pagan festival of Imbolc. 

Ah yes, same date. Now I get it! (Sometimes one has to dive a little deeper.)

That, however, is not quite the end of the story. Not for me. Here in Australia we have just come out the other side of a heatwave – not the only one we’ll get this Summer, I fully expect. Here, we are six months away from Imbolc. We have been celebrating Lughnasadh (aka Lammas). Well, some of us have. For Pagans, it’s a time to be thankful for the bounty of nature and the gifts from agriculture.

If we were to have a Groundhog Day here, it couldn’t be now. 

late summer –

we celebrate with bread

the good harvest

Some tanka done wrong

(Breaking all sorts of purist rules.)

I must go down to 

the sea again! all I ask

is a tiny boat

with two paddles, sunlight on 

the waves, and thou beside me

(Apologies to John Masefield and Omar Khayyam)

Prompt 'boat' at Tanka Poets On Site (fb).

solitude –

the luxury of time

all alone

in my own roving mind’s

delicious freedom

Prompt 'solitude' at Tanka Poets On Site.

Also sharing these two at Poets and Storytellers United for FridayWritings #212: Luxury. Both describe (some of) my ideas of luxury, though only the second uses the word.

Unspoken

My friend, who folds in on herself,

does not say, ‘I am hurting too deep 

for words; I am protecting myself

with a mask and a cloak; I am hiding

in a deep cave of silence, leaving only 

my replica outside (acting and smiling).’

She doesn’t tell me: ‘I’m about to shatter.

If you touch me even lightly, even if 

your voice is soft with sympathy, that

will be more than I can bear. Please

pretend that I am normal. Pretend

that you notice nothing. Smile!’

One by one, I see processions of her

acting on a stage. Her lines are always

word-perfect. (Not, of course, her own.)

But I can barely hear them. They fail

in the clamour of the shrieks that she

is not uttering, which I hear too loud. 

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