On the other side of the fence it was the alterity that surprised me packed in close and dense were a people the like I had never seen their long black braids down to the waist straight noble noses their faces graced recessed brown eyes deep under heavy brows dark olive skin and standing proud their gaudy costumes coloured and loud
until you looked closer to see the signs of violence they had suffered in our friendly so called “liberation” I had wondered what that statement meant and the shame I felt was deep and grew the more I looked the more I knew we would be responsible for their demise because our friendly intentions were just a guise and I could never see it otherwise now damn my eyes
Tonight I accepted this Award for the Walking and Rolling Together Project I led for Victoria Walks. It has been a privilege working with the awesome Victoria Walks team and recently retired EO Ben Rossiter. It has been a privilege to co-design and co-audit with so many people living with disability, their families and carers. Collaborating with Scope Australia, DSRV, RSV, RSAs GippSport, Sport North East and Valley Sport made all the necessary statewide connections possible. To the State Government of Victoria and Department of Sport and Recreation thank you for recognising our vision and funding it not once, but twice.
A closing statement: there are still many good people out there doing many very good things. Join them.
Even if I sometimes manage to help to ease the pain anytime you might start again with rivers of tears like acid rain eating at everything good again
I love you and I don’t know what you’re going through but my love remains true you can still see it, can’t you?
when you cry fouled rivers run the darkest shadows cross the sun cyclone clouds further blacken the day the very rainbows turn themselves to grey the sun finally puts it’s light away
for you the whole world turns to bleak anxiety and fear empty of hope and cheerless the sadness is so deep and so near so profound it breaks my heavy weather beaten heart as icy words you shoot at me feel needle like poisoned darts
this melancholy is so wretched it puts our life on hold I don’t know what to do how to bring you in from the cold but I will keep trying and in my safe warm wings you I will still enfold
I am going to tell you a story about what began, thus .,,,, our underused garage became a room for rumpus. Little did we anticipate the rowdiness it would encompass, when rowdy young children began to rumpus plus plus! Discuss the matter further we must.
This week Kim challenged we poets to craft a quadrille around the word “rumpus”. This is an almost true story. Only the children have changed. https://dversepoets.com/2025/08/25/quadrille-230-lets-kick-up-a-rumpus/
Enough enough I’ve heard enough of your bleating voices of your derogatory stuff of your divisive policies your dumb ignorant rants your jumping around like you have ants in your pants your discriminatory whinging about difference like it’s bad when diversity and creativity are the best things humans have when you wear ignorance like a medal and stupidity like a gong your lack of clear thinking shows something in your head has gone wrong so for once in your life do something good sit down and shut up __________ try to learn - if you could
(for wider application insert here _________ the name of your own idiot populist leader)
Jude and MC Nathaneal at The Motley Bauhaus open mic.
Everybody say yeah ………. “Yeah” Everybody say yeah ……… “Yeah” Everybody say yeah & stamp one foot ………. “yeah” Everybody say yeah & stamp two feet ………. “yeah”
That’s cool!
yeah this is where it’s at yeah I'm on the stage and I’m here with you and you're all with me and you’re into it too yeah this is the place where I come to share safe and sound and full of care and it fucking feels good man sharing poetry that moves me with an audience like you playing your part - I think it’s groovy!
let me hear you say yeah - yeah let me hear you say yeah - yeah yeah when Wednesday night comes around and I’m getting ready to come into town and I’m wondering what’s about to go down I can't wait to hear the next freaked out round then I’m thinking about what words I’ll do at The Motley where yeah it’s such a great crew so I don’t have to ask will the audience stay true because the people who come are true through and through
let me hear you say yeah - yeah let me hear you say yeah - yeah
I pick a couple of old ones or write something new I fine tune and sometimes I even rehearse too I try to mix them up something funny something blue a love poem a commentary something from my muse because I want to have my say and I want to have fun and to please you all, isn’t that why we all come?
let me hear you say yeah - yeah let me hear you say yeah - yeah Let me hear you say yeah and stamp one foot - yeah Let me hear you say yeah and stamp two foot - yeah yeah yeah yeah alright!
I don’t drink beer and I don’t drink wine I’ve had to make adjustments and it’s sort of been fine but I do drink Coca Cola because I think it’s nice and my daughter says I’m allowed one vice
addendum please note if you are buying me a drink I ask you to take a moment to be considerate and think be sure it’s not supermarket cola or that Pepsi shit because I can assure you I really don’t like either not one little bit
I’m gonna have a crack at being bold I’m gonna have a crack at saying what I think I’m gonna have a crack at not being told I’m gonna have a crack at trying out my kinks
and if you want to make me mad just tell me it’s about time you did things dad because all my holding back yes it’s true was because I wanted to give a stable life to you
My brain has been fried by too much pills and booze my lungs have been fibrosed by too much smoke and hooch my liver has started failing now from all the injectables my addictions have been diagnosed as damaging collectables my complexion has been described as 20 years past my age the amphetamines did that and being in a state of perpetual rage my twitch is due to uppers and the paunch the sloth of coming down and don’t talk to me about cocaine, is there any going round? the munchies sometimes fattened me up but then the crack always thinned me out who needed diet pills? I did because I was kind of always in doubt the cough syrup got me high on ephedrine I could always get a six pack as long as I went behind the chemist with cash paid out the back my muscles are wasted my skin is pocked it’s fair to say I’m generally fucked
some of my junkie friends died young but I admit I barely noticed unless I was trying to get clean, and yeah those times were pretty grotesque it’s funny what getting clean meant to me it was a sort of an exchange trip which never really worked because backwards I would always slip so here I find myself old, no friends no family to want me and I’m really in the shit!
I will go and get a pillow with a flannelette slip I will nestle in my big armchair lying on my hip I will stretch out my legs toward the soft topped footstool I will place the warm pillow on an armrest before lying out in full I will lay my head down with a lap blanket across my knees with handkerchieves at ready for mopping drool each wet cough and sneeze I will keep the temperature from the column heater constant at around 20 degrees I will take the symbicort regularly and salbutamol as necessary to relieve every newly occurring wheeze I will try to keep my fluids up though walking to the kitchen breaks my morbid reverie a bottle of water by my side is good for sips but not as satisfying as hot green tea I will remove my glasses from my eyes because everything I see becomes bleary blurs I will close my eyes to beautiful music to distract me from headaches shivers and joint pains that ail me like a curse and if the sleep I seek does come I will for a while be at peace for only good sleep refreshes and revitalises a weary body when little else gives relief
In a world where unprotected justice is just another manipulative tool those who believe in blind justice look increasingly like naive fools
where chaos replaces transparency with the purpose of obscuring truth evidence based learning falls from aspiration, to work fragmented and moot
when lies are an accepted part of political discussion for misuse the power lies with those who societal values they readily abuse
if public denigration of dissent is a routine weapon of discourse then know ye that they will come for you too by threat as well as force
if wealth and appearance are the only currency around the majority may well end up in position genuflecting from the ground
if deceit tricks and hacks are permitted to taint the heart of democracy then notional democracy becomes yet another self defeating fallacy and the corrupt, malign and unread will rule over every land empowered by the inevitable sycophants and their militarised bully bands
The poetics prompt for we dVerse poets https://dversepoets.com/2025/08/12/dverse-poetics-tuesday-power/ comes from the deep thinking Lisa this week. It is topical, omnipresent and scary – as it has been throughout history. Is it worse today than in past eras? I am not sure I can make an absolute statement about that. However, with the likes of social media and AI now available as part of the dissembling and propaganda mix I suspect it is to become so.
I cannot resist a more personal comment about two principled men from Australia’s political history who I believe represented the antithesis to the forms of abuse of power described in my poem above. Two men whose democratic modelling, and leading of social justice and cultural reforms could be learned from by many leadership figures engaged in the power plays of today. My father Race Mathews with his friend, colleague & mentor Prime Minister Gough Whitlam.
Juliet is all slick and wet her long hair in her eyes she has been hit by an idiot drunk driving by ……………. bye bye
Romeo roams idly past he sees the girl on the ground he looks at her - quizzically then he realises what he has found
Juliet breathes in gasps as blood pools under her back she looks up, sees Romeo last look, last love as her limbs go slack
Romeo’s not much you know but this time things are different He wipes the hair from her glazed eyes and wonders where her life went
Juliet rises above the scene she watches Romeo He cradles her head gently in his lap he whimpers out a moan
Romeo struck by love’s full fist his only love has gone he whines, he weeps at his loss death into his soul is born
Juliet bears final witness to Romeo’s last testament “Did my heart truly love till now?” he whispers
------------------------------------------ For the first time he knows of true love and grace “Good night, good night” “Thus with a kiss I too die” He declares to her still and pallid face
Romeo bends his head down and tenderly brushes her cold blue lips with his own
he softly places her head on the ground a final look to the only love he has known he lies quietly beside her he takes her right hand in his left
Romeo retrieves a switchblade knife from his trouser ‘s pocket meant for rivals never his life and yet, he eases the blade into his chest dividing his ribs apart the sharp-edged steel slides smoothly it finds his broken heart
As blood pools under his back he has nothing more to say onto the cold hard tarmac his life also leaks away
Juliet utters one last cry of grief before she disappears forever or was that one last plea for relief in hope somewhere they will reappear together
for never was there a story that reeks of more woe than this tragic tale of Juliet and her Romeo
What is it the forest says to me? It says, “Dive in deep and gleefully!” and oh I do so like to take that advice because diving into a forest is oh so nice
I approach the edge excited each time because when forest bathing the time is all mine nearing the forest the world changes scale and shape new dimensions appear: from 2D to 3D, into 4D I leap
as the colours of tree thin lands fade out behind me the colours of the forest grow ever richer to see and time seems to stop while immersed in this place as the harshness of cities is quickly replaced by the soft light of beauty and amazing grace
the smells of the flora the anticipation of wildlife the moisture in the air the freedom the relief where I walk in peace awestruck and at my own pace where I find so many reasons to pause and marvel in this space
I belong in the forest it puts smiles on my face it slows me it soothes me it relieves me of haste
it gives me adventures I would never otherwise find it welcomes and embraces me and I return all in kind I embrace the ground cover the mid story and canopy I welcome every insect bird and animal I see I soak up the sights of mosses lichen and fungi the waterways the water aquatic life and algae
and I think if this is heaven in heaven I want to be because then heaven is on earth to revere joyfully
Today’s d’Verse prompt is from Lillian: write a poem that somehow mentions, is set in, or is motivated by the woods / forest. As I hope you can see, I like nothing better than to spend time walking in forests.
poetography.ink 