As the Year Ends

not knowing she is atheist
he sends up a prayer

through air and ether to heaven
for the girl across the water

who now must be dead or near
whose spirit felt close last night

as if she hovered to read
a poem I could not write


An sequence of attempted Crystalline couplets, submitted for (and the form explained at) dVerse FormForAll — Couplets for the New Year — but I am still caught in this present ending.

Writing the Prison

(Acknowledgments to Anne Sexton’s “Ringing the Bells”)

And this is the way we go
to work in prison
and this is the gate where we stand
still for the metal-detector and open our bags
and open the books in our bags,
and these are the writers in prison
who wait for Friday,
two hours a week that feel like freedom;
and because we are working in poetry
and because that’s another country,
an open space outside what is known,
we are the circle of laughing poets
who lounge in the plastic chairs in the Education shed
and smile at the baffled officers
who watch but leave us alone,
who watch us escape
the gates and doors with locks;
and these are the bluestone blocks we pass
on the way into the prison
guarded by guns as if it were true
we are not free, we are not free;
and these are the tunnels we walk on Tuesday
in maximum security,
cages that whisper open electronically,
whisper open electronically and whisper closed;
and this is how the poetry shouts,
as outspoken and bold
as a fearless child,
and this is always my freedom responding
to the words that respond to the prison
where poets write and are free
two hours a week, on Tuesday or Friday,
when the door in the wall cracks open
and lets me in, and we meet;
and although I may work and go
out again through the tunnels and gates and locks,
I am the one who will never
escape the prison.


Written in 1987
First published La Mama Poetica anthology (Melb. University Press 1989)
Also in Walking the Dogs (Pariah Press anthology, 1994)
Included in the author's Secret Leopard: New and Selected Poems 1974-2005 (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005).

Posted here now because of a conversation in which this experience came up. A conversation in haiku, actually, at Haiku on Friday, on facebook.

Submitted to Poetry Pantry #81 at Poets United

I'm replete: December tanka 2011

suddenly onscreen
yellow gorse with prickly leaves
straight from my childhood
on the island growing wild
long time since I tramped that land

7/12/11


for dinner
our broccoli
newly picked
our own fresh herbs
in the omelette

12/12/11


My sixtyish friend
is visiting Zambia.
Young, she taught there —
now meets those women again.
Her glad email makes me cry.

13/12/11


the clover is out
all over the nature strips
at the corner house
steering the mower she laughs
and waves from her father’s lap

I trudge up the hill
tonight Basil the corgi
rests on his doorstep
I click my tongue as I pass
we’ve had two days of cuddles

old Coco spaniel
stops to let a car swerve past
then goes slow uphill
but I notice he’s faster
than old me puffing behind

20/12/11


I’m replete
contented
full
of everything
but poetry

Post-xmas #gogyohka

28/12/1

Submitted to dVerse Open Night #24 and Poets United's Poetry Pantry #81

Versatile Blogger Award

Mohana, who blogs at insanebloom, kindly awarded me this, weeks ago. Time I passed it on! The rules are:

1. Thank and link to the person who nominated you.
2. Share 7 random facts about yourself.
3. Pass the award on to 5 other bloggers.
4. Contact the winners to congratulate them.

The dilemma is, with so many wonderful blogging poets, how do I choose? And surely those I admire will have received it already? Also I don't want to double up on those I already gave the Stylish Blogger award, even though they deserve it. (That one I posted on another blog, to leave this for poems. This time I'm including the award here, thinking that more readers of poetry are likely to find it here.)

But before I list my chosen poets, I am supposed to reveal seven things about myself — things, I suppose, that you might not otherwise know or guess. (So the fact that I have cats wouldn't count, as anyone who reads my poems will find that out sooner or later.) Hmmm ...

Random facts about me:
(I don't promise they'll be interesting)

1. I have never had my appendix out.

2. When I was 15 I acquired two stepbrothers, both named Bill (i.e. both my parents remarried and each of their new spouses had a son called Bill).

3. Summer always takes me by surprise, in that I never quite get with the insect repellant in time to stop those first mosquito bites.

4. Everyone thinks my favorite colour is purple. I do love it, and love to wear it, but my real favourite colour to gaze upon is deep blue.

