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

Looking Back

We like our little house,

we tell each other. It’s cosy.

And it is. And we do like it.

But one day, suddenly, 

unexpectedly, I say, 

‘Sometimes I miss 

the house we left behind’ —

remembering palm fronds

seen through bedroom windows,

and the rhythmic sound of waves.

‘I know what you mean,’

he mutters, to my surprise.

Despite the tiny bathroom,

the back yard we couldn’t use

for the noisy neighbours,

and the too-high rent

despite the python in the roof

which made us fear for our cats,

and a low street that could flood,

despite the awkward hike

from laundry to clothesline,

the brown snakes in summer ...

come to think of it,

I don’t miss it that much.

Note: For the benefit of non-Aussies, our brown snakes are deadly

30 Poems in 30 days: 22, leaving something behind

Rediscovering Stonehenge

(title of television program)

I am watching the History channel:

an excited anthropologist

thinks he has rediscovered Stonehenge

as a temple not to the sun but the moon.

Above the window which shows

the sun dawning at Summer Solstice,

another frames the light of the moon

coming to fullness every month.

And even the sun window also shows

Winter Solstice sunset — the true focus?

It seems self-evident to me:

the Goddess and the God,

the cycle of the seasons turning; 

neither sun nor moon alone, predominant,

but both, together, ruling the heavens

and shining down on the earth.

People, he remarks in wonder,

were able to carry out science

at quite sophisticated levels, observing

the movements of lights in the night sky.

Their physical skills, he adds,

cannot be parallelled. At certain stages

of the agricultural cycle, even today,

there’s a labour force with nothing to do.

The great pyramids at Giza

were built around the same period.

Newgrange in Ireland, believed to be

solar observatory and tomb, was earlier still. 

What magic built Stonehenge and the rest? 

He tells us: Infinite time and patience!

A German disc has been found,

dating from the Stonehenge era.

He displays it on screen, noting

it not only depicts the sun

but gives equal space to the moon.

At Newgrange he shows us a carved stone: 

three spirals coiling from one centre.

He wonders if this has religious significance.

Oh, just ask any witch! Yes, that

is a spiritual symbol, a clear triskelion.

After the end of the Ice Age, he tells us,

‘the moon-fearing hunter-gatherers’

were superseded. Agriculture needs

the cycles of the sun. But when crops failed,

did they blame themselves for neglecting

an earlier, lunar worship? (Yes, he suggests.)

He shows us tall gold wizard hats, decorated

with all the phases of the moon. The people,

he supposes, needed priest-kings, masters of time, 

who understood these older mysteries.

Finally, with irritating time and patience,

he arrives at my own conclusion:

sun and moon are united, sun and moon

are in harmony! Those ‘windows’ at Stonehenge,

when you get them lined up just right, reveal

everything that they reveal: the movements 

of the sun mimic those of the moon; and

the movements of the moon mimic

those of the sun. It becomes self-evident,

and he says it: They are one and the same.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 25

Aso submitted for dVerse Poetics: Repetition.


P.S. The triskelion mentioned is duplicated in the Poets United logo in the sidebar at the right!

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

Getting Acquainted With My New Cards

(pulling one card from each new deck

to describe my present path)

The Celtic Oracle offers me a ride

with the Lord of the Underworld,

King of the Wild Hunt

pictured horned 

and giving chase.

Change is promised

and chaos. I should think

before drinking from his cauldron.

New life — but am I ready?

The Wildwood Tarot gives me

Page of Stones, the Lynx,

and I warm. Lynx is a favourite totem, 

telling me now: ‘Pay attention

to the physical realm, the effects

you generate.’ A strain of wildness 

may need balance. There are new 

beginnings. My pathway 

is one of apprenticeship. 

The phantasmagorical Vampyre Tarot

presents me with The Fool:

the original creative seed.

Change and chaos again, and infinite

possibility. ‘A renewal in any or all

of our human domains.’ Great leaps of faith

like moonbeams from dark clouds.

He is the god Pan, drunk with passion.

And he is perfectly balanced. I shall win! 

(Even when no quotation marks are used, many phrases derive from 
the texts of these oracles. Not entirely a found poem, but....)

30 Poems in 30 Days: 20, three related objects

15% of Full

My energy correspondingly wanes

and so does his. I’m down with flu,

he’s lagging just a day or two behind

with the same exhaustion that hit me

twenty-four hours ago. He has taken

to his bed with The Australian Author.

He is an Australian Author — 

but perhaps not The. I am one too,

but similarly....  Why am I sitting here

making poems, when I could be snuggling?

I guess I’ll be doing that to my dying day.

Making poems that is, not snuggling.

‘Not snuggling.’ It’s a theme.

I want to be comforted, babied,

now that I’m past the crabby phase.

(Lucky for me he’s not there yet.)

The moon and I are becoming 

littler, younger, foetally curled.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 24

Body Language

My ears ache,

my throat burns,

my nose is alternately

stuffed up and streaming.

My body tells me

loud and clear

I need a rest,

time out, time off.

‘Go to bed,’

says my husband.

‘Stay in bed!’

But once I’m there

he hovers

demanding anxiously

at the slightest twitch,

‘What’s that? What’s wrong?

‘What can I do?

What can I get you?’

Peace, I think,

and silence. Solitude.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 23, include three parts of the body

To Drive or Not to Drive?

The question is

should he drive again?

Two weeks left

to renew his licence —

for five more years, ye gods!

Suddenly he wants to.

He wants to try

our sweet new car.

Before that he was happy

with months of being chauffeured.

I stop one day near home

and let him drive the rest

of the quiet road.

He fumbles over how to start

and I remind him.

He snaps at me

and gets us safely home.

But it’s not enough.

Now he thinks he won’t

surrender the licence.

Sometimes the pain in his legs

excludes all other thought. 

He continually asks for help

with computer operations

he used to know well.

‘It’s only next Wednesday,’ I say

‘Till you see the Geriatric Specialist.

Let’s ask him if it’s wise.’

‘He’ll say no!’ he responds

at once. I rest my case.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 21, answering a question + 29, driving.

The Moon Shrinks

as does my attention upon her.

She is not to be seen

through the haze that even the sun

has trouble piercing, the smoke

that even as it thins 

fails to disperse.

But I know that behind the veil

she’s a crescent,

a sickle, a scimitar, a curl of light;

outline of a pregnant belly, holding 

darkness within, the shape

of the unknown.

Oh void, oh mystery, oh edge

of nothing-something,

I am starting to forget you —

starting not to want

to enter the dark to look for you.

It’s Spring, Ostara: I dance in the sun!

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 23

Resting Together

I love to watch them resting beside me:
my man and my little tortoiseshell cat.
She is very polite, waits until we embrace
and then settle into our sleeping positions
before she paces delicately up the bed
and lies down between us, purring.
Sometimes our hands collide
as we both reach out to stroke
her curving back, or scratch behind her ears
before we all fall into comfortable sleep.

Her brother, the black one, he’s the morning cat
coming boldly up the bed as soon as we wake.
She moves away and lets him take her place
for his turn at the petting and cooing. Then
they both start agitating for immediate breakfast
and one of us must rise to oblige, and the day begins.
Afternoons, they share the bed, now free of people,
sleeping curled together or echoing each other’s shapes.
Sometimes my lover joins them there for a nap.
I love to watch them peacefully resting together.


30 Poems in 30 days: 19, sleep + 26, an animal


Submitted for Poetry Pantry #69 at Poets United

Love in the Afternoon

The three-day-old smoke haze hides the moon.

My Astrological Moon Calendar and Planting Guide

shows it exactly halfway between full and dark —

so I imagine this to be a time of perfect balance.

Anyway it’s Spring. The afternoon is warm.

All the work is done. There are new sheets on the bed.

We kick the cats out of the bedroom and make love.

Long, lazy love lasting for hours; leisurely and light.

His skin is clean and smooth, sweet-smelling.

I nestle in, we stroke each other all over.

Afterwards he declares it our best loving ever.

‘You have a short memory,’ I say. ‘Some other times....’

There is something to be said for the slow descent

towards the dark, and the way the focus narrows in.

As the time of a life cycle shortens, moments lengthen.

‘In the last quarter, the movement is toward integration.’

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 22

Submitted for dVerse Open Link Night #10

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

My Locale

At present it’s rather surreal.

The haze from yesterday,

only a little thinner,

continues to every horizon

and, we know, beyond.

The coppery sun, setting,

glows weakly through the veil.

We’re heading into fire season

with signs of a long dry.

We know that, further north,

the burning off is right

that caused this cloud.

A worse hangs over us

if we leave the grasses lush.

I live in a small town

near a large mountain

shaped like a brush turkey

or the profile of a warrior’s head.

We are surrounded by canefields, 

banana plantations, some dairy farms

and the hidden illegal crops.

The wide slow river

fills to its banks often

and sometimes floods.

In winter the cupboards 

fill up with mould.

Brown snakes every summer 

encroach on suburban paths.

There are places 

close to the mountain

where the energy is so strong

few can live there with ease.

(The mountain is full of crystals.)

At night we sit out on our verandas

watching the UFOs streak the sky.

No, we are not fond of strangers.

This area used to be

Australia’s best kept secret.

Now it’s over-populated.

Well yes, it may be true

that I haven’t told you everything.

The bottom line is: Stay away!

30 Poems in 30 Days: 18, Your city, town, locale.

My Game

‘It exercises my brain,’ I say, 

or, ‘It de-stresses me.’  Truth is,

my Grandma taught me long ago

and it suited me, then and now. 

‘Little Rosemary,’

a family friend used to say,

‘With her feet on the ground, 

and her head in the clouds.’

I like to withdraw

for dreaming or musing

or just being 

with myself, by myself.

I read, I write, I think —

those solitary occupations.

I go for walks alone,

and I’m a solitary witch.

You must have guessed by now

my game is Solitaire,

otherwise known as Patience.

In different ways, I need both.

Once it was cards,

now it’s computer screen.

It requires a small part of my brain;

the rest goes wandering.

Real or virtual, the cards 

are red and white and black:

the Goddess’s colours —

which makes me smile to myself.

I savour the satisfying click

as I shift them with my mouse,

while in my mind I shift

the gears of the Universe.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 16, Playing a game

Making Connections

All day a haze of white

has covered the sky

turning the sun dark — 

but it’s too hot

for a nuclear winter.

The internet tells us: smoke 

from controlled burns and others

spreading across the corners

of two States. 

Tonight of course

we see no moon.

Out walking late this afternoon

we spoke to neighbours 

we’d never met, 

all at that point mystified.

Much later, watching on telly

an hour of Jimi at Woodstock,

I well remember

seeing this first at the time —

the height of the Vietnam war

and the height of the protests.

We knew about the napalm by then 

and My Lai. So did he.

Oh my God, we said in ’69, 

as he played the Star Spangled Banner

and gradually his guitar

gave us the noise of screaming 

over the blare of guns.

Confusion / connection / communication.

Even in times of no light.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 21

30 Poems in 30 Days: 25, Include a pop culture reference. 
(Yes, the 30 Day poems are liable to get a little out of order now, 
as I seek to combine prompts when possible.)

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

Hello Telstra

Hello Telstra, this is me.

I wish to make a declaration —

The termination of our contract shall be

not so much a breakage as an amputation.

It’s not unreasonable, I think,

to want more internet access than I’ve got.

It’s not even unfair to say you stink.

(Wait — are you a person or just a bot?)

Do you know your wireless connection [piece of shite]

only works in the mornings up until 8

and after 10pm or sometimes midnight?

Nothing in between. I wait and wait.

I fiddle, experiment, cry and curse.

And I know when I phone for a technical person

the situation will rapidly get worse,

though one might think it couldn’t possibly worsen.

I’ve been there before. They are full of advice

and it works for five minutes, then back to square one.

I’m sorry, it’s too much. No more being nice.

You’ve had it, it’s over, you’re under the gun.

You have broken my trust and disrupted my life.

I am discombobulated, devastated, mad.

I so need my sleep! You are in for real strife.

It’s Ombudsman time; I know I’ve been had.

                  ************

She unplugged her laptop and closed the lid,

then picked up the modem and hurled it hard

through the open doorway. I promise she did.

It smashed on the fence down the end of the yard.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 15, A broken object + (simultaneously) 17, 3 words of 4 or more syllables

Tonight the Moon

Tonight the moon

is a bright orange light,

as big as if full

but only three-quarters now

and hanging low down

under its nearest star.

I am glad to note that star

always attached to the moon.

I call to my love to come down

where he can see the surprising light

of this almost-orb we have now

blazing, not quite at the full.

Once he was full

of energy, sizzling like a star,

but frail and slow now.

Still he is thrilled by the moon

sending orange light

through the trees, and comes down

to where he can see it whole. I help him down

the steep stairs. Out in the yard, we are full

of childlike delight,

standing gazing at moon and star.

‘Yes,’ he says, ‘An astonishing moon.

I see it clearly now.

‘But I must go back up now.

I feel unsteady here. I think I might fall down

when I tilt my head back to look at the moon.’

Already my pleasure is full,

having shared with him tonight’s bright moon and star.

‘Let’s go!’ I say, keeping it light.

We climb back up the stairs by orange light

shining on us here, tonight, now.

I follow him like that attendant star

which follows the moon up and down

the arc of the sky; follows from new to full

and through the dwindling to the dark moon.

Leaving the moon, we enter interior light

knowing that life is full even though slower now —

having adventured down to an orange moon and a star.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 20

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

Visitations

My son visited from cold Melbourne

for the first part of his holiday.

We turned on drizzling rain.

Then he went up to the Gold Coast

to laze on Main Beach with a book.

He enjoyed some sparse, weak sun.

Now of course, he’s back home

and here we have warmth

every day, the mountains clear,

the sky wide and cloudless,

the river sparkling and the ocean

a shimmering vista of deepest blue.

Last Christmas my younger stepson,

also from Melbourne, came.

We said he brought the sun.

It was a hard year, that one. How gladly

we anticipated sweet summer.

He left. Then came the non-stop rain.

The sudden flooding drowned whole towns

and half a city, just a little north of here. Now

in this perfect Spring, we breathe in, and wait.

30 poems in 30 Days: 14, A change in the weather

Alteration

Low in the sky

the moon has lost

the top of her perfect circle.

Close by

is the only visible star.

Two streetlights

as if in reflection

sparkle, half hidden by trees.

Most of the houses are dark;

only two windows lit.

Despite their peaceful beauty,

I am a little uneasy

viewing these paired lights.

The still air seems expectant

with the certainty of change.

I write a haiku sequence

and realise I don’t even know

what is haiku any more.

I’ve moved into

a different space.

Quietly, without notice,

I am changed after all these nights

attending to the moon.

Reality and dream

evaporate. There is only poem.

Journalling my relationship with the moon:  19

Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #136

Waning

Now she is getting on

with her descent,

her gradual dwindling.

We too, ageing,

enter a waning phase.

Fearing the loss

of the other,

do we not notice

it happens bit by bit?

We shrink in

to four walls

a small town,

fewer activities.

These last two nights

I haven’t even wanted

to look at the moon

just like I don’t want

to watch you (or me)

go gradually

into the dark, into nothing

but a faint edge of light.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 18


Submitted for dVerse Open Link Night 9 

Invisible to the Naked Eye or, Coulda Fooled Me

‘If you don’t mind me asking, 

what is that?‘ — pointing 

to three rectangles 

of crudely woven straw

dark brown, looking dirty, 

attached to the exit wall

of the Medical Centre.

Our doctor, with 

a lift of his eyebrow:

‘That? That’s 

art, Andrew.’

30 Poems in 30 Days: 13, a poem with dialogue in it.

The Last Time

We don’t always know

the last time is the last.

The last time I made love to X

(any of the exes)

the last time I saw Karen

before she died

the last time I set up my stall

at Pottsville Market

the last time I swam

in that creek with the pelicans

the last time I left

the island where I was born.

And sometimes 

we do know.

After the divorce my first husband

walking away down the street

the awful knock on the door

to fetch me to my mother’s dying

tears all the way in the plane

going home from my last trip to Bali

the last time I saw

my stepmother’s evil smile

the deliberate savouring

of the very last cigarette.

30 Poems in 30 Days: 12, Doing something for the last time

A New Phase

She still looks full

radiating beams of light

like children’s pictures of the sun

but white, misty.

Last night I left all my crystals

out to catch that light.

Today I washed them  

in running water,

laid them to dry on towels

and began dusting their shelves.

Confronting the moon

and myself

brings me to action.

My demon is called Escape.

But it’s Spring

and I’m tired of burying my head

even in poetry.

All that power

I’ve been storing and hoarding

and hiding

having reached its fullness

now demands an out.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 17

Included inthe book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON

Full Moon

I walk out into a vista of peace.

She floats on a sea of cloud,

surprising me with her hushed beauty.

A milk-blue heaven spreads

from under my balcony roof

wide, and across to the mountains.

In my back yard courtyard 

I find her again, high

in the centre of the sky.

Wisps of veiling drift over her face

as I blow her a kiss

and call the quarters.

Tonight I greet her alone.

He is in bed. He tires early now

and forgets our old, shared rituals.

When I said goodnight, I reminded him,

‘This is a night of power.

What shall I request for you?’

‘Health and strength?’ I prompted,

‘Love and happiness?’

‘All that,’ he said, and we laughed.

Then I grew serious. 

‘Really, what do you want?’

‘Deep sleep,’ he replied, fervent.

And so I ask on his behalf

and for myself

I request courage.

Journalling my relationship with the moon: 16

Included in the book, THREE CYCLES OF THE MOON