A Manifesto for the New Year

I have not got the music

but I have the words.

I have not got the dance steps

but I have the words.

I have not got the numbers

but I have the words.

I have not got the science

but I have the words.

I do not have the lovers (any more)

but I (still) have the words.

I call out loudly with the words.

I throw my arms up and my head back,

shouting the words triumphantly.

I whisper softly with the words,

bending close to your secret ear

and breathing them, 

exhaling so lightly you can hardly feel –

but listen hard and you'll hear.

Sometimes I shout them in rage. And outrage. 

Sometimes, I wish to whisper venom.

The words are mine

to do with as I will.

(God said so, 

who gave them to me at my birth.)

I can make them sing, 

I can make them dance.

I can make them count.

I can make them explain – if you will follow –

the secrets of the Universe.

I can make them bring back my lovers.

Yesterday is breaking up, falling away.

Yesterday is getting thrown out with the garbage.

But the old words live on,

unable to be entirely discarded.

Words have power. I call up the power

from deep inside. I call up the words

from where they too are anchored within.

I set them free. I let them loose.

Now I make them new, like seedlings, like cubs.

They will play. They will grow. They will climb all over you.

At 'imaginary garden with real toads', Bjorn invited us to write a manifesto for 2018. I am not much for such things ... but then I watched Patti Smith on YouTube (who does have the music and the dance as well as the words) and – in the mysterious way it happens – suddenly became inspired.

Also sharing this at Poets United's Poetry Pantry #386

Secretly Super

These copper cuffs that ornament each wrist

are solid copper, not mere coated tin.

I trust that my arthritis may desist

as this good metal swiftly does it in.

And look – they also help me to resist

all evil, crime, wrongdoing, error, sin.

Raising my crossed arms like Wonder Woman

deflecting bullets, I’m an Amazon!

Another for the Ottava Rima challenge at Poetic Asides

My Favourite Metaphor for You

(courtesy of 'The Little Prince')

I didn't keep

the fox poster

that spoke of

you / our love /

your death, in

a secret language

made of images.

I had written

the fox poem.

I thought that

pain enough – more

would be wallowing  –

but now seek

other fox pictures.

Their different landscapes

are immaterial. For

it's the fox

I crave, vivid

against any backdrop,

coming towards me

shy yet purposeful....

Bit by bit

I tamed you

with my words,

with my love;

but could, finally, 

not save you

from the hunters.

Written for The Poetry of Three facebook group.

I Sing

I sing softly and sadly

I sing sadly and softly

I sing in the middle of your delight

and at the edge of your last anguish

I sing as if the day would never end

I sing slowly at midnight and quickly at dawn

I sing to the wind and the stars and the dark

I sing to the treetops and to their trunks

I sing to small frogs in the rainwater pipe

also to the bees that visit my clover

I sing in the cities, among their towers

I sing in rainforests and alongside rivers

I sing with the sea and with thunder

with jagged rocks and rising mountains

I sing in the language of a cat

and in the colours of a butterfly

in the pouring rain I sing

in the burning sun I sing

I will never stop singing

The Ground from Under

You are falling roses,

you are patches of darkness,

you are words unspoken.

Into the gashes between

your forms and seemings 

I plummet. Cliff walls are stone.

How can now an arrival

happen, let alone pertain?

Black and bloody, drifting,

I consign me to endless.

United, Not …

The Chilean composer (Ortega) wrote a song:

‘The people united will never be defeated’

based on a shouted slogan for social change

under the great Allende (three months before 

he fell to Pinochet). It was the time

of uniting classical music with popular 

melodies and the instruments of folk.

The American (Rzewski) then created

a piano opus: thirty-six variations

on the theme. And now on Labour Day

in Australia we shout the slogan, changed:

‘The workers united will never be

divided!’ – although the fact that 

Labour Day happens on different days 

in different States makes you wonder

if Governments are making us 

subtly disunited, or maybe not so subtly 

when you think about many other 

things that go on – like tax breaks 

for huge corporations, like …

well, so much (attitudes and rulings;

erosion of wages, safeguards and conditions)  

which in the end, gradually, without 

bloodshed, make us feel bloody defeated. 

Written for the 'Getting to Work' Labor Day prompt at Poems of Garden Gnomes' Also linked to this week's Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Pub;ished in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018

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'.

Stopping Short

Stop pouring just before 

the cup is full and flows over.

Leave room in the glass

to savour the wine’s bouquet.

Pick the fruit just before it ripens.

Don't let it rot, uneaten in the bowl.

Pick the flowers before full bloom,

so they brighten your room longer.

Leave one chocolate in the box,

to enjoy tomorrow.

Pause, don't go over the edge...

– No, sorry; this is all too careful for me.

I'll always scoff that last chocolate,
and go full tilt right over the edge.

I want to gulp my life, not sip!
(Besides, there are no ends, only beginnings.)

Written for Penultimatums, day 29 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads, in which we are invited to savour the moment before completion. I take the point, but somehow found myself writing something I didn't believe in, so changed the direction of the poem mid-stream.