5. At university, I used to get Honours marks in (some) Philosophy subjects even though I was only doing a Pass degree.

6. I was a timid child and a shy, awkward teen. (No-one believes this, in the face of my adult outrageousness.)

7. Yes, I do know my fashion sense is eccentric. I like it, OK!

Here are my nominees for this award, with links to their blogs:

Brian Miller waystationone

Jenne’ R Andrews La Parola Vivace 

Brendan MacOdrum Oran’s Well

Lorna Cahall lorna cahall

Merlene Fawdry Poetry in the Rough

(If any of them turn out to have receive the award already, I'll find some replacements. With all the brilliant bloggers around, it won't be hard!)

Quilt

I made it when my kids were small.
It lay on our queen-size bed
all the further years of that long marriage.

Not your neat, traditional crochet squares
but larger, lacier, the pattern
more complex. I was proud

of this persevering work of my hands:
a fine thing, a whole year to make.
I loved its rich, strong colours.

It was variegated green, emerald to sage.
It was two tones of red, intense
and understated. And the wide borders

were black. I thought they gleamed
with power and love. The top, defined
by wider black, turned back over the pillow.

After the marriage ended in tears,
I folded the quilt away in a cupboard ...
bundled it off at last to the charity shop.

What comfort could it be to my old age?
Rage had turned it ugly in my sight.
Grief had made it lie too heavy on me.

Now I live in a warm climate. I like
the Indian cotton throw I bought:
lighter, freer, matching my present love.


Intended for dVerse Poetics: Fabric of our lives — but I was too late. Check the link anyway, for a diversity of good poetry!


Published in NOTES FOR THE TRANSLATORS: from 142 Australian and New Zealand Poets, ed. Christopher (Kit) Kelen. Macao, ASM, 2012 
and in THE d'VERSE ANTHOLOGY, 2013.

Being Super

I am not
the small, lone girl who
runs and jumps
on her lawn.
I am strong: beyond hurt. I
am power now. Me.

My cloak floats
out from my shoulders.
One leap and
I fly high,
up, up and AWA-A-A-A-Y — oh yes,
I am Superman!

Submitted for dVerse Poetics - going Comic challenge. (The form is a double shadorma.)

Published in BEYOND THE DARK ROOM, 2012

Oh Summer, Summer! November haiku 2011

early morning
yells and slamming doors
arouse the street

11/11/11


I dance to Janis
Me & Bobby McGee
and my broom

12/11/11


morning
cats and coffee
wake me

18/11/11


frothy ocean
the tangy smell of spray
oh Summer, Summer!

25/11/11

Other side of the glass: November tanka 2011

on his balcony
cool breeze on a warm spring day
entertaining friends
the young man smiles as he sings
of ageing and loneliness

8/11/11


when visitors come
my cat waxes voluble
greeting them at length
loud conversational mews
complaining she’s underfed

15/11/11


‘Must be getting old.
I just can’t raise it tonight.’
How astonishing —
at 82 years 9 months
and fresh home from hospital.

22/11/11


window-frog
half the length of my thumb
pale belly
green toe-pads like pin-heads
other side of the glass

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

‘write of Wild’
others raised leopards
alI I saw
was a tiny frog
high up my window

29/11/11

Rubaiyat: Ways of Going

My days are slowly drifting into rest —
a kind of ease and yet a kind of test.
Though slowing age has made me leisurely,
I miss being quick and busy; I miss my zest.

And still I say I’m lucky. Not for me
(not yet at any rate) the agony
of cruel illness, not for me the blight
of dimming mind in dread senility.

I think again of her mind, young and bright.
She’s ready now, she says, to enter night.
Her mind is housed in an invaded brain,
the tumour slowly crowding out her light.

She’s tired of fighting, certain it’s in vain.
Shut away from sunlight, trees and rain,
she turns eighteen but must not celebrate.
Her mind and body learn increasing pain.

I don’t believe she has one certain fate —
but she believes, raging and desolate.
‘Live fast, die young ...’ Some fools might count her blest;
but she’s been neither fool nor profligate.

I’m old: I’ve lived a life, fulfilled a quest.
I watch my sun start dipping to the west
with no great eagerness; but I admit,
aching for my young friend, I come off best.


Submitted to ‘imaginary garden with real toads’, Rubaiyat prompt and also to dVerse Open Link Night #20

Several years later, in February 2019, linked also to dVerse's Poetry Forms—The Rubaiyat.

