Reflections on Time

The skin etches one molecule at a time

slowly deeper into approaching night.

The light moves across its dips and hollows,

those tiny miniature craters, as if searching

for meaning, but the meaning is only

time's movement and how it reshapes us —

time, that old rogue who waits for no-one

but marches on with the tide, into a future

that does not exist, as time is always

circular and now. The skin, though, reveals

the passage of time, regardless

of music or roses or the faces of children

(your children) looking back at you as they move,

forward or back as they overtake and surpass you.

Then, when you decide that it's merely

a man-made construct, and you construct

evidence in support of this — a new day dawns,

the sun comes up, the world is round, and you know

again it's solid geography and physics, even if some

insist time’s measured in a thin line on a cat’s back.

Written for a joust at dVerse in which we were to take a line from a poem by Brian OR Claudia and have it inspire a poem of our own. I am a bad person! Instead of choosing either team Brian or team Claudia, I was so intrigued by one particular line of each that I have used both, as my beginning and end. Either I will get disqualified or my entry will count towards both scores (which is much the same as neither).

no landmark

early or late

this face

drifts on the river

the mist closes

in quietness 

a dark business

water weeds stand

like flotsam tangled

you are alone

the dark place is not safe

the way of the dead

cannot be tamed

the floating sun trails

still rust-coloured

fronds ripple a black pool

shadowy banks

the wild part used to be

alive an animal

the black spine

like question marks

this face

its sacrifice ...

peace

whatever that means


An erasure poem remixed from an early draft of an old poem of mine, Without a Signpost, which never quite worked, interwoven with the first chapter of Jeanette Winterson's The Daylight Gate. It's an experiment; please tell me if it works for you (and also if it doesn't).

Submitted for The Tuesday Platform (24/2/15) at imaginary garden with real toads

Naming the Ineffable

'What's your favourite alternative name,'

asked my friend on facebook, 'for God?'

A  rabble of competing answers came:

'Pick me as the truest / funniest / cleverest word!'

I look at this photo of a yellow-tipped bird,

a kind we don't have where I live.

'Here is God,' I think, but have no name to give.

For 'Play It Again, Toads!' #14 at 'imaginary garden with real toads', where you can also find the bird photo I refer to. I took on the challenge of using Rhyme Royal.

That Moment on the Couch Tonight

I was so full of love for you!

Though I said not a word, you felt it 

and wordlessly responded.

I held you to my heart,

your chest pressed against mine,

savouring your warmth 

and the dear shape of your body. 

Long minutes

without moving,

we rested in the embrace.

Afterwards I was still happy.

What a wonder, what a gift,
to feel your body
with my body

just as it used to be 

before,

when you were living.


Submitted for dVerse Twist and Shout

14 Words for Love 2015

I've participated once again in this little exercise of writing separate 14-word pieces on love in the lead-up to Valentine's Day. Below is my collection. See others at the website. I am submitting this series to the Tuesday Platform at 'imaginary garden with real toads'

Not your death pains me

but your pain before that.

It’s my love hurts.

******

Our shipboard romance

long ago becalmed

still floats sweetly in memory

which is kind.

******

Though you leave, you stay

forever in mind and heart

which never leave you.

******

I remember your eyes

the blue-green of the sea …

I drowned in your eyes.

22/1/15

Pretty in pink,

my dear old Aunty

in her photo.

I recall her warmth.

******

My friend's voice on the phone.

At once I breathe in,

relax and smile.

******

Across miles of air and ocean

I reach to you,

grasp your virtual hand.

******

Will you ever return?

Look for me in memory,

wait for me in dream.

******

In soft morning light

your head next to mine.

Your eyes open, you smile.

28/1/15


The birthday you had

this last lifetime

arrives again.

I toast you

in coffee.

******

Last thing at night,

thoughts of you.

First thing on waking,

thoughts of you.

First thing on waking

thoughts of you,

last thing at night

thoughts of you.

*****

It’s Lughnasad here.

What a harvest I reap
from our season together,

Bright One!

4/2/15

Because your face is yours,

I find it beautiful --

or, your beauty finds me.

******

A glimpse.

Someone who looks like you.

But after all

no-one

looks  like you.

5/2/15

Between kisses

we laughed together.

That was in

another lifetime.

Now I cry alone.

******

Unrequited love

is also sad

for the one

who cannot requite,

and must hurt.

6/2/15

Old friendship long cooled —

but when we met

in last night's dream,

we kissed.

7/2/15

My Answer 
(14x2)

'What direction shall I go now?'

I ask the oracle stones

I made myself.

Scrabbling deep,

ha! — I pull out the one

on which I drew a heart.

7/2/15

Such tenderness I feel,

seeing the back of a head

that might be yours.

******

Thought I'd lost you

but memory retains all your details;

that loss is impossible.

8/2/15

A handwritten letter

sharing your day,

and I am with you

in quiet delight.

10/2/15

The smile in your eyes

when you look at me

is reflected in mine.

******

Love is also

being glad you’re gone

away from discomfort

and this trying weather.

11/2/15

Valentine’s Day. I wave

to my three old husbands

(and sundry lovers)

in Heaven.

14/2/15

The friends who hold your heart

may warm it a long time,

outlasting lovers.

15/2/15

LOVE is not a Greeting Card

How cross you were

on our first Valentine’s Day,

when I gave you a card.

You felt, you said, manipulated,

as if you were then required

to go out and buy one for me.

I understand now

you felt guilty: you were trying

to shift the blame.

The next year, of course

I didn’t mark the occasion.

You, of course, did!

You brought me roses.

You often brought me roses

on any occasion, or none.

We had twenty years together.

Now you’ve been gone

not much longer than two.