And then I wrote another on the same topic: click here.

A Grain of Sand from the Hourglass

One more grain of sand

rolls through the hourglass;

his voice long stilled, and even I 

am not that girl who once….

He was so much of his time!

And so, of course, was I. No wonder

I loved his poetry, its haunting

melancholic nuances, the longing

for beauty and freedom and a world

of perfect love – we children

of the flowers … now I read 

predictions of war, and I think

we were not so wrong to want

magic and poetry and a dream

of love and peace. Were we?

Written for Poets United Midweek Motif ~ A Grain of Sand.

My Anzac Day

War planes are flying over the town.

I hear them above the low cloud cover,

rumbling their way to the local park

to salute the Anzac Day celebration.

I am not at the Dawn Service.

'At the going down of the sun,' 

I might remember them – 'and 

in the morning,' but not at dawn.

I sleep sound – partly, no doubt

because men of my father's

and grandfathers' generations 

fought and didn't always return.

My Dad didn't dress up in his uniform

like the others, and march. That was because 

he couldn't, with his gammy leg

(acquired not in war but when he was 10).

It kept him from the front, too, 

but he went to Camp in Central Australia

(somewhere secret) – so I was just as much 

fatherless – training to repel invasion.

He used to lift me up on his shoulders

to watch our town's old diggers march:

his mates, eyes right, looking proud and smart.

I knew them as humble, kindly men.

In my passionate youth, I rejected

Anzac Day, that holy of holies,

as glorification of war – like so many

did at that time, from my generation.

We were Make love not war,

we were Give peace a chance.

But the fire and the noise of our views

for a time divided our nation.

And then, eventually, we all grew up.

After Vietnam, even our parents could see,

all wars dirty your hands. After East Timor, 

even I understood, some fights need to happen.

In recent years I went through a phase

of watching the big Sydney march

on the telly, feeling surprisingly sentimental

for all who survived and all who are gone.

This year, I won't. There's too much war 

in the world again. I'm meeting with other 

mothers and crones instead, to enquire, 
'How can we strengthen our light?' and begin.

Linking to The Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads' on day 25 of April Poetry Month.

Also linked to Protest and Outrage: Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month, hosted by Magaly Guerrero.

Photo: Challenge by Agnes Lawrence Pelton (1940), shown here in accordance with Fair Use. This was posted with the prompt at 'imaginary garden'. Also it reminds me that the Australian AIF military badge during World War 2 was in the shape of a rising sun (which I believe I am not allowed to reproduce here for legal reasons).

Reason for Shrieking?

Of all hues, 

the most beautiful blue

adorns the neck

of the male peacock,

his long satiny throat

shining as if for joy – 

and repeats at the centre

of each open eye

on the fan 

of his billowing tail.

The feathers

are called unlucky,

his singular cry 

heard as a death-knell. 

Why do we feel

threatened by beauty

so extreme; why see evil 

in innocence? Why? 

Is it because, unique, 

he is far too strange?

Labelled as vain

yet he struts for love,

holding his tail aloft

with effort that tires.

He is calling out

for home and family,

parading for a mate,

as all creatures

desire and need;

not for vanity.

In his Rajasthan home

his display is seasonal, 

pre-monsoon. He heralds 

the coming of rain 

to the parched land.

When I was a child 

in cold Tasmania,

peacocks at The Gorge

strutted, displayed and cried

at any time, sounding sad.

Written for Artistic Interpretations – Beauty, day 24 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads' (we could write about beauty or peacocks or both), and for Magaly's Protest and Outrage: Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month.   

– Photo above: "Peacock at Magnolia Garden, SC" by Margaret at 'imaginary garden'.

Planet Icarus

(in climate change future)

All day all the glass 

in all the buildings 

cracked then shattered.

That night many

no longer breathed –

not enough air.

The dirt turned red,

hard as stone. Only the ants 

marched across dry landscapes.

Even eagles faltered 

in the hot sun, and fell 

dead out of the sky.

Written for Magaly Guerrero's Protest and Outrage: Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month.

This began as the following erasure poem from Michael Dransfield's 'Icarus', then I expanded it into something else (which nevertheless can't quite escape its origins).

All day

glass shattered

night breathed not

red stone marched 

eagles faltered 

in hot sun.

Portraying Icarus

He makes death 

sound beautiful,

defeat

feel triumphant.

This he does 

with the music

of his words,

mellifluous words.

Does he want

that  humans,

aspiring to fly,

be angels?

Or is it 

the crash

he craves – 
its blaze of glory?

A response to Michael Dransfield's poem, Icarus, written for FASHION ME YOUR WORDS ~ The way you see it, day 23 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Also submitted for Magaly's Protest and Outrage: Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month

Clearing Out the Wardrobe

I was ruthless –

didn't want to keep

an empty shrine

of all your clothes

without you in them;

made the choice not

to open the cupboard,

look at them and cry.

I put them in a collection bag

I knew would be taken

far out of town, away 

from local op-shops

and the chance I might see

someone else wearing them –

even a whole lot of someones,

none of whom would be you.

I wanted them out of the house.

You were still here, lingering

in every room, walking

along the passage, sitting

at your desk in front of the computer

or in your favourite armchair.

I didn't need or desire 

physical reminders, I thought.

Of course I was too hasty.

Grieving, I caught a cold,

put myself, sneezing, to bed.

A bed without you in it

to cuddle and warm me.

I curled in a ball anyway –

but how I wished I could wrap myself

in your old green flannel pyjama jacket.

Written for Sanaa's inaugural prompt for day 19 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads': to write about love, using a common everyday image.

Over Under Through

How to get by in a crisis

‘Just keep putting one foot

after the other,’ my Grandma said

often, while I was growing up,

her voice practical and calm....

She had already left this path

by the time, many years later, 
my shrink said the same, adding:

‘After a while, if you look back 

over your shoulder, you’ll find

you’ve travelled quite a long way.’

It’s good advice. I’ve proved that.

Still, while you’re putting those feet down,

what are you doing with your hands?

I don’t know about you – but me,

I’m writing poetry. Always. It’s what I do.

I could say it’s a light in darkness

to guide my steps. A rainbow

spanning a stormy sky. An eagle 

flying high, then gliding –

coasting on the wind currents.

I could say that. But it’s not the point.

No, think of it as a piece of knitting 

(repetitive patterns, comforting)

in an item you’re making, designed

to keep you warm when it’s finished.

Or think of it as the wooden spoon

you’re using to stir the soup,

after you’ve chopped up 

all the vegetables and put them 

into the pot. Soup that will feed you.

When there’s nothing you can do,

nowhere you can go, just keep on 

putting one foot after another. 

It’ll take you a long way. 
Meanwhile, keep your hands busy.

Written for day 17 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads': Over // Under // Through, about challenges and rising to challenges (or not). 

Streetlight, Rain

(American sentences)

Streetlight, rain, a rain-blurred moon in a black sky – my Autumn neighbourhood.

After the big April floods bumpy road surfaces muddy edges.

Flood-ruined possessions line the streets, piled as high as the water was.

Climate change summer too hot too wet: garden of weeds and mosquitos.

After a few days the rain stops; after a few more the cat ventures out.

A branch from the bush with red flowers juts across the path: pruning time.

Music piercing walls and scaling fences: schoolboy neighbour's recorder.

Shrieking cockatoos fly over at twilight, urging each other home.

When shops and businesses shut for the night, it’s already sunset.

Summer over, I wear pyjamas to bed; the cat snuggles closer.

Day 16 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads' is Micro Poetry ~ Streetlight Rain in which we are invited to write poem of 10 lines or less, or to try the American Sentences invented by Allen Ginsberg as a Western kind of haiku, or to focus on the theme 'Streetlight, Rain'. So I thought I'd try the lot! If my 10 separate American sentences don't exactly constitute one poem, they at least have a common subject, all being descriptive of this time of year where I live.

The Child Listening

the child listening 
to the flower with closed eyes
doesn’t know he’s dead
already and the flower
also dead whispers of life


For Day 7 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads', Let's Paint a Picture, we are invited to write a tanka on a painting by Kaoro Kawano.

The image is from WikiArt and is used according to Fair Use Principles.

I usually don't worry about strict syllable count for tanka and do worry about other traditions; this time it's rather the opposite.

I wanted the small ambiguities (which may be too small to be seen!).

Yes, I was thinking of the children's deaths in Syria – but I am sadly sure they would not have been so gentle as my poem implies.

Dragons

A Note To A Soul-Brother

Dragons, huh? Suddenly
you’re playing with dragons?
When did that happen? And just
what is this connection between us?

The dragons who come to me
live on their own planet
in their own dimension.
They cross between the worlds.

They are my friends. I might even
be one of them, from some ancient
past existence, they feel so true.
They are swirling around me now.

Is it this or some other mob
hanging about with you?
My friends are loyal, but
their tribe has room for many.

You are red dragon today,
you tell me. So you merge?
My closest friend stays separate,
though linked; she is midnight blue.

She is chaos dragon. I won’t
tell you her name. Well, not
in a public poem. I know them all
by name, and by their shape and colour.

I called one day and they came,
the first two. Others later.
Sometimes when friends need help,
I ask and dragons attend them too.

Phil, who wasn’t sure of believing,
felt the breath of his protector
warm on his cheek, gently,
one night while he washed the dishes.

I see that the dragons you know
present you with their images
in flames, or hunks of crystal. I wonder
who they are and why they come to you?

 
NaPoWriMo Day 10

The Man with the Wolf

The man with the wolf
has gone into the desert,
into the silence.

The wolf at his side
is not the one that I knew,
and doesn't know me.

The small timber wolf,
his companion when we met,
has left forever.

That link is broken
and now I can't see the dance
beside the campfire.

I wonder if he
sees my dance by the river
under the dark moon?