Still thinking about the riddle Cecilia -is it connected to Reconciliation, Apology Day...? Clearly a nasty business anyway....

Here are some thoughts stimulated by Tricia and Karen's poems:

MONDAY MORNING

Wake to magpie chortles,

duet of doves

And sun dappled ceiling.

Get up?

No. think -

Shower, dress

Empty dishwasher

Breakfast: prepare, eat, clean – up

Bathroom: clean

Vacuum cleaner: drag around house like fat puppy

Garden: sweep leaves

Lunch: prepare, eat, clean up

Gutters: check

Sweep leaves

Sweep leaves

Sweep leaves

Dinner: prepare, eat, clean - up

Rubbish bins: drag out

Dishwasher: stack.........

Dear God!

No wonder so many of us die in bed!

have a guess

Well done Geoffrey. The poem reads wonderfully. Photographs give the acute sense of time, place and mystery. And what a full explanation to answer the query. Can you bring along hard copy of this in case members are not on the blog.

Karen, you inspired me to write a riddle. Open to all what am I talking about?

Here it is -

Elephant in the Room

Poised, elegant, taking
a lengthy swan dive
softening into a rising bubble
hitting hard, now awash with
blood, carnage left, stunned
but not for long,
now rampaging everywhere
big, black and biting
horrified impotence
history convulses
the knife is set to cut
poised it now spreads poison.

Cecilia - Okay what is this about?

A poem to share...

Tricia's poem reminded me of one I wrote a couple years ago.

How Busy Am I?

Herds of dust bunnies galloping in plain sight busy
write your name on top of the dresser busy
make a wig from bathtub hair busy
climb blue -bagged newspapers like stairs busy
scuffed shirts, stained shoes and
unwashed dishes under the bed busy
alien creatures in a beer-less fridge
volcano of laundry erupting from basement busy.

You say, Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.
I say, How Many Books Have You Read Today?

Karen

I was very sorry that I had to miss our first meeting but thank you all for your comments on “Mulka’s Cave”, which June kindly read for me. I’ve made some changes to the poem and hopefully I have managed to improve it!

The feelings and thoughts that gave rise to “Mulka’sCave” are not particularly original but to me they are very poignant. The cave was one of two or three places that I’ve visited in Australia where I have felt a very strong sense of the cultural and spiritual abyss that separates the traditional aboriginal world from our own.

Perhaps I am idealizing traditional aboriginal societies and their beliefs but from
what I have seen and read, however naïve their beliefs may appear to us, they
did not fall into the error of thinking that they were separate from the natural world or superior to it – let alone thinking that they were in some way ”in charge” of it!

Mulka’s Cave is near Wave Rock in South – west WA. It is named after a legendary aboriginal man who became a tribal outcast and met a violent death but I’m not sure about the authority of the legend or whether it is truly connected to the handprints. Before the local area was settled I imagine that the cave would have been screened by trees and bushes – it would have been part of the natural pattern of the landscape –significant to the local people, certainly, but not an exhibit.

I felt that not only had the real significance of the cave been lost or forgotten but also the sense of it being an integral, part of the natural world.

The exposed cave is now approached by an ugly steel ramp (no doubt for safety reasons). As is so often the case with sites like Mulka’s Cave, the “sheltering trees” have been felled to make for easier access and to make way for the complex, sophisticated - and spiritually meaningless - structures of “our” world: car parks, toilets, kitsch souvenirs and food from the other side of the world. (Though actually most of these are not at the cave but back at Wave Rock – so I’ve taken some poetic licence there!)

What has been lost – or destroyed – in this process seems to me to be irreplaceable.

MULKA'S CAVE

A once sacred place

stripped, exposed

and violated.

Gaping nakedly.

We hesitate, peering in -

embarrassed, maybe by such simplicity

seeing prints of hands – and nothing more.

What brought them to this place?

Who were the last man and child,

to fill their mouths with thick, sour ochre

And lifting up their hands

spray their presence on this rock?

Lost, the memory, and the meaning.

Lost, the joy of man and child, hand in hand,

flesh and bones breathing in the sun,

blood beating through ancient veins

as they breathed at one the with sheltering trees

and winds’ sigh.

Dingoes stripped and scattered their bones

trees drank their sap,

ants devoured their last fragments

and no trace left but the handprints,

only the handprints.

And a vacancy – an eternal absence,

a gap in nature.

Turning our backs, we return along the metal ramp,

past the felled trees and the toilet block,

to the souvenir shop, Made in China,

and the bistro, offering Mediterranean Cuisine.

Sonnet from December and reminder of first meeting

Happy New Year to all Coast Liners.

Our first meeting Wednesday 6 February at 10.30 am. Karen has made suggestions in her blog of some ideas which arise from her poem. So you could choose one word, the lot or whatever and wherever fancy takes you.

Do bring along a poem for our first meeting. It is going to be a great year with the literary festival well under way in planning. I will be able to show you the program when we meet.

Any ideas for our year together whether in outings, for example going to theatre, or visiting speakers etc.

Bring paper and pen to meeting so we can have some fun and creativity whilst together.



The World Is Too Much With Us Late and Soon
(Apologies to William Wordsworth)

The world is too much global now and soon
Acquiring has spread we loose our power
Of this our natural world by lengthy hour
Our spirit cold we now lie close to ruin
Land tired fallow by an ocean full of gloom
Politicians do not promise words now ceased
Too late beached whales no longer any feast
Religions do not matter since left in doom
Love not captured in this airless drought
You sit there and lecture innane words to me
And so we continue to fight and shout
To keep alive in any way we can foresee
Maybe the next of kin will bring new light
So mankind can begin another world with more insight.

Cecilia Morris

Found Poem

From our apartment, I can see the dock where visiting boats dock for the weekend. Saturday morning I got up and looked at their names:

First Light
Second Wind
Obsession
Bad Influence

I think this is almost a found poem! For Feb, I thought I'd share these phrases. If you are so inclined, feel free to use one or all!

Meeting with Uncle Ern,
on the occasion of Dad's wake


Let us not Pussyfoot around with the human condition,

Let us be Full and Frank, Ernest.

Felicitations on your Eightieth,
Commiserations on the loss of your Brother

I knew him only a little , a wisp of a benign presence,
hiding behind the Paper with his Gallon of tepid Tea,
betraying his wringing inards only rarely
with the odd flash of a steely stern stare,
maintaining his phony Anglophilia to a Tee

a grunt. Sporadic passive engagement,
or mildly supportive wheezes as he puffed away
Come on, Dad give me something ,
give me a sign that you care.
That I mean something to you

Let me in

Mean something to me

How did you know him, Well? ...
WELL!?

I put it to you that you did'nt know him at all
I put it to you that you do not know yourself.

What Happens to people?

What mystery lurks, when..
fears freeze,
embittered lusts fester,
needs unmet return to plague the naif ,
jealousies denied haunt their kneejerk defences at every Tick...
potential untapped ....dies on the vine

Let us not treat our memories like fine- boned China

Let us reveal ourselves, unfold,
admit,, celebrate our nature, it's many parts,
show as it were, what Man can be without shame.

Confess ,.... 290276nh0-2jv45ymcgryaeiou84qct= `
pqskd29.3x]i.0-,9050-862=c,y-1`c,10y1`,9i!!!!!!!!!!

For Fuck's sake Ernie show yourself!

Say something, Be someone,

Mean something to me.

Jonathon Lee