I remember that having a strict form to use made it easier to write on such a troubling topic, enabling me to contain the emotion and be reflective (which is also the mood of Fitzgerald's translation of Omar, I think, albeit the subject matter is very different.)

Last Light

In Memoriam Joyce Lee 1913-2007

I read your last book backwards

dearest Joyce, beginning

with your over-90, inevitable

reflections on approaching death

and wandering back 

through final memories,

a new perspective on the past

more peaceful, even more grateful

then arriving

at your last understanding

of childhood, existence itself

and your own country.

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

For many friends, as for me,

surely the subtle fragrance

of deep conversations with you

permeates these pages.

I muse on our last phone call.

You were afraid, you said.

You, with all your faith!

I had no comfort, but the book

tells me you heard:

‘Talk to that angel who visits you;

ask for help.’  You write of his help

at the end, brightening your sky.


The late Australian poet Joyce Lee is not to be confused with the English performance poet of the same name. Her last book, Bountiful Years, was published in 2007 by Rebus Press and launched posthumously. 


This piece is included in Poets United's Poetry Pantry #77.

Prose to Poetry

At dVerse Critique and Craft this week, we were asked to turn an already poetic piece of prose into a poem, first arranging it as lines of verse and then crafting it further. 

I happen to be re-reading Rudyard Kipling’s Puck of Pook’s Hill at the moment. Kipling’s prose is beautiful (after all he was a poet too). I took excerpts from the chapter I’ve just finished, leaving out many connecting words and passages but otherwise not changing the language. I did arrange them into verses of equal length, even at this stage — can’t help myself — and already tried to hint at a new story.

Then I rearranged the verses further and left out even more words so as to (hopefully!) bring out the music. I did make some changes at this stage, e.g. to omit details irrelevant to the poem I'm creating, such as the names of the hill and the man, but they are very tiny changes.

The title I’ve given the poem in both cases is not the chapter heading (that is ‘A Centurion of the Thirtieth‘) but a phrase from the text.

They are still Kipling’s words, not mine, so I would have to call each version a found poem.

1

Una went alone to the Far Wood.

She looked down most cautiously, 

and saw a young man 

covered with hoopy bronze armour 

all glowing among the late broom. 

But what Una admired beyond all 

was his great bronze helmet 

with a red horse-tail that flicked in the wind. 

She could hear the long hairs rasp 

on his shimmery shoulder-plates.

He leaned forward, but his eye 

was caught by the setting sun.

It had come down to the top of Cherry Clack Hill, 

and the light poured in between the tree trunks 

so that you could see 

red and gold and black 

deep into the heart of Far Wood; 

and Parnesius in his armour shone  

as though he had been afire.

‘Wait!’ he said, lifting a hand, 

and the sunlight jinked on his glass bracelet, 

‘Wait! I pray to Mithras!’

He rose and stretched his arms westward, 

with deep, splendid-sounding words.

Through the goldy-brown light 

of the beech leaves they walked.  

They found themselves 

at the little locked gates of the wood.

2

Una went alone to the Far Wood

She saw a young man

all glowing among the late broom:

great bronze helmet with a red horse-tail
that flicked in the wind. 

She could hear the long hairs rasp 

on his shimmery shoulder-plates.

He leaned forward, but his eye 

was caught by the setting sun.

The light poured between tree trunks. 

You could see red and gold and black 

deep into the heart of Far Wood. 

He in his armour shone as though afire.

‘Wait!’ he said, lifting a hand. 

The sunlight jinked on his glass bracelet. 

‘Wait! I pray to Mithras!’ He rose 

and stretched his arms westward. 

Deep, splendid-sounding words

through the goldy-brown light 

of the beech leaves

at the locked gates of the wood.

Missing

1
we walked hand in hand

now we reach out but can’t touch

do you lag behind

or are you leading the way

in another direction?

2
you come seeking me

‘I think I lost you,’ you say,

‘we lost connection’

I lean into your embrace

‘yes, I just wrote that poem’

Composed for the dVerse Man’yoshu prompt 
(though I was too late to include it in the list).


If you're looking for a post on colour, my apologies for the wrong link. Try this.

Seasonal Colours

1

across the world

the waning days of Fall

are inspiring poets

brown leaves,

gold, orange and red

variations of light

2

in my garden

late Spring presents

mystery

I remember

orange blooms cascading

down the fence

now on those vines

white flowers with crimson centres

flare and drop 

the others

were winter flowers

startling

these new

delicate blossoms

embody Spring

it must be

that different vines

entangle

Submitted for Poets United's Thursday Think Tank #73.

