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.

This Feast and That

(Ghosts and Maypoles)

Up there in the top half of the world

soon it will be the merry month of May.

There are still folk who will dance

on May Day around a Maypole. Some

will still call it Beltane, and know

the pole as phallic.  Here, however –

this is the night of Samhain. I just

spoke to my brother, by text. He is

far away; but still, like me, Southern

Hemisphered. Today, separately,

we both remembered our parents.

They have been dead a long time.

But their ghosts visited. Only today,

I finally recalled some trifling ways

they helped me, looked after me.

I felt grateful after all. It could have

been worse. I guess I forgave at last.

My brother still can’t. This I understand.

And I’m sitting here counting the ways

it affected me too, for the rest of my life.

I didn’t set places for them, but I do

wish their souls peace, and wish

they return again behind that veil.

What’s done is done. It is over.

For me there came also, today,

the three dead husbands – all

welcome, even the first – and various

other friends and lovers. These

I celebrate, these I thank. With these

I’d happily dance round a Maypole.

Written simultaneously for Yesterday Never Dies at 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month' and Poetizing the Maypole at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Wiccan pentacle image freely available in public domain

The True Tale of the Little Mermaid

I'll tell you, both Hans and Walt got it wrong.

Well I've never actually seen the Disney movie,

though I've been told about it often enough.

But I did read the Andersen story long ago.

All very romantic, not to mention a nice dash 

of horror – the walking on knives and all that,

and even worse, cutting my tongue out. As if!

I soon refrained from speaking, that's true. You learn

pretty quick. I mean, he was a Prince, used to

having his own way or else. No wonder I walked

tippy-toe, on eggshells, treading so gingerly. No

wonder I kept my mouth shut, avoided expressing

any actual opinions. Yes, they did try to warn me,

the family back home; but I was fifteen, you know?

Luckily for me – although at the time I didn't think so –

he never did marry me; it was all talk. I can't believe

I fell for it! But, like I said, too young to know better.

Anyway, they finally found him a real live princess.

She wasn't a local of course, and she probably thought

she could control him. Maybe she could; I don't care. 

I'm happy here now, on bluest ocean, floating light as foam.

Little Mermaid Statue
Photo by: Celesteh , Creative Commons

Written for Beyond the Ever After at 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month'
Also linking to The Tuesday Platform this week at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

There are several online comparisons of the Andersen and Disney versions of the tale. I like the one at Movie Pilot.

Mother Earth Farewells Her Human Children

I made you soft grasses

and sand for your feet.

I made you great waters,

the salt and the sweet.

I made you the skies

in which you see

the stars and the clouds,

the birds flying free.

I made you forests

with trees thick and green;

the valleys, the mountains,

the hills in between.

You wanted them different,

these gifts that I gave.

You changed them too much,

past what you can save.

So farewell to you, children;

I cut you from my heart.

I have others to cherish.

You must now depart.

For Earth Day, Magaly in On Her Day, Gaia Wails at 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month' requests a poem from the Mother's point of view; while Gillena in Fashion Me Your Words at 'imaginary garden with real toads' asks for something with a dance rhythm, aimed at environmental protection, in no more than 100 words including title. 

Photo: Jet Stream by NASA 29 April 1991, Copyright free

A Desperate Wooing

Oh my luscious love,

my delectable sweetie,

the most desirable,

the most tantalising –

I crave you!

I want to lick you all over

slowly … savour

your fragrant aroma …

nibble gently

at your soft and tender

edges … until at last

I touch your heart.

It’s true, I confess,

there have been others –

but none, now, 

to compare with you.

Be mine! I promise to love you

more than all the rest

for as long as you live.

Come, give yourself to me.

Oh, I could eat you all up!

Yours truly,

yours besottedly –
~ Cookie Monster ~

Subtraction.com and all contents copyright 1998-2016 by Khoi Vinh unless otherwise noted.
Contents under Creative Commons License.

Written for Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month: 
Legendary Beings in Love

It's perhaps a bit of a stretch but I'm also linking this piece to When Good Wishes Go Bad at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. If Cookie Monster gets his wish, it won't do his beloved much good, and he's setting himself up for a very brief affair!

Book Fever

The trouble is,

the brain – of which

this is an inflammation –

affects the body too.

So you see, it isn't just

'all in the mind'. (Oh if only 

it were! There it is so delicious, 

so delirious, so absorbing, 

so heavenly transporting....)

But also there are troublesome

symptoms – physical effects.

For instance the deafness.

I keep missing what others

are saying: their calls

to work, to duty. And the eyes,

the tunnel vision; I lose

my peripheries, I can focus

nowhere else but the page.

It even takes the appetite.

Hours I go without food,

never thinking of it.

Though sometimes 

there's the opposite effect –

the craving for sugar,

the over-abuse of coffee –

of course subsidiary

to the morbid rejection of sleep.

