The lock stops access
The clock stops time
The drug stops abscess
The organ stops rhyme
The boot stops turning
The period stops lines
The water stops burning
The cleaner stops grime
The valve stops pressure
The jar stops brine
The ruler stops measure
The law stops crime
The plug stops water
The wave stops sine
The truth stops laughter
The pump stops prime
The grass stops growing
The bottle stops wine
The gardner stops mowing
The devil stops divine
The food stops hunger
The hunger that is mine
This stop goes no longer
Than this very last line
Rum tum tum Rum tum tum
I succumbed
Rum tum tum
When the words were flung
Saw the bait Saw the bait
Thrown to peers alust with hate
Saw the bait
Do its work to humiliate
Watched his face Watched his face
Cloud to the many shades of disgrace
Watched his face
Laid waste by such bitter taste
Witnessed the scorn Witnessed the scorn
For one different and elsewhere born
Witnessed the scorn
As with thorny crown he was adorned
Turned my head Turned my head
When more weaponised words were said
Turned my head
Away from watching as his heart bled
Felt my shame Felt my shame
As passive part of this vicious game
Felt my shame
My brutal silence my silence to blame
I still regret I still regret
No one’s eyes to have met
I still regret
Complicit inaction I can’t forget
Where is he now? Where is he now?
Is he high or is he low?
Where is he now?
Does anger in him burn aglow?
Sanaa asked we poets to explore the issue of peer pressure for this week’s dVerse prompt. I expect there are few people anywhere who can claim complete innocence. Have you got anything to say for yourself?
Someone dies a death a death that was not meant to be How can the loss be understood?
There has never been a death that was meant or not meant to be Death has no timing no caring no reason Death is nothing more than the end of living Looking deeper into death is looking deeper into loss alone For the dying itself there is no further explanation We are flawed mortal and as such we die It is how the living feel about it where the issue lies
The words I have always heard about the silence of the forest have never rung true There is no silence in the forest No matter how much you romanticise or wish there to be
The forest is noisy relative only to just how hard you choose to listen
Bright is the light that shines on me as I dwell finally in deathbed reverie the doctor he talks and talks and he talks
my wife she weeps and weeps and she weeps and time it creeps and creeps and it creeps
what is this light that shines above lights pallid face of death to my love the darkness it resists and resists and it resists
in brilliance it glows and glows and it glows in radius it grows and grows and it grows
this light that calls me as my light fades this light that draws me to the night of shades with death it walks and walks and it walks
my feeble hand I raise and wave I waver and it waves faces watch uncertain so grave grave and so grave
I see my hand stir dust in the air second last thing I will see anywhere the dust it wafts and wafts and it wafts
my brow is mopped and mopped and is mopped my hand drops I drop and it drops
as dust I settle back onto deaths bed into the pillow sinks my head life’s weight I shed I shed and I shed
looking down into the room I am surprised it is lit by only gloom the husk has collapsed collapsed collapsed
hollowed of life of life and of life beside my wife my wife my beloved wife
the dust dispersed draws my spirit in and back to dust I go again the gift I leave is small but complete I was loved and I loved I am replete
Today’s dverse prompt is from Laura, to write words of departure based on your choice from a set of quotes. I chose the quote from a favourite and most remarkable movie – “All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.” Roy Batty, Blade Runner.
Ah, my chimeric and fanciful place A world to inhabit when I displace Where food is abundant and water is clear Where choices are free I’ll ne’er shed a tear Where sharing is normal no money spent Home is a shelter without mortgage or rent Ideas are born to be actioned for pleasure Actions occur for outcomes or leisure Thinking is respected intellectual pursuit Everyone loves and all follow suit Where judging is absent because no one judges Where grudges are absent because no one grudges Where religion only follows the Gaia led path To planetary health such joy makes me laugh My friends are my friends conflict unknown We simply marvel at how friendship keeps growing
What Prospero said should not be decried Give death a rightful standing in our lives As a lens through which to view the good for which we strive To ponder temporal versus eternal that is always nigh To elevate appreciation and despondency defy
And so, when vibrant youth immortality implies When healthy vigour makes the future glisten in our eyes When happiness is at its peak with all that it supplies When prosperity creates opportunity many are denied When security is such that all our fears it belies Take a moment to remember it is only life that dies
Value life through death as on times fleeting wings it flies The mind that honours death values life on high
pick
I will
go collect a bucket
of plums
see
purple plums
outside
red plums
inside
bite
taut elastic skin
snaps and recoils
under pressure of
sharp incisors
burst
taste
exploding plum
tartly sweet
firmly juicy
with sticky feet
feel
the texture
anticipated
chewy soft
an eating
sensation
never
lost
wet
with flavour
deep and true
dribbles assured
all the way
to the
end
of
it
swallow
the energy
immediate
hit
spit
pit
ah plums
Today we https://dversepoets.com poets are playing with food. Thanks Misky for a prompt that has me re-savouring my favourite fruit.
