After Ten Years

After Ten Years

(Reunion with a young friend)


'I'm 78,' I  told him. (I was, then.)

He was amazed. Nevertheless 

he said, of some hinted, unspecified woes:

'I'll tell you later. Plenty of time.'

Just how much time do you imagine 

I've got? I questioned silently.

Off he went again, always the traveller.

Time runs on. The silence lengthens.

Accessing the Eternal

Accessing the Eternal

(Found poems, from online sharing in a Landmark Education 'Wisdom Course')

Looking at the first 

camellia of the season

is heart-stoppingly beautiful,

magnificent every time.

There is just silence. 

Nothing can describe it.

It's the most perfect 

thing in the universe.

************

When I hear  

the high note 

in Nessun Dorma

the world stops

the universe opens.

I'm linking this to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #430

Community?

Community?

until I was 

I didn't have

(one on one)

never had 

a tribe or posse 

because I was half

wasn't always

so much 

as the fact 

I liked 

the deep lots

lovely solitude

I am still 

in many ways

it surprises me

Erasure poem – from a piece of my own writing: a prose draft on the theme of 'community'.

I'm linking this to The Tuesday Platform for Dec 11 2018, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Where my spirit is

Where my spirit is

More 'found' micropoetry 
(found in emails received)

grandson’s confirmation –

he’ll wear a white robe and stole

with symbols HE chose

************

autumn leaves and deer,

a mountainside in a forest –

restful, once I get there

************

a glorious, sunny day …

we expect gigantic waves,

logs tossed about

************

I found a place 

to share in rituals,

light a candle 

and meditate – my poem 

is where my spirit is

************

I've closed my wings

for the time being –

getting ready to fly


Linking to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #427

As the sun rose ...

As the sun rose ...

'Found' Micropoetry 

(From friends' emails)

as the sun rose

over their garden

his brother died 

************                     

A crazy man

crashed into us – the end

of the Subaru. 

A very fickle life! 

Or a mad moon.

************

In Ballarat East

it’s quiet, it’s green. I can walk

to the town centre.

I have a choir venue

and community garden.

************

I feel fulfilled and free

but I need

a new obsession

From Harlots, Season 2, Episode 8:

Grief comes in great gusts 
to blow you down.

The things men do.

************

imagine your tongue

circling the rosy sunrise

of her nipple


(One way to deal with writer's block is to use other people's words!)


Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #426

Behind the Wall

Behind the Wall

What is the story you have never told? That is the one which will free you to tell all the rest. 

So the advice goes. I think it’s true. 

I know which story I have never told. 

And certainly it’s true that I never can seem to get on with telling the rest. (I make abortive beginnings at times, but they fizzle out.)

I don’t even have to make that story public once it is written, I tell myself. I just have to write it. Just for me, to free me.

I am 78. In less than two months I’ll be 79. Surely I can do it by now? After all, it was 36 years ago! (36 years ago … and yesterday.)

I imagine myself starting to write. The first sentences form in my mind.  They are graceful and easy.

But then the wall rises in front of me again. It is high and wide and very thick. It is made of bluestone blocks. It is topped by rolling scrolls of barbed wire, razor sharp.  

It does not exist physically any more. The whole place was torn down years ago, to make way for a new suburb. (I wonder how people live there, sleep there. Surely they are troubled by ghosts?  Surely they must be possessed by rage and tears, violence and dread, the deepest despair.)

The wall has gone. It is all past history. But still in my mind it rises up. Tell my story? Your story? Our story? It is enough that we lived it. It’s no-one else’s business. 

Except that we wrote it in poems, and sometimes I still do … obliquely. We wrote it in letters too, but they were all burned a long time ago.

I never watch shows set in prison, no matter how good they are said to be. They might be too real. Or not real enough. Either way, I don’t need to look.

Your face is before me, forever young. You were not yet 25 when you said goodbye – to me and everyone.

You smile at me. Your eyes are clear, and very blue. Yes of course I cry … still … again … a little bit. 

I know what we said and wrote to each other. I remember it all. 

In response to Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ The Wall