Neighbours

 Neighbours

Sometimes there is peace

but more often there is not

There are daily meetings

between a multitude of dogs

They bark minutes to each other, 

there may be objections, abstainments

furious arguments, mournful laments 

before evening dogs add their addendums

Ibis

 Ibis

He stalks amongst a roadside hedgerow

A leather hatted litter picker

No mangroves for this fellow

Those turgid landscapes long gone

Blood red stripes on his neck, this breeding male

seeks love in the city

Streetlights cast long shadows

on this 21st century plague doctor

His long beak pecks and sorts

the detritus of careless lives

this fast food stork knows nothing 

Of scurrying crabs nor succulent snails

Woman of a thousand puddings

After a long hiatus, I plan to bring creativity back into my life. So I am aiming to write a poem daily for a year and maybe a reflection on the day too.

I walked on the beach this morning, clouds clearing to reveal a deep blue sky. The water was dirty after the rain and had a brown foam by the water's edge. I didn't swim today.  A pair of staffies stood side by side, tensely holding a stick between them. They moved very little but each tried to gather more of a hold on the stick than the other one.  A few people stood watching them.

I spent an hour strimming and mowing the lawn today. It was so hot I thought I was going to keel over. I took a long cold shower, the heat of my body dissipating.

Woman of a thousand puddings
 
She thundered into my life
chins juddering like underset blancmange
She demanded clemency on her unpaid fines
in a gateau laced shriek
Her elbows sunk onto my counter
and the whole office wobbled
 
She looked at me through hooded eyes
her nose flaring in protest
A trace of food was caught by the side of her mouth
something dark, something delicious
As she spoke it fell onto my desk
and we both looked at it accusingly

Filigree

                            Filigree

On this winter afternoon the sky fades early,

and a brisk wind leaves its filigree petals in the sea.

Honey and milk leak into the clotting clouds

and the light is sweet on our faces.

We talk about trying to remember these days as they burn past –

elusive embers blown scattergun in our skies.

She said - stop trying to possess the world,

all its riches, its magic and stars.

It is already here, you are already home, it lies within you.

We are the same, all the same, for we shine within -

Timelapse

I made this timelapse video one evening, recording the sun setting over the Broadwater on the Gold Coast.  It was my first timelapse video using my camera but I'm pleased with how it turned out.  

Click here:  Sunset - Timelapse video (best watched in HD)

Monsoon - audio

I wrote this poem a while ago, and thought I'd record it with some background music (Hammock - Birds Flying in Sequence).

Monsoon

Scrottle necked and thick whiskered he lent me an ear,

his salmon lobes sweating with hair and gristle.

It wasn’t clear if he was listening, his raspy breathing 

shaking the windows in their casements.  My secrets

were to remain buried deep in his auricular channels,

lodged in silt, creaky vessels on estuarine shelves.

At times, his great head lolled on his shoulders,

and his rheumy eyes rested a little too long on mine,

and I feared my mumbled words may sprow out,

thickened and darkened with their immersion.

But his eyes would soon move on to the next drink,

his belly rising up and down like the tide.

I watched him daily at the bar, his skin thickened,

reddened and glowering with the heat of the day.

The sun had ploughed deep crevices into his neck, 

through which his briny sweat ran, tempering the edges

of his work shirts.  More animal than man, 

he growled and grimaced before feeding, 

bending over to bite at his meat and spoon in

careless mouthfuls.  After watching him daily

during a wet monsoon season,

I finally left town on a long distance bus,

departing with little ceremony, the heat of the day

making us sluggish and ill tempered.

He promised not to tell the thing that I should 

never have shared, though it was probably lost

anyway, my words neither tethered nor treasured,

declarations of love lost in the water, in deep flooded creeks.  

Winds – Minnie Case Hopkins

I found this lovely poem in an old book in a second hand bookstore.  Sometimes small treasures like this find us, and fill us with light.

                                                             Picture credit

I have not seen the wind,

But I have seen a rose

Burst into crimson rapture

When a south wind blows.

I have not seen the wind,

But when the sun-kissed air

is full of flying leaves like birds

I know a wind is there.

I have not seen the wind

But this, I know, must be:

When waves like horses leap and run

A wind is on the sea.

I have not seen God’s face,

But I have seen a cloud

Become a resting soul, because

It felt the breath of God.

Winds - Minnie Case Hopkins

Hymn

           ~ Hymn ~

White blossoms dress a tree,

singing under the full moon.

Carry nothing but light,

and look for the moon.

If something inside softens,

and a little fire takes hold,

stillness will find you.

gumtree - small stone #13

layers of paperbark unravel
until they carpet the earth with parchment
*
this story of renewal
never
stops
speaking

rain - stone #12

crows are talking about the rain that falls gently on trees,
their voices harsh amid the softness that rain brings.

rainbow lorikeets shriek to one another before
flying off in pairs, green arrows under the milky sky.