Birds are heard singing
Fragrant blooms perfume the air
Isn't summer grand?
Fragrant blooms perfume the air
Isn't summer grand?
 Early on a summer's morning
I view a middle-aged woman who halts as she wanders over the golden sands of magical Whitmore Bay. She makes the sign of the cross softly talking to herself and then she's on her way again to the sound of a seagull's lament. I saunter to the water's edge observing placid June waves sizzle and stars which seem to sparkle in the sea then venture to Marco's Cafe where the same lady sits as if a ghost, maudlin eyes fixed on the South Wales coast. Avuncular Ambrose woke up with the crows
And went to bed with the sun. He was gentle and kind, with a brilliant mind, And his stories were second to none. He had nephews and nieces who loved him to pieces As he talked of the seven seas, While the beasts of the land ate out of his hand And the birds called his name from the trees. But Avuncular Ambrose, who woke up with the crows, Was fragile and tired and old, So one sweet summer night, by the silver moonlight, The Earth sang farewell to his soul. She lay unrested, cursed with eyes that see beyond the faculties
of sight. Visual perceptions of colours and light tell stories as notes from some long-forgotten instrument. Surrounding sounds from forests, early waking mornings, and cities' eternal sleepless nights become the only music she understands. The chattering of life's personalities scores the chorus of a forever-changing song Watching as a gorgeous ascending moon serenades the earth, singing with its charms of planetary influences Leisurely, floating upward, and endlessly in its melodies Building bridges of reality from absurdities and singularities Terminally unique in its translations and orchestrations Forever perpetually grand in dignities' desires, thought, often feeble in the act, continuously subsiding the wildfire lost within. One shall be a dream while the other is simply a memory Forever welcoming, all of consciousness and transcendent symphonies. What if there were no clouds?
No swathes of soft, silky sheets, no clusters of cauliflower cumulus, no wandering wisps of cirrus, No threatening tufts of cumulonimbus? Instead, just a layer of flat clear blue stretched out in a placid panorama. Would the world be clearer? Would we see better? Do clouds obscure what we want to see or do they simply shield us from what could be? jekyll meets hyde
bonnie meets clyde & the rest, as they say, is jackanory One can always hope
for a world filled with love so greet with open arms  Frances Farmer was never comfortable
as a Hollywood star preferring the stage, her left-wing views at odds with this shallow glitzy world. She was afflicted with depression, drank too much and one of America's greatest stars spent bleak years behind psychiatric bars. She had the beauty of Helen of Troy but she was living a lie driving her to rage and despair yet in the twilight of her existence she penned poetry and painted, an inner peace she would finally find casting aside...the demons in her mind.
Loving heads bow under magenta skies
bright sun muted behind a long fuchsia veil. Glancing at tidepools, an arm in arm couple examines patiently shellfish waiting for high tide. Temporally land-locked, surfperch commit saltwater suicide after birthing fingerlings. Seagulls circle the Pacific shoreline like vultures scavenging lifeless forms, cleaning up beaches. Waves roll in a series, cresting highest at seven, reclaiming all sand puddles under an ice moon. In a dome of petty noise,
Our elbows cut the air To nowhere. Glorying in the sight Of dazzled eyes, we rise and rise ... A respectful reply to the Florence + The Machine song ‘Morning Elvis’, written by Florence Welch & Dave Bayley. I think of spring up in Memphis & feel autumn here in Bendigo… I’ve ne’er travelled to Memphis yet have just been to Graceland. (And if you've never heard Florence's simply glorious voice, prepare yourself for a treat... – Ed) Where are you, Dudley Moore?
The slightly uncombed hair? The smile the ladies loved that quivered there between the last half-stifled voice, the unexpected next remark? The hands that more than trumped the feet; that played for our amusement or delight? Those many parts died separate deaths, were lost, until the whole itself was gone, evaporated by the force that made it - the great interrogation point inscribed again in one short span!
Bespectacled Beryl was simply a peril
With her nose always stuck in a book. Unlike other girls, all perfume and pearls, She gave not a care how she looked. She studied and learned until her brain burned With knowledge and wisdom and culture, And the Bullies In Charge, when she was at large, Watched their tyranny stagger and falter. So Bespectacled Beryl, always a peril, Taught her sisters and daughters as well; And an army was formed of women informed Who demolished the fiends' Citadel. I can hear the roar of the untamed sea
as I stand on this eroding cliff top. The cafe where I drank many a tea has recently been demolished, smashed into pieces by a bulldozer and on this glorious day painted blue mourn the loss of the cafe called Sea View. The street is now a road to nowhere severed by the erosion which creeps like cancer across the land with some houses now in the firing line, a death sentence from the wind and sea. Seagulls screech a lament to the cafe as the coastline retreats...day after day. A warm summer's day
Savor the watermelon Juices drip off your chin  The warped boards sprung from cleats
no longer support the dancers twirls a chandelier long ago crashed to the floor it's broken shards reflecting dark corners upstairs corridors echo to idle chatter the sweeping staircase carpet, mouse nibbled curtains sag on rusty pelmets, moth holed marble fireplace grey-black in ancient soot a dream of chiffon and black leather pumps an old clock, it's broken cogs now brass debris lighter shades where ancestors frowned down peeling plaster blows in an invisible breeze clockwork dancers move in an endless waltz while cracked glasses clink, in empty parody all gone now, beyond the reach of time... Two giant pandas in central Adelaide
spend their days laying and wandering in shade. When they chomp on their bamboo, they’re the highlight of the zoo. The world dreams of the day their baby is made. In the rubble of a tortured town
a girl dons a prom dress as red as all the blood spilled. She stands defiant, an awe-inspiring sight, a beaming light in a cruel world just a few moments on a television screen, beauty and hope amongst the obscene. They've broken all the buildings including the school as well but one thing they haven't destroyed is the indomitable human spirit. An aura of love shines from the girl, just a few moments on a television screen, beauty and hope...amongst the obscene. I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there -
Your body scarce the thickness of my hair. I didn’t mean to hasten your demise, To wash you down the swirling hole of life. But though I cannot turn around your loss, If it compensates a living thing that was, I’ll mention that your end foretells my own: Destroyed by something bigger and unknown. At what point
is the point of no return? At what point did the fire in my eyes sizzle out? Just when did the ash turn cold as snow? free-to-air coverage
of the Aussie election: red, blue, teal, green  "The Fighting Temeraire", by J. M. W. Turner I stare long and deeply at the painting
of the Fighting Temeraire gaining fame not for deeds in battle but immortalised by Turner's brush being towed slowly by a tug: funeral procession on the river, glory days long gone...nothing lasts forever. The sails are lowered permanently, the vessel painted grey as if a ghost and I wonder if old sailors are watching from the banks of the iconic Thames as it sadly heads for the scrap heap. I feel the ship has a soul shedding tears as the moment of her destruction nears. |
PoetryThis is the section where fiction prose becomes something else. We still expect the poems to be short, though – sonnets, perhaps, or around that length at the very most. 
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