I'm indebted to the prompt for some of the (stolen) phrases in 1. 
The autumn leaf picture by Ella Wilson comes from there too.

That Sunday: October tanka 2011

Spring morning

I walk down the steps

into sunshine

new cobweb tendrils

cling to my jade plant

4/10/11

two flying insects
thin green and round black
hit my window
then bounce away at once
back to the Spring garden

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

Full moon and one star

shining over my back yard.

I blow a quick kiss

and give thanks to the Goddess

that my sick friend becomes well.

11/10/11

a busy day

until he lies down to read

and drops asleep

curling into the pillow

the book moving with his breath

18/10/11

tall bamboo

behind my neighbour’s fence

is not much like

the round stems my Dad grew

when I was a child

I walk down

into the valley

by myself

and come back home

with a new tanka

I’m not brisk

I don’t wear special clothes

when I walk

I amble slowly 

the breeze in my hair

25/10/11

that Sunday

listening to Chopin

both of us

feeling as if we’d never

heard his music before 

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

the gargoyle

my son David brought me

from Paris

is free of its neck chain

but one wing is broken

26/10/11

in this land

we sit down on the ground

for a yarn

one way the invaded

have taken us over

31/10/11

near miss

on roundabout

lesson

don’t make poems

while driving

#gogyohka

31/10/11

Muffled thunder: October haiku 2011

playing chasey

the incoming tide

laughing

*********

quiet rain

tonight the world mourns

dead genius

‘Retweet if you’re 

touching an Apple product.’

I am, of course.

6/10/11

cold morning

woken too early

restless cats

my man wakes

demands the time

back to sleep

get up feed the cats

I’m awake

the cats are resting

#haiku #senryu #lune

7/10/11

wet Spring

the cacti grow 

invisibly

13/10/11

playing online

nourished by haiku

I forget breakfast

15/10/11

the empty bin

is propped on its side

by the yellow lid

across the road

the garbage bin looks jaunty

propped on its yellow lid

21/10/11

the clock

ticks loudly

late

28/10/11

imagine

light through the trees

grey magic

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

I prepare muesli

offering

to Hestia first

29/10/11

muffled thunder

the women meet

share secrets

30/10/11

Beltane Night 2011

All week he’s been full 

of passion and play.

Tonight his back hurts.

I go out to see the moon

but it’s still a wet Spring —

she’s cloud-hidden again.

But I can write poems

in the fertile season,

warm offerings to Life.



Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #73.

31st October

The little girls from across the road

came trick-or-treating tonight

in their witch and fairy costumes.

We’d forgotten Halloween, crude

corruption of Samhain — 

which anyway is a different season 

here, different time of year.

But we had some jellybeans,

emergency rations in case

his blood sugar drops. I poured a handful 

into their empty icecream bucket.

I wonder what they’d have said

if they’d known the smiling old couple,

their neigbours, were actual witches.

Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #73.

Sharing 11 years later with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #50, where Rommy invites us, in honour of Halloween, to share something 'sweet'.  This old Halloween memory is a sweet one, and also the poem mentions the traditional giving of sweets.

This poem also appears in Sherry's feature for Poets United: Poems for a Witchy Halloween, along with poems by herself and Magaly Guerrero.

Streams of Consciousness

high above ocean 

on this piece of the hill

this peaceful hill

always had to

sit up straighter

speak when spoken

the little girls playing

across the road

laugh together

she had a language

of private gestures

quick faces made

in the yard opposite

swings and guinea-pigs

crowd 

cross your legs

at the ankles

don’t laugh out loud

expansive sunlight fills

the wide circle

of the cul-de-sac

that’s dangerous

unladylike

don’t be silly

Amanda yells to her kids

her smile is wide

her stance open

grown awkward

I returned home 

less and less often

at night I gaze

from my vantage

the street rests unafraid

For a dVerse exercise on conflation: expanding one poem with another which is unrelated. I chose to weave my two threads in and out of each other. I’m not sure it’s a true conflation; it could be said that there’s a relationship of contrast. And of course the title is slightly ironic; this is not a 'stream of consciousness' poem in the usual sense.

