Unanswered Messages

Oh, what mystery there is in silence! The mind rushes in to fill the void with imaginings. You are no longer the dear you I think I knew before; you become an amorphous, shifting proliferation of possibilities. The human mind is hard-wired to attach meanings to all phenomena. So the absence of communication doesn't stay simply that; I make it mean this about me and that about you, many thises and thats. I make it mean that someone is wrong, someone is to be blamed. I did something wrong, therefore you don't communicate. Or your non-communication is you doing something wrong. Or maybe neither: perhaps circumstances are to blame. Perhaps your computer is broken, or lost, or stolen. Perhaps you are busy, or tired, or sick, or dead. Something is to blame, something is wrong. It cannot just be: a thing in itself. Nature doesn't abhor a vacuum nearly as much as that part of nature called the human mind does.

the air turns cold
after the sound of rain
ceases


I came across this journal entry from some time ago – the prose piece – and thought it just needed a verse added to become a haibun.

Linking to The Tuesday Platform for Feb 6 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".  I am shifting my (future) poetry to a new blog, which I did not anticipate when I posted this one. It seems kinda appropriate / ironic that the last one here is about unanswered messages, which might even be unread – so, by linking, I am making sure it is read!

Words of Power

The man next door

is beset by demons.

When he's off his medication 

I hear him banging around

trying to fight them off. 

He always resorts at last 

to his most potent curse

which he yells with grim intensity

and awesome courage: "Fuck off!" 

Judging by the sudden silence,

it works. Then he switches on

his talkback radio, loud

enough to hold the spirit hordes

back beyond his walls:

words from the outside world

making a noisy babble in his ears 

to drown those other messages 

only his ears can hear.

I have words for him too.

"If you keep using my phone

or cadging milk and sugar, 

I'll need you to pay." (Thinking, 

"I'm not your mother.") Now 

he never speaks to me, which I prefer….

But he's in the right place. Every night 
I send through the fence, like lasers, 

the words "Light" and “Love".

Magaly, in Art with Me at "imaginary garden with real toads" says she believes words have power (I do too!) and that they can be a way towards healing (so do I!). She asks us to explore "one or three (even thirteen) things you believe words can do for you and others". 

How Do You Like Your Blue-Eyed Boy, Mister Death?

Thank you, I like him fine.

Buffalo Bill will never 

not be handsome now,

and his prowess won’t deteriorate.

And when I give him back

to the cradling earth again

– for I don’t get to keep them, you know –

dressed in a new body and sporting a new name

perhaps you’ll meet him once more, in a different dream 

… unless it is you I am holding then. 

Unless it is you I lead by the hand
to your new, true awakening….

At "imaginary garden with real toads" Brendan asks us to "dance with a ghost", i.e. to respond to another poem. (Well no, it was to play tennis, but I prefer to dance.) The original e. e. cummings poem is one of my favourites – and hey, if someone's "defunct", they're really a ghost! (I have read the cummings poem bitterly in the past, identifying with the questioner. So in a way I am here talking to myself, using Death's voice to persuade myself of a different, kinder perspective.)

The "different dream" is an allusion to the final passage of Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, and in Death leading one by the hand I was recalling Sir Terry Pratchett's lovely posthumous tweet (involving his fictional character, Death).

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

The Roses I Post on Facebook

My hobby is to photograph roses.

I like to find them growing in gardens.

The good God, whom we are told disposes

all things, knows how a heart sometimes hardens,

therefore is using me (one supposes)

to remind others of love and pardons.

Each comes with a message, unique each day –

yet all the same really. 'Be Love,' they say.

When I visit my family down south

in the temperate climes, I thrill to see

gardens full of roses. They spill and froth

and crowd and dance, and almost sing for me.

(Or is it that songs burst from my own mouth

in my joy that so much beauty can be?)

At home I photograph roses for sale

in hot-housed bunches … but still beautiful.

The words I add to these posts are simple

wishes for peace, for love, for happiness,

for a bright day – nothing original.

Yet people cherish them, feel that they bless.

I do go into my heart for them all –

risking banality, seeking sweetness.

Whether they come from within or above,

each message is really the same one: ‘Love!’

And again, an ottava rima for the form challenge at Poetic Asides.

Also shared with The Tuesday Platform for 9 Jan. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

Time Off

for Julie

She’s gardening, before the weather heats

as morning widens into brightest day;

before the dense humidity repeats

its everyday assault. Meanwhile I play

indoors with poetry, creating feats

of formal exercise – the kind I may

do seated: scanning metre, choosing rhymes,

while she indulges in more physical pastimes.

We’re both on holiday, and catching up

with things which called us in the busy year

but were perforce passed over. Now, to stop

does not mean inactivity. The dear

preferred preoccupations fill each cup

with our own versions of post-Christmas cheer. 