Yet, when I need to be alert,

I slump on my bed

overcome by lethargy,

almost motionless

except for the feverish eyes,

and my frantic hands

flipping the pages. Worst of all,

there is no known cure. It's a life 

sentence ... hot sentences, burning.

Little girl reading a book in a burned-out forest by simpleinsomnia on Flickr https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Written for Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month Day 8: Fictitious Afflictions. (This one is assuredly fictitious, and also poetic.)

Also linked to Tuesday Platform, April 19 at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

At Jeanette Davis's Birthday Party

We wore our best dresses

and ribbons in our hair.

My hair was left unplaited

to flow down over my shoulders.

They had butterfly cakes

with cream and jelly.

They had thin-sliced bread and butter

dotted with hundreds-and-thousands.

Everyone (except me) passed the parcel

and pinned the tail on the donkey.

I was very happy all afternoon

in the armchair under the window.

I’d found the treasure! I was allowed

to have it as long as the party lasted.

When my Dad came to pick me up,

Jeanette’s father said to him (he told me after):

‘What a strange little girl. She didn’t want

to join in and play with the other children.

‘She just sat in a corner all day

by herself, reading a book.’

‘I had to finish the story,’ I said.

‘I had to read it all before the party ended.’

Dad explained about trying to fit in,

behaving the same as everyone else

(if I wanted people to like me).

I was seven. I tried for a long, long time.

It never worked. I’m still peculiar

in my idea of fun. (But some people like me.)

Digital Photograph - Six Little Girls Lined up in Party Dresses, Northcote, 1948

Source: Museum Victoria. This image is: Public Domain

Written for Day 7 of Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month: 'Peculiar fun and me'.

No use trying to pick me out in the photo. I would have been inside, reading. Besides, I lived in Tasmania, not Melbourne, and in 1948 I was 9. (Oh all right – I was quite a lot like the little girl on the right.)

PS Now some people seem to think that little girl WAS me. No, just quite like. Below are pics of me with my family: the first when I was probably six, the second when I know I was eight.

She Has Painted My Portrait

Shelle Kennedy's "Madonna of the Flowers"

In the out-reaching place in front of my heart, I hold the child, my warm-skinned infant who bawls in my arms. That is how infants reach out for what they urgently need. This one is my mirror, my replica: we each have one eye closed and one eye open. The eye governed by the left, rational brain must stay open and clear. The other, the organ of the right, intuitive brain, is closed to outer distractions so as to see the within.

I hold my baby across my heart. My breast is bared to feed. But whose are the naked legs my hand also supports? They are green and ghostly. They must belong to that monster child which, with the other hand, I shove away. Both his eyes are wide, glaring yet blank. He sees the inside of his own skull, turning it outer. His teeth are long and sharp. Our skin is the same colour, green and purply blue, like a fading bruise.

My face is calm and closed, painted pretty. Small flowers are scattered around me, and bubbles of golden light; yet also swirls of amorphous red, deep red, going into darkness. I am outside the tribe, alone with my secrets. The one who yells for food, revealing a row of teeth with a blunt, straight edge, surprisingly mature, I hold to my heart. The other I turn from, push back into the red dark, the swallowing clouds … and yet, even more secretly, perhaps even from myself, embrace. In the foreground rise huge dagger teeth, reaching to devour us all.

mother and child

curl inward together 
mouth to breast

This piece is responding to several prompts:

Written in advance for Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month, Day 6: Let's Haibun Her a Tale, in which we are invited to be inspired by this painting (which is used in the banner for these Dark Poetry prompts). 

Also written for Haibun Monday #11: Reach Out, about how we do or don't reach out to others. We are asked to say whether our piece is fictional. That's a bit hard to answer! It is, of course ... and also autobiographical ... in a way ...

And it is submitted for the current Tuesday Platform, Day 12 of Poetry Writing Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Picture – used here with permission – © Shelle Kennedy 2016 and text  © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016 are copyright and must not be copied or re-used in any way without permission, except by a link to this blog post.

The Cruellest Thing

Surviving

the going on alone –

that, my dearest, is the cruellest:

each memory, bright as a rainy day flower,

gives a moment of comfort, and then

collapses in sodden

undoing;

for summer is over,

and all the sweet small things of summer

too, that we delighted in together, are gone

– certain golden days, particular

blooms, warm skin, long kisses –
forever.

Photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016. This photo is mine and should not be copied or used in any way without permission. 

Written for Day 5 of Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month, in which we are asked to compose a triquain swirl on the Cruellest topic of our choosing – and for Day 10 of April Poetry Month at 'imaginary garden with real toads', in which we are invited to weave a poem from three of our own poem titles. Mine are Surviving the Going On, Rainy Day Flower and Summer is Over. (These links take you to the original poems.)

Making Myself Feel Better

(I always liked to self-medicate, but ….)

Ginseng brought me out

in an allergic rash.

Though cigarettes calmed me down

and paradoxically sparked my brain,

there was that nasty cough.

Kale was tough

and tasted vile.

Though alcohol was a soother

reducing nerves and stress,

it got in the way of intelligent action.

Vitamin C

came out in my pee.

I’m still clinging to coffee.

It may be a poison, it may be addictive, but

I love my morning fix.

Image available through Creative Commons

Written for The Poesy of Side Effects, in Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month, day 4.

This Terrible Era

“What a terrible era in which idiots govern the blind.” – William Shakespeare

You expect me to write a poem

about Donald Trump, I know –

that clown who, every time

he opens his mouth, exposes himself

as an idiot and worse, while those

who follow him surely look to be blind.

Some, on the other hand,

would think of Bernie Sanders

whose idealistic dreams

appear impossible, as well as impractical

to the hard-headed; and his adherents

likewise blind in their opponents' eyes.

Both, though, symbolise change.

Each – albeit at extremes –

speaks with the voice of the people.

Neither is the puppet of Big Money.

But I doubt if either can win. And so I'm glad

not to live in America in the coming era.

To my ears, Cruz makes Trump sound mild.

And I don't care how many vaginas Hilary has,

she's war-mongering and pro-fracking.

(Margaret Thatcher was a woman too,

but shame on any woman who supported her.)
Who are the real idiots? And who are the blind?

3rd poem for Magaly's 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month'. 
(In which I am idiot enough to offend people of every political stripe in the USA.)

A Birthday Dirge for Magaly

Oh Magaly, I’m sad for thee.

How shall I be right glad for thee?

For sure thy birthday 

is no mirth day –

the number of the years

must bring a girl to tears.

But Magaly flung up her head

and to her spurious well-wisher said:

The tomb is dank and full of mould.

Better by far to keep growing old.

The years are mine to live and own,

my path to travel unto Crone.

There’s wisdom in my shining skull

and flesh upon it, firm and full.

My bones will not be clanking yet.

I’ll thank you with this epithet –

If you’ve the urge to sing a dirge,

you silly cow, go take a purge!

For Day 2 in Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month, Magaly requested a birthday dirge.

Cats and Witchy Women

Oh keep the Dog far hence, that’s friend to men.

This night was made for cats and witchy women.

We don’t wag tails, we switch and hiss: feline;

deadly as gods, not merely bitchy women.

The fires we light tonight will surely burn

into your brain visions of witchy women

and shadowy cats. They slink and scratch, they turn

against the firelight; restless, itchy women

who rub against you, catlike on your skin,

furry and purring – wanton witchy women.

Oh take the tame Dog hence, that slave to man.

Try the embrace of Danger: richly woman!

Written for Magaly's prompt for day 1 of 'Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month': Has It Begun To Sprout? asking us to use a line from Eliot's The Waste Land in a poem. In this case it's my first line.

Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #296.

Photo © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2016. This photo is mine and should not be copied or used in any way without permission. 

Favourite Monster

I loved you, Godzilla,

and my little boys loved you,

at the local drive-in

forty-odd years ago;

and their father as well,

who is dead now ...

but you, dear Godzilla, never die,

not even when you're attacked

with gigantic versions of the sparklers

we used to wave on Guy Fawkes' Night,

all sizzling and coruscating

and bouncing off your hide.

Poor clumsy Godzilla,

not even faintly humanoid,

but lumbering and alien

and rather dumb,

so slow you came across

as the underdog.

I mean, you couldn't do anything 

with grace, elegance, finesse or panache —

your special effects were creaky.

We didn't even speak the same language!

You were weird (not in a good way).

You were the big ugly. You were just wrong.

Yet there was something about you.

We felt you were misunderstood.

We blamed it on your upbringing.

We knew that somewhere within

you were really good — anyway,

we were on your side. You became

our favourite monster (even dearer 

than sad, persecuted King Kong).

What a pity you couldn't win an Oscar.

You could have brandished it high,

in in-your-face triumph: "This

is for all the misfits!"

Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 unported, 2.5 generic, 2.0 generic and 1.0 generic licence.
|Description={{ja|1=石川県珠洲市のゴジラ岩}}
|Source=投稿者が撮影。PENTAX LX + smc PENTAX-FA★ 1:4.5 300mm ED & IF
|Author=名古屋太郎
|Date=2006-11


April Poem A Day Challenge 2014, day 27: a monster poem

Published in She Too, a collaboration with Delaina J Miller, Helen Patrice and Leigh D C Spencer (Kansas City, Content X Design, 2014) [See right side-bar]

Linked (April 2016) to Dark Poetry for the Cruellest Month: Poetizing Japanese Folklore  (Godzilla is modern Japanese folklore; I say so!)