Love (Etheree)

Love

has music

you don’t hear;

you are not listening

to the underneath of love

but to the lovely surface sounds

which are all cooings and slurpy kisses

catching your attention and filling up your ears

so you never discern those almost inaudible notes

that sing the promise of pain, of looming, inescapable sorrow.

An etheree is this form of poem, lines increasing by either words or syllabes, 1 - 10. I’ve used a word count here rather than syllable count. There can also be reverse etherees, and double etherees counting from 1 to 10 and back again from 10 to 1, or even double reverse etherees. I suspect I’m not done with this new (for me) discovery yet.

Between busy life and atrocious internet connection, I missed the ‘shape poem’ prompt at dverse, so am submitting this instead to OpenLinkNight #15.

Not My Calling #BAD11

My garden

looks bedraggled

in the rain.

My one broccoli leaf

flourishing yesterday

is full of holes.

Half the mint

has suddenly turned brown.

I decide 

to keep buying my food.

This is my Blog Action Day post on the topic of Food. I have to hope the situation is not as bad as we fear, since I am such an abject failure at growing my own!


I am also submitting this for dVerse Poetics prompt, taboo subjects. Not that the subject of food is taboo in general, but this politically incorrect treatment of it on Blog Action Day is surely taboo! Shouldn't I be deploring the hunger in the world; shouldn't I be writing poems to encourage Westerners to grow veggies instead of giving up? Shouldn't I at least create a deep and substantial poem instead of this slight piece? I nearly didn't post it for fear of being seen to be shallow and selfish — and this prompt is all about overcoming our fears and writing the truthful poem anyway ... and then sharing it! (Besides, I have already tackled all the big taboo subjects, lol.)

Soft Morning

Soft morning 

fresh from rain

the birds just beginning — 

and I walk out again

one childhood morning

from The Orchard House

my grandparents’ house

in Spreyton, Tasmania

early after rain

when the air

had just this light

this scent. 

Girl Blowing Bubbles

Hard to see the girl

behind the bubbles she’s blowing

brightly filling the air.

Her face is covered 

in sparkling globes

that pour, more and more,

from her breath.

Look closely though

and you’ll see,

in the lifted arm

the straight head

the intensity of her stance,

how focused she is.

Nothing else exists

for her but the light she creates

over and over and over

floating away on the air

and being replaced.

I don’t need to see her face

to know her expression,

or to remember she’s me.

Submitted for Bluebell Books prompt, week 11.

Friday 7 Oct. 2011

cold morning

woken too early

restless cats

my man wakes

demands the time

back to sleep

get up feed the cats

I’m awake

the cats are resting

#haiku #senryu lune#

Submitted for dVerse FormForAll prompt: Haiku and Senryu 
OK I snuck in a lune as well. I like lunes. And I should add for new readers that these days, like many contemporary haikuists, 
I favour short/long/short lines over 5/7/5.

#BAD (Blog Action Day)

Blog Action Day rolls around again on October 16th, which is also World Food Day, so the topic of course is FOOD. I have registered this blog and also my personal blog SnakyPoet.  I hope to persuade the other members of WordsFlow to be in it too.

In case anyone hasn't caught up with Blog Action Day in the past, it's one day a year when bloggers all around the globe focus on one topic that we feel needs attention called to it. In the past the topic has been chosen by vote; this year, because of the coincidence of the date, it's already decided.

How one treats the topic is up to the individual blogger. How I'm going to approach it, I don't yet know, but I'm going to have fun thinking about it.

I know that whenever I give 'food' or 'eating' as topics in writing workshops, they're very inspirational! Food is primal, basic to our survival and therefore a great source of pleasure. Hunger is painful. Starvation is fatal. There are people in the world experiencing hunger and even famine right now. Oh yes, there's lots to write about!

Hot windy day: Tanka for September 2011

blue-green waves

framed on the Courthouse wall

sequinned fish

in symmetrical rows

Young Offenders’ Program

5/9/11

farewelled

my visiting son

tearful

as silly mothers are

as mine was with me

6/9/11

these geraniums

started from a cutting

have come with me

from house to rented house

always making me smile

geraniums

cheery plants and hardy

blooming bright

remind me of my Dad

so very fond of them

over the way

children are singing

a schoolyard chant

on this peaceful day

children are laughing

on this date

forty-four years ago

I had been

a brand-new mother

for one whole day

closing my eyes

I lean against a post

almost nod off

until a smell of rain

sharpens the lazy air

13/911

hot windy day

the fire haze in the sky

thankfully old

from far north of here

chilling reminder

20/9/11

Those coils on my lawn —

brown snake or diamond python?