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 by
sees the girl on the ground
He looks at her
quizzically
then 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 limbs go slack
Romeo’s
not much you know
but this time
things are different
He wipes the hair from 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 creeps
Juliet
bears final witness to
Romeo’s last testament
“Did my heart truly love till now?”
he whispers
For the first time
he knows what love meant
“Good night Good night”
“Thus with a kiss I too die”
He declares to her
death pale face
Romeo
bends his head down
tenderly brushes her cold lips
with his own
he lets her head down
lightly beside him
as he lies quietly beside her
takes her right hand
with his left
Romeo
from his pocket
retrieves a knife
meant for other men
he eases the blade
between his ribs
it finds his broken heart
As blood pools under his back
his life is also gone
Juliet
utters one last cry of grief
before she disappears
or was that one last cry of relief
in hope he reappears
for never was there a story of more woe
than this of Juliet and her Romeo
Two women sit under a thatched roof supported by rafters coarse wood brown smiling and chatting together Chickens scratch at the edge of their shelter a bold shiny colourful rooster a big shiny black hen
Their surroundings are a circular patch dry dusty earth red small mud brick dwellings define a perimeter orange The late autumn day is lit by a cold sun of clean blue light
One woman sits above the other higher she is perched Her long thin legs hang over a shallow edge a rug covered platform She is the older in a thick faded purple dress a pullover yellow is topped with a scarf white around her neck Her head is swaddled in a woollen wrap crimson it frames a face sun lit, weathered and aged by decades of labour
Spaces such as this fields such as she can choose to see at anytime will forever be green and brown She gazes pensively across open communal space She ponders her past with pleasure and regret she speaks of things new old, deep and trivial Her arthritic hands clasped in a lap of gratitude flesh Her battered Nike sneakers peek out from the long layers of fabric above grey and yellow her face is calm Her future as it will be
The younger sits cross legged a woven mat under her strung tan Together cultivating lines of okra drying under sheltering eaves ragged shadows of indigo host hangings vertically in bright green coloured lengths unclasped necklaces ornaments of metres adorn the space with a decorative interior that creates a sense coming festivity The drying shed colours the day, the place it’s people making according to the crop a pride of place for transient prettiness and implications security, work well done
Here for generations other younger women have sat for hours days post harvest preparing sustaining products of manual fieldwork multi hued for deep grey winter consumption Her dress is brighter golds magentas her hands are as yet unaffected by the gnarly growths destined by labour She repeats centuries old weaving patterns confidently efficiently unhurried listening quietly thoughtfully respectfully
Tales of the past wash over her black and white through her as water of life in delicate pastels as hope as comfort She knows here there are will be still lessons to be gleaned conversation the reflections of her elder The younger a willing learner of a quasi meditative state borne soft pink by the methodical repetitious nature of her work it is was as surely known the best way for learning lessons by the word of her people successes and failures myth legend retelling that never ceases to inform warm warn entertain and delight
There is comfort in the learning a knowing that all the natural obstacles over which there is little control life will continue on on on There is no question about how time is to be spent day by day this is dictated by seasons culture necessity green yellow brown grey
There is no concept of time ticking away each day is known-quantity where choice is limited but colour rich life is sometimes unpredictable dangerous set fluid simple giving and taking with impunity Time has no measure life itself opaque
Two women commune as did two before them back it goes into the dark blue of distance where many women become every one sitting together, stringing up green okra another part of every year’s never ending rainbow
They told me about her hair before I met her. It was green. I thought it the best hair I’d ever seen. The fall of her locks topped long flowing frocks that ran neck to toe as they swept the ground clean.
In bare feet so she walked or sashayed I should say her hair bounced away like gentle waves of the sea.
In long flowing robes from her head to her toes luminous bright green and shimmering a sheen, she moved as one supple, undulating dream.
Her hips that were square rolled sensually there under rippling fabric I deemed. Her shoulders carried smoothly. Her pose held beautifully. Her skin smooth as polished gold. Her head held proud, and defiantly bold.
Her face was of grace framed in fine green lace at the edges of the green hood folded around her neck. From the dripping sleeves of her gown, where long hands emerged brown, slender fingers completed the scene.
Bright brown eyes looked curiously around, ‘til she stopped, tall and sure image of a noble queen. She had turned toward me. I, the watcher was seen, and I found myself bound to the tall brown woman in green.