Yet I simply can’t remember, now,

whether or not we observed it again

in all those loving years.

Probably not … or maybe …

How little it mattered! Love

permeated our days. 

I remember many other things …

the love that didn’t need a greeting card.

(Though greeting cards sometimes happened.)

Written for Poets United's Midweek Motif: LOVE is not a Greeting Card

Victory

They are all

dead, my husbands, so now I can choose.

Tonight for the Asian Cup

it's Bill I invite

to come watch.

As we did

a long time ago,

late nights with the kids in bed.

'How good is that goalie?' I say now —

then we score.

A tense game,

the Socceroos against Korea,

tied at the last minute

so now we're into

extra time.

It's almost

as good as that match

when underdog Sunderland

won the FA Cup ('73).

Nail-biting!

Like old times,

my soccer-loving second husband

sitting with me here tonight,

barracking with me.

Like old mates.

Countdown's on —

Queensland election —

right now I don't even care.

We get past that goalie one more time,
and we've won!


Note: My late second husband, Bill Nissen, migrated to Australia with his family at the age of 15, from Holland, where he was being groomed to be a goalkeeper for the national soccer team.  In Australia he followed Aussie Rules football but still liked watching the FA Cup on TV.

(This poem consists of a sequence of mirror-image Maudern cinquains, alternating reversed and normal.)

I'm linking this to both dVerse OpenLinkNight and Poets United's Poetry Pantry #238, where you'll find lots of good poems by lots of good poets.

My Black Cat

My black cat,

my handsome black cat,

the perfect cat for a witch,

is named Levi. His other name is

'familiar'.

When I cast

my magic circle

on the night of the full moon

my black cat is with me, and also

the fairies.

He grows old,

this dear cat. Me too.

Sometimes, when the weather's cold

only the fairies dance, by the light
of the moon.

At dVerse Meeting the Bar this time, Tony Maude invites us to try an extended (or expanded) cinquain with one extra syllable per line than the form invented by Adelaide Crapsey. What this version might be called is still being debated, but the term Maudern cinquain, suggested by one user, is proving popular. Although Tony himself feels it would be arrogant for him to use it. I have no such constraint and am adopting it forthwith. This poem is a sequence of three of them. 

Aunty Ev

My aunty is old.

I send her my poetry book
to please her,

knowing she can’t take it in.

I hope its being sent

will be enough.

Cousin Elizabeth emails.

My aunt is cranky now,

disoriented,

must be supervised,

no longer has her own

little house where she planted roses.

I think of her 
fifty years ago

when she rescued me in my teens

and my little brother.

I think of her on her doorstep

smiling and opening her arms.

2/10/07 – 26/1/15

(A revision. Aunty Ev died in 2010.)

Here is Aunty Ev (right) with cousin Elizabeth — 
not her daughter but another niece —  in 2008.

Submitted for Poets United's Poetry Pantry #236

Wet Mornings

Sat outside

first thing in the morning

to begin his dying

... heavy-lidded

shift in chair with pain

slip into semi-sleep ...

Random-seeming

dreamlike thoughts

faded out of full memory.

I look back.

All happened.
Meanwhile rain.

Submitted for dVerse Meeting the Bar: Breaking and Entering. We are asked to take a form and 'break' it in some way to make it our own. Synchronicity: I saw this prompt just after writing the above — which is a blackout poem done differently. Instead of taking a text and blacking out / erasing all except the words I wanted to use, I opened a document on my computer (an entry from my private journal) and lifted only the words I wanted on to a new document — where I proceeded to delete a few more before arranging into verses (still in order of writing) and re-punctuating (or for the most part unpunctuating). I did it just because I like playing around with erasures at present. I didn't have a conscious idea of anything I wanted to say, and what emerged was nothing like the message of the journal entry. Also it's not exactly factual, but on an emotional level it's probably very truthful. There — that's a long explanation for a short poem!

Airman

When I was just a child, the gliders flew.

I loved them: fragile-seeming, light as toys.

Straight-winged, they looked like crosses in the sky —

a sky forever sunny in my mind.

'The War,' mysterious background to my life,

was spoken of, but did not happen here —

except for absent fathers, rationed food,

and handsome Air Force visitors in blue.

Once, when Dad was home again, we passed

a man who hitch-hiked, in a uniform.

My father muttered, 'Yank!' and speeded up.

Our wind-rush sent him sprawling on the grass.

(The war was over then, but some not yet

returned across the wide Pacific, home.)

Old lady now, I still see startled face

with big blue eyes and thick black hair cut neat.

What things, and why, impress us in our youth?

Those random threads grew long and strong, to be

fast-woven in the pattern of my fate

in ways that no-one could have seen or told.

Much later, my first love was Air Force too.

A thrilling summer holiday romance,

it lasted after summer's end when he,

returned to base, wrote letters. I replied.

But words on paper can't compare with touch.

His name was John, his hair was thick and black.

His hands were lean and strong. On summer nights 

he taught me passion, and he taught me well.

We spoke of marriage. I was just nineteen.

He was nine years older, drank too much.

As well, he was, like all his family

a Catholic — while I could not believe.

His father told him that we wouldn't suit.

He saw that it was true; I didn't, then.

We married others in the end — I soon,

and much mistakenly, but learned and grew.

I did it better next time, and the next.

He, sobered, waited; married only once.

For him, of course, it had to be for life.

I heard he married happily. I'm glad.

I thank his father now for saving us,

and leaving me with kindly memories.

I never saw him afterwards. He stays

forever young, the handsomest of men.

5/11/05 - 19/1/15

I found this in my 'Drafts for Reworking' file and decided it was working after all. I hope you agree! (Upon reflection, changed just two words.)

Linking to Poets United's 'Poetry Pantry' #235