Live snake or shed skin?

Deceives me every time,

that twisting, exposed tree root.

27/9/11

I was four

she was white and strange

my Nana

in that hospital bed

I refused the last hug

29/9/11

He strokes my hair: September haiku 2011

cold rain

visitor arriving soon

for the sun

2/9/11

blessed boredom

the opposite of

a Chinese curse

7/9/11

(in response to a challenge

to write a ‘boredom’ haiku)

he strokes my hair:  

‘sleep now,

and in the morning ...’

10/9/11

peaceful

blue evening

windless

three-quarter moon

low in the sky

one star

the little street

sleeps

behind curtains

16/9/11

reading your poems

I hear gamelan music

and miss Bali

24/9/11

while I sleep

on the other side of the world

new haiku




   ******

I wake and find

new haiku on facebook

spring blossoms

27/9/11

Friday. Eye test.

Pay bills, shop, urgent phone calls.

Haiku, whats that?

30/9/11

Turning 30

I recall now, bemused,

the unwonted depression I sank into 

around the issue of turning 30 —

a trauma which, at the time, seemed huge.

The only depression I’ve ever known,

it started six months before
the momentous event, and lasted

a further six months after.

I can’t get back in the head of that girl.

What did she so dread? It was like

the demarcation point of age for her.

Too many pop songs, perhaps!

It was after all, also, the end of the sixties,

that perfect time to be 

if not teenage, still young enough.

Suddenly it was all over.

There she was, with both her children

already born and no more planned.

Girlhood and fertility both behind her.

Nothing but matronhood left.

Silly girl, she didn’t know

that in her 30s she would be ripe and juicy

emitting a glow. Nor that the secret scribblings

would demand to be valued and aired.

I look back, and yes, I think I do

understand now. I see that unconsciously 

she was mourning the end of childhood, 

saying a long drawn-out, final goodbye.

Then she leapt into power and freedom,

new kinds of adventures, and began

the long journey of twists and surprises 

which led her here to me.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 30, the number 30


Submitted for Poetry Pantry #69 at Poets United

Always the Writing

Always the writing writhes

to be born and flower,

pushing up through a dark

ceiling of earth.

Always it pounds in my blood

wanting to break on you,

on the reef of your hard body,

explosive as tides crashing.

The writing is rhythms that swell

and will not be gainsaid.

It pushes, burrows, surges, leaps.

Hammers and shrieks.  Weeps.  Begs.

After the blind climax, the ebb

has the panting of  breath,

a giant wave receding.

I am its point of calm.

First published The Nonsense of Living anthology by The Aardvarkers

In Secret Leopard (Paris, Alyscamps Press, 2005) available from Amazon or through www.nissen-wade.com

This is an old one I've resurrected especially for the dVerse Meeting the Bar prompt: write about poetry. See also What I Build and Working (3)

Building

I am building my life stone by stone.

It was always so. I didn’t know it.

Each decision puts in place

a foundation for the next.

Gradually, one by one,

they all fit together.

I am building my life stick by stick.

It’s natural. I only just noticed.

Every new direction creates

forks in branches, fresh twigs.

It becomes a structure,

lacey and intricate, with leaves.

I am building my life word by word.

Shining like diamonds, they are nails.

The nails of my words

hold everything together.

They can fasten stick to stone

or stick to stick. Even stone to stone.

I have built a house.

I have grown a tree.

I have made the house secure.

I have used the wood; it will last.

It’s a good, safe house. I like it.

But mostly I am out, climbing the tree.

30 Poems in 30 days: 28, building something


Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #76 and for dVerse Open Link Night Week 19

The Urge to Merge

Though I’m far from virgin

it can still be urgent.

Is that verging on absurd

or splurging as obscene?

On the verge of age —

no, over the edge —

may I still rage,

or be left on a ledge?

With passion surging

I need no urging.

Only one way to purge

this urgent urge.

I can’t scourge it

away with detergent;

if I submerge it,

it emerges resurgent.

Is there some norm

from which I diverge

or is elderly lust

where we’ll all converge?