She brings me a tomato, tangy-sweet.

I try for poems good enough to eat.

Another ottava rima for the current Poetic Asides challenge.
It came second!

Also sharing with The Tuesday Platform for 2 Jan 2018, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

And What If Light?

‘And what if light surrounds us like a song –

or what if we are made of singing light?

You cannot prove these propositions wrong,

no more than I can prove that they are right.

Yet what if we had known it all along –

that light and music meld beyond sound/sight?

What difference might it make to you and I?

Perhaps we’d live more lightly, perhaps fly.’

He whispered these reflections to the air,

sending them out upon a rising breath –

then bent again to tend the garden, where

beneath the plaques folk rested in their death.

A woman came towards him, crying, ‘There

is where I want my dears, in solid earth

where I can come and talk to them and pray.’

Her tread was heavy as she moved away.

Around the grave-beds, grasses, flowers and trees

firm-anchored in the soil, while stretching high

into the air, moved slightly in a breeze

as if they danced – as if they’d almost fly.

Wind in the leaves made soft noise; humming bees

thronged the flowers. The sun rose in the sky.

The insects and the birds moved through the day,

uncaring of what he and she might say.

Another ottava rima for the Poetic Asides form challenge.
Also shared at the latest Tuesday Platform, for 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

A Masterpiece Takes Time

My son and grand-daughter

are making gingerbread,

wearing matching aprons.

Crisis: unsalted butter left out

went soft – but they find enough.

When mixed, the dough must go in the fridge

three hours – like short crust, they say.

They tell me the ingredients:

things I can’t eat, but they’ll give me

a tiny piece. After all, it's Christmas. 

The next item mustn’t be added 

until the last is measured.

‘Mix slowly into the wet stuff.’

The beaters whirr and grind.

A knife scrapes a spoon. I hear

deliberations, and laughter.

I expect to enjoy my taste when I get it.

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' Gillena invited us to write on the theme 'SLOWLY' in only 100 words. And then, fortuitously, this gingerbread-making began.  And here is a sample of the finished product, later:

‘May the Road Rise to Meet You,’ I Said, and She Said:

What does that mean? I feel like 
I just climbed a mountain.

What you want from me?

I don’t wanna climb anymore …

can’t I just walk downhill please,

to the next flower maybe?

May the road be winding and wonderful! 
(Feels like a tightrope at the moment.

Talk about straight and narrow.)

Found poem: found in a comment on one of my facebook posts. I couldn't resist shaping it into the poem I thought it wanted to be.

Later: Linking to The Tuesday Platform for 20 Feb. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

Random

Letting the pen flow

any old where across the mind

(you thought I’d say ‘page’, but

no, it’s the mind that the pen

– my pen – traverses at

random) I find myself

in glades of light, filtering

through tall, leafy trees –

in this country, we don’t

do deciduous, and anyway,

now is summer, and we feast

on and in the sunlit green.

Or I find myself (at

the tip of my flowing pen)

in deep, dark caves, which

nevertheless spell ‘home’, being

womb-like. Or else I wander

to a phone-call from a brother,

wishing me Happy Solstice.

(Will you fly? he asks.) 
I like the randomness of things,

of scribbling, though we pretend

there is order and reason. Ha!

My pen knows better. And my mind.

Written in response to a prompt from Karin Gustafson at 'imaginary garden with real toads', Writing Exercise (For Days of Little Time/ No Muse) in which we are asked to think of a letter, then a word, and go-go-go. 

Early and Late

(Fire, then ice)

Initially, passion shocked 

my mouth open,

made my toes 

curl tight, uncurl….

Finally, your touch

in its lack

chills my skin,
slows my blood.

A belated attempt to respond to the recent prompt, Micro Poetry ~ Fire and Ice, at 'imaginary garden with real toads'. 
Also written for THE POETRY OF THREE, Three Words Per Line on facebook. 
And linked to The Tuesday Platform for 30 Jan. 2018 at "imaginary garden with real toads".

Doors

To visit Melbourne

re-opens a door

on a life,

on a man –

your father, son.

Well, it would.

When I visit

I always stay

with you, dear,

and I remember….

He’s dead now.

It’s 23 years

since he went.

How on earth

can that be?

As for you,

suddenly you’re 50!

The blonde curls

of the boy

no longer exist.

The old doors

to the past

open and close.

We’re still here.
New doors open.

Linked to Weekend Mini Challenge: Doors at 'imaginary garden with real toads' and to The Poetry of Three on facebook.

Change and Light

As spirit animal, the dragonfly is connected to the symbolism of change and light. – Elena Harris: Dragonfly Spirit Animal and Totem

When she came to see him in the hospital 

when we knew he was dying, she said,

'On my way here I received a message.

I am to tell you to arrange with Rosemary

a sign, so that after you move

to a different dimension, whenever

you are with her, she will know. It might, 

for instance, be a butterfly.'

After she left, we talked and decided

butterflies are too common. I could easily

explain them away as not really

signifying. I had to be surer, so

we chose instead the dragonfly – 

seen in these parts, yes, but so rarely    

as to be significant. And it has been so – at first

those moments when I missed him most acutely.

Dragonflies would burst from a bush

right into my face, or land on the door of my car

just as I was about to open it, or skim across

a rocky pool ... always in immediate

response to my thought. Sometimes I would even

open a magazine straight to a picture.

Then, at a Sunday market in a strange town,

I found an antique mourning brooch.

It is crafted from woven hair, in the shape

of a dragonfly with all four wings outspread.

I took it to mean he is always with me, 

or can be any time I choose to bring him present.

I wear it seldom now. My need is less. Assured

that he is close, I can live without reminders. (Only

sometimes, still, if I have a moment of sadness,

a living dragonfly appears from nowhere, and I know.)

Written in response to Bits of Inspiration ~ Dragonfly at 'imaginary garden with real toads'.

Petals and Thorns

They burn, oh!

my petals burn

light has elapsed 

only these briars

glow eerily now

the setting sun

reddens the thorns,

their pointed tips

in the garden –

a garden enclosed

in dying light –

my petals flame.

Written for Micro Poetry ~ Binding with Briars at 'imaginary garden with real toads', and for facebook's The Poetry of Three. (Inspired – loosely – by Blake's 'The Garden of Love'.)

Published in HAVE YOUR CHILL, July 2018.

When I Came Here (Shadorma)

When I came

to this place of trees

their welcome

embraced me

and when I lay in your arms
enfolded us both.

Written for 'imaginary garden with real toads': Fussy Little Forms: Shadorma.

My Boat Song

Once was a boat that was called after me,

named as the Mary Rose,

tiny but strong to fish in the sea.

How the wind blows, who knows?

Once I was small, lived on an isle;

Dad called me Mary Rose –

his special name, making me smile.

Who knows what stays, what goes?

When I grew up, then I could see

feet made of clay, not gold.

Gone was my god, gone from that day –
old stories long grown cold.

Jack was my new step-father who

never usurped that name,

yet built a boat, showing me true

new ways that love became.

Once was a boat that was called after me,

named as the Mary Rose,
tiny but strong to fish in the sea.

How the wind blows, who knows?


And no, you are NOT allowed to call me Mary Rose! Seriously. The only other person who did was my favourite uncle, Tommy, who died in his nineties a few years back and who doesn't belong in this poem. It's a special name, not for general use, not even by best friends, lovers or husbands.

(I don't have a photo of the Mary Rose but she was something like this, with a pointier bow. This is from the Antique Boat Centre. As the image is marked as available to be saved, I am assuming Public Domain.)

At 'imaginary garden with real toads' Kim's weekend mini challenge is Boats, and she quotes many people's favourite boat song – certainly mine – The Skye Boat Song. Check out the link to find more boat poems.

I grew up on an island, often 'messing about in boats', and was later married for 27 years to a professional fisherman, so had many possibilities to write about ... but perhaps we all have one boat that is more special than others.

Letter to a Lasting Love

Little Prince, I loved you at first sight. 

When I came to know you better,

your inner beauty matched and deepened
the sweet exterior, so my love deepened too.

I grew more intimate with you; at first 

swiftly, immediately, filled with increasing 

excitement and wonder ... astonished, rapturous.

Then even closer and better: leisurely, gradually.

'Time cannot weary nor custom stale.' I return

again and again, sometimes after long absence –

yet, you are never truly far from me. Your words

whisper often in my innermost ear, sound in my heart.

Oh excellent teacher and friend, I am and am not

possessive. I hold your physical body close, clasped

to my breast. Yet I share you with many. Once you lent 
one man and me your language (before he returned to his star).

Responding to Magaly's irresistible prompt at 'imaginary garden with real toads': My Dearest Book, I Wrote You a Poem ...  
(But the phrase in quotes is, of course, from Shakespeare.)

Book of Words

My book of words 

is a testament to rapture,

a mimicry of treasures I find

outside the book – leaves

in a tracery of lace on sky, 

clouds like angels 

vastly soaring aloft, 

liquid-throated calls 

of currawongs ... do you see

how my book of words

frees these delights 

and countless more
each time I open the cover?

Written for Words Count with Mama Zen at 'imaginary garden with real toads': a poem of up to 60 words, preferably entitled 'Book of Words', and including three words from a list of her children's favourites. (My three are 'testament', 'rapture' and 'mimicry'. Great words, kids!)

Also linked to Poets United's Poetry Pantry #370

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

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.