In the darkness there is fear of
what we do not know where
moonlit silhouettes change
frequented pathways through
accustomed landscapes
to unfamiliar tunnels hooded
by shadows obscured
by gloom alive
with the colourless and hidden
In black night confusion
and disorientation assert
themselves by seeding doubt
Insubstantial surroundings draw an
inky deception across the known
world where that latent but
ever present dread of
losing our way will always prevail
Today, the dVerse challenge was from Linda to pick one line from a Jim Harrison poem and use it as an epigraph for a poem inspired by that line. I chose, “Yes, in the predawn black the slim slip of the waning moon.”- Remote Friends, Jim Harrison. https://dversepoets.com/2022/01/25/poetics-songs-of-unreason/
A common Australian terrestrial bird that spends most of its time on the ground for foraging and breeding. Prefers semi to open habitats. I often see them on rural tracks running the wheel ruts.
I seek to find the tree
where and when I find it
I will know it for its role in my life
spirit connecting totem
white fella dreaming me
my original culture kit
equipped for consumption and strife
for directionless floating
missing address of life’s mystery
missing where I fit
cut from “other” as with a knife
finished as animate factotum
I seek the key
in nature’s remit
to open the door of relief
to release my soul forgotten
I walk the bush incessantly
search nature’s bridge exquisite
in enduring mortal grief
to reveal immortal heart re-woken
where entity is true and free
where body and soul will sit
with cup and bowl I turn new leaf
full of love and hoping
I was recently asked to deliver these photos of gorgeous droplets after a sustained misting rain – taken at our place a while back. I haven’t had much time for writing lately and thought these might be a good blog alternative to the written word until I get back to it. I hope you like them.
Sustenance, sustenance The needs of my family, the very future depend on my Hunter’s skill Tracking is the game ignoring the baubles for the meat persevering when hope is lost When perseverance is the only hope to find
As I cross the threshold between sunshine and artificial light where my flaming torch of knowledge and experience must keep me lit alert to fallacy and trickery Nevertheless it dulls against intensely bright competition These high ceilinged vaults as if starlit with halogen and diode I find it hard to distinguish whether inflamed or extinguished my very own light flares or fades As does the light of knowledge or critical elements of judgement
This is a brilliantly ominous hole in real space This dead centre of comsupmtion Of glow worms on mirrored walls of perverted fairy lights created by evil spirit I cross a sinister boundary into a world of corruption temptation and reduction The world is rendered thus
The cavernous halls of this space daunt Its glittering stalactites drip luminously sweet waters impure as added sweeteners can illicit over gem encrusted subterranean alcoves and niches Where false gods are worshipped Where diamonds turn to glass Where purchase is neither with foot nor by hand But by extraction and brand Burning into pockets through means of exchange where the purpose of this cave becomes revealed Although, still not to the naive, the gullible and the willing
Yet I stand strong Resolute by my informed knowing I conquer foreboding fear held at bay by the most fragile resilience and I buy in
I buy big I buy small I buy all the things I want at the Mall Until I can but no longer As these halls previously mapped have seen the bounds of my credit card zapped Gotta get out before ruin befalls My Christmas spree buying One day for it all
Today’s prompt comes from Dora. In the context of the Crazy Christmas season she suggests, ….. “imagine a moment of pausing, a still point of epiphany.” dVerse
Shinrin-yoku or forest bathing. When I first read about forest bathing the cynic in me scoffed, “Jeezus, how many gimmicky ideas can humanity come up with?” As curious as it may appear, I have reevaluated the matter. Why? Well, it was an accident really.
In reading the aforementioned book by Bill Bailey I learnt more. It was the Japanese Government that validated shinrin-yoku in the 1980s. After research confirmed the hypothesis that forest walkers experienced significantly less stress and anxiety than urban walkers, the idea became a public health policy. Hence the very real, legitimate and officially mandated practice of shinrin-yoku, forest bathing or put more simply absorbing the atmosphere of the forest.
I learnt this with a little embarrassment because I have clearly been a shinrin-yoku practitioner for years. Walking and cycling in the bush have long been favourite pastimes, as soothing to the mind and cleansing of the soul as anything I can imagine. I realise now I have practiced forest bathing and even refined the practice. My own specialised sub discipline will now be called forest basking. This is where I find myself paused, stationary, sometimes mid step, sometimes sitting, sometimes lying down looking either up, across or down, grinning, goggling or gasping or all three at once, in awe at nature’s beauty and evolutionary accomplishments.
I am no shirin-yoku guru or forest bathing shaman, but I am an advocate by default because I do my best to promote these wonderful activities publicly and widely. Why? Because if they are good for individual lifestyle and well-being they are good for societal wellbeing. If shinrin-yoku encourages people into positive low impact forest experiences those people become advocates for the forest and habitat gets improved as well. And who doesn’t want such a desirable set of outcomes from the simple act of taking some time out in the forest?
poetography.ink 