30 Poems in 30 Days: 24, an urge

Dark Moon

moonlight

rainfall

street lights

grey-blue mist

backlit clouds

not one star

moondark

light rain

street fall

backlit mist

blue-grey clouds

no night star

nightfall

dark street

rain-lit

star-mist dark

light grey-blue

back street night

street rain

light fall

dark moon

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 30


And submitted for dVerse Open Link Night #11

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

Hana

I could pull a card for Hana, lady of joy,

except that I know her soul is Priestess.

She is poet and true-seer, guided by the Moon.

These last few years she has been exploring

Empress expression, blossoming in the Sun,

dancing in water, in tropical gardens, cradling

her infant daughter, watching her young son 

play and grow, willing him strong,

expanding herself, embracing herself.

But she is Priestess, who keeps her soul free.

The man with the face and form of a god,

eternally a youth, was temporary.

Venus was too much woman for Adonis!

And the soft, lush, fertile island

needed at last a contrast. She travelled

to the cold north, to a landscape

of tougher beauty, and found

her roots in rock and earth.

Deep roots. They bring her back now

to the temperate land of her birth, her girlhood.

Here she begins the ordering process,

the process of story. She has lived through

great adventures, emerging changed forever

and whole. She begins the chronicle.

                       ********

Seeker of joy, finder of joy, may you always 

dance in the light of the Universe! 

And may you, Moon-woman, continue 

inspiring and living true dreams.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 29

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

In the Gilded Tarot, the Moon

In the Gilded Tarot, the Moon

has a soft face, sweet lady

gazing up at the light she reflects.

The crayfish, mysterious symbol,

is not crawling up on land

but jumping half out of the water.

The towering gates

are like massive candles

or Olympic torches.

Central is a gold disc

like an artist’s palette,

and like intersecting cogwheels.

The sun is about to rise.

Low down over the water,

the sky is pinky-purple.

The dog and the wolf 

bark in unison to greet

rising sun and risen moon.

This is a variant image

from the one in Rider-Waite.

Could I do magic with this?

I could, except that

no-one’s deceiving me,

they’re all asleep.

And I too need my sleep.

No need to find a secret name

for my hidden enemy —

the one who deprives me of rest

is myself, while the real moon

climbs the sky oblivious.

Note: This is not a reading of the Moon card in the Tarot, but 
a personal take on the images in this particular Moon card.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 28

Motivation

Nights of no moon,

days of no moon poems.

Somehow I am four short

of those I need to fulfill

the promise of one every day

for this lunar month.

It’s true: there were days,

a few days bunched together,

when I got jack of it — 

turning up faithfully

night after night

for your no-show.

Funny, when I do it

simply for spiritual connection

with no thought of poetry,

I don’t care if I can’t see you.

Knowing where you are

behind the clouds, I blow you

a smiling kiss anyway.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 27

Hunting

In Kenya, the Masai still hunt the lions, 

predators which take their domestic beasts 

though it’s illegal now to hunt the Kenyan lions.

The men who hunt them are tracked and hunted. 

The warriors walk a fine line: brotherhood, tradition,

or the new conservation. Their world is changing.

‘We don’t kill lions any more’ (title of training film).

There will be compensation for any stock lost.

Can Masai still be men with no lion hunts? Lions 

are successful hunters, perfecting their killing techniques. 

The Masai have had their own conservation: unlucky 

for one warrior to kill more than nine lions.

A hunter called Sunepai has already killed twelve,

expects to die early, and goes on; knows no other way.

It’s about food, which is to say — life

for lions and also the Masai. Can’t be solved easy.

(based on a National GeographicTV program)

30 Poems in 30 Days: 27,  food

Small Moon

Small moon, I don’t see you

although your accompanying star

is the one light visible tonight

in our clouded sky.

For most of this lunar month

which, theoretically, 

I was to spend looking at you,

I have been looking for you

and not finding.

Not your fault.

You presented yourself, I know,

but the weather ran interference.

You will be the same moon

(won’t you?)

next time you begin

your waxing phase.

But I wanted this one!

This phase of you. This present 

incarnation, manifestation, moment.

The moments skip past so fast

and we can’t grasp them.

I am not the first to discover this

but lately the realisation

seems more urgent.

Also we can’t

see past impenetrable veils.

I shall have to settle

as others have done

for the moments I am given

saying thank you.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 26

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON