Fallen

Will you not come,

lonely and broken,

to drink from my eyes

the love you are craving,

to receive from my hands

a softness like flowers?

I thought you would. I thought 

I could touch you, gaze on you, 

give you enfolding,

a caress like sleep

or the fragrance of roses

inhaled gently.

But then you let me see

the hard light of your stare,

let me hear the cold 

in your careless laugh.

The mask fallen can't be replaced.

It is I who am broken, lonely.


(Not directly autobiographical. An experiment in style as much as anything else.)

Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #369

We Gathered in the Sacred Grove

We then fanned out into the forest, each of us picking a tree:

our brothers and sisters who, like us, love you, Goddess of Light.

Goddess of Shining Light, we see your radiance; let it be

that which awakens us from the fearsome horrors of the night.

You are arising and shining, Goddess of the Forest. See,

we are here, who adore you – you limpid flame, you flaring bright.

Each of us stands with a tree, side by side, sharing all we be.

It is a custom here, and so it seems to us good and right.

We sing with strong voices; our breath, helped by the trees, pouring free.

Joining together to love you, we become one in your sight.

This ancient ceremony

is yours: oh love, oh delight!

Written for the Meme prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads': using the 7th sentence on page 13 of a handy book as inspiration for a love poem.

The first line of this poem is the sentence, or as much of it as was on the page. The book (read as an ebook, so page numbers don't necessarily conform to the paperback edition) is Fairies of the Wild Wild Moon by Vyvyan Ogma Wyverne. It seemed fitting, given the source, to make this a love poem to the Goddess.

It also seems to fit with Poets United's Midweek Motif ~ Nature: Her Words

And it's an attempt at the chanso form recently aired at Poetic Asides.

My Garden Gnomes

They carry garden tools

but live in the house.

They have a job to do

and it’s not gardening.

They are my Finder Gnomes.

‘Silly,’ says my friend. ‘They 

aren’t alive. It’s your angels.’ 

All I know is, when I lose 

anything, I ask them.
Then it turns up.

Written for 'The Truth About Gnomes' at Poems of Garden Gnomes. 
Also shared with Poets United's Poetry Pantry #368

Adopting an Older One

It’s really not complicated 

(though she is complex); it’s gradual. 

Over a year before she began to purr; 

closer to two until she learned, 

tentatively, to miaow.

This evening she gave my finger 

a tiny lick. Still I know – because 

she has taught me so – I must never

presume nor encroach. She makes all 

the running, sets the pace. It’s simple.

Written for Micro Poetry ~ Uncomplicated Things 

at 'imaginary garden with real toads' (10 lines)

Sonnet Written Upon a Tim Tam

As requested by my friend Jim 

Yesterday I posted on facebook my pleasure

at eating Tim Tams and reading sonnets 

simultaneously, whilst also sitting in the sun

with my sweet cat. This post got a lot of likes. 

Then one friend asked, intending jocularity, 

'When will you publish "Sonnet Written 

Upon a Tim Tam"?' Why not? I thought, 

and replied, 'Tomorrow' – which is now today.

The taste is something between chocolate

and honey, a blend, and the texture also mixed:

creamy soft outside, the centre crisp yet melting. 

It takes six bites – or sometimes only four –

to savour and devour one whole, from the first

burst of joy in the mouth to the last lingering lick.

Linked to Meeting the Bar: Neruda and the free verse sonnet 
at dVerse Poets Pub.

Also linking to dVerse's 2019 Sonnet Challenge.

I felt proud of myself in writing this one, both for rising to my friend's challenge and because I had some glee in using the sonnet form for such non-exalted subject matter. (I used to be intimidated by the idea of attempting a sonnet, but Samuel Peralta cured me of that when he was on the dVerse team of presenters. He taught us a variety of sonnet forms and made them all seem delightfully easy.)

Brain Dysfunctions

Going off alone into other worlds

among dreams and shadows, she seeks

light-bearing clouds, warmth, and the feeling

of feet touching earth squarely, firmly.

Reality is itself too ephemeral

for her, with her several illnesses, her lack

of power and autonomy. But she persists

and gradually makes a way, here and there.

No-one on earth can help, she decides. 

Elsewhere encounters the dark ones who promise

to lend their strength to her will. She permits.

Now she can make things happen, despite

limitations she was born with. Fails to see

she is in their power: not using, being used.

Linked to dVerse Meeting the Bar: Neruda and the free verse sonnet.

ANNOUNCEMENT: New e-book

Oh, I am madly excited!!! My poetry collection, SECRET LEOPARD: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS 1974-2005, has just been reissued as an ebook, via my favourite publisher Content X Design. (Thank you, Delaina and Kristin!)

You can get it for only $2.99 USD in whatever format suits you (mobi for Kindle, epub for other e-readers or pdf for your computer).

Lots of wonderful poems, if I do say so myself :) and you won't find them on my blog!

(There are still a VERY few paperback copies left which I am now selling for $10 USD — and to Aussies $10 AUD — plus postage. You'll have to message me if you want one of them.)

Here is the link to the ebook.

She Writes Long Poems

She writes long poems which look calmly at pain

as though there is nothing wrong about feeling pain.

The night draws down cold after a day of cloud —

heavy cloud, formed to hold the painful threat of rain.

What night was it she wore that white flower? She forgets —

in any case has no power nor wish to call that pain back again.

Darkness is vast; words lengthen in silence, attenuate.

New shapes cast new meaning, pain slowly made plain.

(Note: I am not she who will write poems many pages long

so as to push back night, at once to confront and deaden pain.)


Playing with form; inspired by the 'quasi-ghazals' of John Calvin Rezmerski and the long poems of Judith Crispin. 

Linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #366

Making the Gaps Wider

She knew my kind.

'You want to show off,' she said.

'If you think you can here, you’re wrong.'

'No no,' I said, 'I only came to play.
I came for the games, the fun.

I don't expect anything else.'

But she was crying. (She'd felt scared.
The boys had been fighting just next door.)

'Leave me alone!' she said.

All her pain

came into me and filled me.

It felt like mine.

'Stop pushing in,' she said.
'Anyway you're late. It's over. 

I'm closing the gates now.'

I should have shut up then

and gone away. But I wanted

the hurting to stop.

The more I tried to explain, 

the more she closed her ears.

And her mouth. And turned away.

I thought I heard her say,

'I never invited you 

to this party.'

Next time I went to look,

they were all playing again

inside her garden.

I suddenly realised

they spoke to each other in secret code.

I went away.

Light

for Sharon

Learning that light 

folds in on itself

as it simultaneously expands

I think of my friend at five, 

standing in front of a tree

and watching it dissolve

into patterns, into Tree pattern,

then feeling herself as Me pattern

and seeing the landscape fill with light

as all the patterns of all the beings

lit with joy to see her understand –

and I wonder if my experience 

of light swirling and folding, 

condensing and growing, 

irradiating Life,

is anything like her experience 

and the way she has built 

an ecology from seed shapes ...

or is that we 

are separate gods,

or possibly separate ants –

or fragments 

(ourselves

particles of light)?


Linking to Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

My Mother Made Me a Cake for My Party

It was shaped and iced 

like a skirt for a princess, 

around an inserted plaster doll. 

She and my aunty spent hours

on painstaking details.

Another, a simple sponge,

had a section cut from the top

filled with dark green jelly, 

dotted with bought ornaments

(lilies, frogs). Easy! 

That was the one we children loved.

The illustration, included according to Fair Use, is by Erté (Romain de Tirtoff). Today in Flash 55 PLUS! at 'imaginary garden with real toads' we are invited to use one of his works as inspiration. This one, 'Costume of the Louis XV period', immediately threw me back into that childhood memory — though the skirt made of cake was more elaborately decorated.

The Necessity of Being Specific

I pasted on my treasure map

the words ‘Bonjour Paris’

and a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

Be careful – not only what 

you wish for, but how! I dreamed

of visiting that legendary city, but

(this was already years ago) I never

went to Paris, walked those streets

nor drove ‘with the warm wind’ etc.

But treasure maps work! Backpacker son

surprised me one day that year, with

a phone call: ‘G’day! Guess where?’

This is a true story, but the illustration is not from my long-discarded treasure map (aka vision board) but a fabric detail photographed by Margaret Bednar who, in Artistic Interpretations at 'imaginary garden with real toads' invites us to choose one of several as inspiration.

My Soul Says to My Heart:

Yes, there are horrors going on in the world.

Keep picking up the litter. Turn off the tap.

Gaze at trees where you find them;

touch them if possible.

Drink the sky.

Live now. Do the thing you can.
It is true that people kill people. It is true 

that our governments respond

with their own versions of terror. And 

it is true we are not being told the truth.

So sign a petition, or march, or even 
write a poem. Dream of another country
where there is peace and freedom. Dream

that you have the means to move,

and would be made welcome. Meanwhile….

Go outside. Find a flower or a leaf or

a blade of grass. They will not always

be common. Look at it, stroke it,

breathe its scent.

There is not much time. Get on with it!

The Dreams We Don’t Remember

3.15 and the cold woke me.

I went stumbling out of bed

for hot water bottles, 

toasted raisin bread, and a nip

of Stones Green Ginger Wine.

I was crawling out of a cave,

I was blind and skinless, 

when the cold pierced

and rescued me

from all but that fragment.

What strange adventures

do we meet in the dark,

what selves unknown 

to our daylight hours

writhe and struggle?

Today in the Wisdom Circle

we who call ourselves Goddesses

pondered and wondered

about our past lives. Perhaps

we didn't go far enough back?

Perhaps we were, all of us, once

worms or insects, or grotesque 

sea things, deformities of the deep.

Do distant ancestors rise through time

to inhabit us while we sleep?


Linking to this week's Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.