New planetary scale thinking and processes for the politics of energy production and consumption are the end to which the global community aspires.
A lowering of the ever escalating threshold tolerance for anthropogenic influenced rises in greenhouse gases is the priority the earth requires.
Atmospheric CO2 beyond ~400 parts per million disrupts natural checks and balances such that catastrophic consequences may be impossible to prevent.
Claims more study is necessary before too expensive resolving efforts only mean we rush towards dire outcomes at disastrous future cost for every dollar not currently spent.
The past decade has seen the hottest years recorded beyond preindustrial times. At almost +1.5C consequent accelerator negative feedback loops as follows include:
Amplifying ice-albedo loops, water vapour loops, permafrost warming loops, ocean warming and acidification loops. You can now see them in the daily news.
Variable monsoons, extreme weather, flora and fauna migrations, severe drought, flood and bushfire, extinctions and coastal losses have already begun.
Yet still self interest and denial dominate the necessary scale of decision-making on behalf of every species under the sun.
Acting local is good, but no longer anywhere near good enough. Global solutions are needed that are necessarily wise and tough.
Only constructive planet wide climate and energy action can save us here and now on the cusp.
Pip: poetography.ink — where the color blue does more emotional heavy lifting than most novels.
Mara: Today we’re sitting with a single poem by seanatbogie that moves through blue as landscape, then intimacy, then grief — and it earns every shade of that journey. Let’s start with the poem itself.
deep dark blue
Pip: The question this poem asks is deceptively simple: what does blue mean when the world is still beautiful and the person beside you is leaving?
Mara: The poem opens in postcard serenity — water, mountains, a wooden jetty, a cotton dress — and then turns. Here’s where it pivots: “your eyes are blazing iridescent blue when I gaze into them I’m suddenly drowning cyanosed lips bruised blue blue finger tips touching you cold with the bleak blue fear of no longer having you near.”
Pip: That shift from picture-perfect to clinical is the whole poem in miniature. Cyanosis is what happens when the body stops getting oxygen. The poem borrows medical vocabulary to say: this is not metaphorical dying, this is the body registering loss as a physical event.
Mara: And the poem sustains that register all the way through. The line “pumping vital red to sluggish dying blue” frames the heart itself as a system failing — red is life, blue is what life becomes when it slows. The warmth of the day never leaves; the poem is careful to keep the summer intact around the collapse.
Pip: Which is the move that makes it land. If the weather had turned, the grief would have somewhere to hide. Instead it sits in full sun on a pretty jetty, which is a crueler place to fall apart.
Mara: The closing image pulls everything together: “deep dark blue and frozen to a jetty pretty above turbulent water dark deep blue I discover your love is no longer true.” The turbulence was always underneath the surface. The prettiness was always the trap.
Pip: Blue as a color word usually signals sadness and stops there. This poem makes it do six or seven things — geography, eye color, bruising, hypothermia, cardiac output — and the accumulation is what gives the ending its weight.
Mara: It’s a single sustained image system, and it holds.
Pip: Blue as a color, blue as a diagnosis, blue as the moment you realize the water was never still.
Mara: That’s the kind of poem that stays with you. More from poetography.ink next time.
I knocked at the door right on time I pressed the doorbell and heard it chime I waited a few minutes until I was sure no one would answer so I moved from the door I skirted the house via the garden gate I went round the back again to wait the back door was locked the blind was down I went to a bedroom window with a furrowed frown I peered through the glass into a dim interior all looked in order through that glassy mirror the furniture was upright the bed had been made through the dining room window the table was laid I went to the kitchen to look further inside the fridge was closed dishes washed and dried so I went back to the front and sat on the step rain had started to fall I was getting wet so where was I in this absent dilemma? not a sign inside not even a glimmer I thought then I should ring on the phone but what was the point? I definitely wasn’t at home!
Woof! I strongly urge you to reconsider your decision to withhold my dinner for it was only a minor crime that should not leave me food less for a time
this situation is certainly partly your fault for exposing your best shoes to assault by discarding them carelessly inside the front door such that my resistance steadily weakened wherefore
the attraction of soft chewy elastic leather proved as irresistible as a day of sunny weather when chewing shoes in vestibule halls equates to the joy of parkside chasing of balls
and you must admit my masticating those tasty treats is not the equivalent of nutritious and tasty meat so spare a thought for an act ne’er again to be mentioned please, your dismay was never my intention I strongly exhort you to review my sentence
in return I’ll offer a cute and remorseful look of ne’er again pretence
SRNV is a nature blog I have neglected my co-authorship of in recent years. This has been due to work and family commitments taking me to other parts of this wonderful state of Victoria. In the meantime, Bert has continued his informative presentation and celebration of our region. Now I am spending more time back in Central and North East Victoria I am well and truly ready to join him again. I will reblog here to poetography.ink for my occasional reader’s interest.
I missed the last train but in the moment I saw it as an opportunity to walk the midnight kilometres home
I bravely left the yellow lit platform lonely island full of light and its twin ribbons of steel fading into the night
i crossed the darkened city instead stepping from one street lit pool to another where roads were stark the highways bare for all my looking there was nobody there
I found my way footsore and weary across a city where there was not a soul who cared but I was glad I had dared
These dunes go on forever and never in my life have I felt so tired the marching crests go on and on toward the same relentless sun I once admired every step is weighted by troughs of sand negating the energy left to put one foot ahead of the other but as I stagger wearily the last dune appears blearily after which I begin to think of rest and cover I crawl the final distance against flowing sand resistance until over the last rise I will at last be where my resolve finally breaks when viewing from the last dune I see queueing only more dunes before a desolate beach and an endless sea
It is with regret that I realise my prophecy will not be believed it is with sadness that I see a world of unwanted hurt cannot be relieved into the apocalypse will fall one and all for want of not heeding my call
it is not for a lack of frequency that my message remains unreceived it is not for a deficit of clarity my warning languishes ill perceived
for none can learn from the evidence when there are none who wish to hear who from convenient comfort will attend to tales of turbulent doom as it draws near? who has the power to break the apathy of masses when the masses will not act on their fear?
and who will take the time to reflect after the dismal impact, who will shed a tear?
The Cape Schanck lighthouse is still full of ghosts of keepers passengers and sailors who died on this coast as white as the thick walls through which they keen they swirl through the tower only glimpsed never seen forever unsettled by tragedy at the mercy of storms restless air is chilled by their cold empty forms even when the wind is warm and the wide strait is calm they struggle with their violent cruel death and its legacy of harm remembering loved ones left behind who grieved at the cost ghosts grieve for futures never had to the sea that were lost
today's lively visitors to the lighthouse one and all never leave without hearing a whisper or a ghostly call when they climb the spiral steps to look at the view they hold loved ones closer against a chill as if they knew each of the ghost stories from each deep watery grave all stop a sad shivered moment with the souls never saved then they return to their homes families and friends departing a ghastly lighthouse dance that never ends
My response to The Skeptic’s Kaddish W3 prompt. Make sure you read Dennis Johnstone’s and Nancy Richy’s two wonderful poems included.
Better days? Australian House of Representatives, circa 1972.
"Democracy is our most precious institution, you must respect that!" he said pounding his right fist into his open left hand.
"Not when all the operating principles are misrepresented and undermined," I replied emphatically.
"Where is our right to a meaningful vote as valued as the next person's? Government no longer supports equality of education or opportunity. Freedom of speech is a shouting match dominated by the loudest. Equitable access to public resources and social infrastructure is largely pork barrelled. The distribution of wealth is dominated by manipulative profiteering cliques."
"The term democracy has been misappropriated, Political leadership is in the hands of the powerful or power mad."
"Our people want to participate, to share the benefits with each other, but our system isn't democratic, it all belies our existence; we wait, and are still denied."
The dVerse prosery prompt to which I have responded comes from Merrill. It seemed to demand a political statement to me. See below:
A poem inspired by this photo I took of Savonlinna Castle, Lake Saimaa, Finland.
He crossed the bar sails puffed full as his chest proud to be crashing the swells and foaming waves escaping the line upon line of graves his father his brothers his family destroyed only his youth denied vengeance for he had been but a boy
but now he was strong free to charge into the fight to wreak havoc and injury to his morbid delight the one goal remaining in his grief filled life only one task to satisfy his dissatisfied plight
in the land of his enemy he had something to prove to show the dark master he had nothing to lose what he could do where his father and brothers had failed onto the place of their betrayal he now speedily sailed
to vanquish that brutal regime on its very own soil after years of study planning training and toil he stepped onto the land an army at his back and he cried the war cry, "Attack men, Attack!"
make more colour my little flowers for the world is becoming bleaker its complexion darker we must not let the darkness win how can I help you put more colour back into the world my little flowers?
State Library Underground Railway Station, Melbourne, Victoria
As I travel around the city I contemplate something true people are all doing something seeing myriad projects through
every choice they make a decision to copy or find something new in working separately or together they are constantly stirring the city’s creative brew
It is the rugged mountain landscape that reflects my heart from great heights I watch over every part the pinnacles are the summit of my aspiration valleys are where I pause for consideration and revelation water scoured gullies have carved their scars onto my soul but the long deep range sustains and heals my whole
open rolling plains broad flat and wide are where the scope of my vision emerges from inside where I can see from horizon to horizon nothing impedes my hopes here my future can be spun I absorb the beauty of each day each morning and evening sun from each creature or blade each single tree or forest watching and observing for new opportunities to enlist
along waterways I explore the wilder places I adore where raging tempest or placid calm invoke irrepressible desires for more like the fluid medium within me water of my life clean water fills all empty spaces with relief and ocean depths teem with the origins of my genes where all futures were created as a multiverse of dreams
This week the dVerse poetics prompt from Dora was to incorporate a landscape or cityscape into your poetry that either mirrors or amplifies your interior landscape (or lack thereof).
When I’m looking for a place to go I say to myself “hey na vro po” cos sometimes I just wanna go slow you know so I clear my head with hey na vro po
it works like a dream every time I let off steam I really unwind to small animals and children I become very kind after hey na vro po that’s what I find
it’s sort of like floating in your mind you levitate and leave reality behind looking down around you you look for signs of where you’ve been or are going it’s not defined
I sometimes follow myself walking down the street my mind is vacant I’m walking a slow beat I’m heading for a park to take a seat and visiting the park feels really neat so I sit gently down I put up my feet
I lean my head back to look up at the sky it’s empty as my brain except a bird flies by the bird is blue but it has a happy cry hey na vro po everything is right with the sky
it’s so nice in a space where the world is green where everything is cool a scene to be seen I stretch out my arms along the seat in a dream I then stretch out my legs and watch motes in a sunbeam
there are couples walking and families at play there’s some kangaroos looking at me as if to say so you’ve treated yourself to a hey na vro po day well don't let us get in your way
good for you you deserve it mate to take your empty self out and about is great it's kind of like a one person date hope you find the sweet spot in your mindless state
you can learn a thing or two from a kangaroo when they look into your eyes just look back too you’ll find a blankness you should aspire to too for they are excellent role models for you high quality lounging is what they like to do
so you lounge on the grass to watch life pass you soak up sun as you stretch out and bask you discover that lying on the grass is no task you allow yourself to doze without being asked and it doesn't matter one bit how long it lasts
twilight arrives as the sun starts to go down time to go home walk back through the town hey na vro po waylays any frown you're so relaxed you don't mind downtown brown still you weave some colourful flowers into a crown another hey na vro po day you sought and you found so you walk back with your feet just above the ground
It is the weight of the heat that I struggle to bear a relentless oppressiveness that burns my skin I am surrounded by its stillness its density dehydration works from the outside in my surface is sweaty gritty debris constant exposure is to wither and shade is no relief at 48 degrees the sun robs me of my water a remorseless thief
I went down to see the majority in action gathering in the square the surging crowd the chanting voice of many people was there yet I missed the referring whisper of others from the crowd the minority of a democracy was absent / quiet as a shroud and whither was their point of view drowned by slogans and revile the future of inclusiveness dominated by slurs that defile I looked for the different colours here the different sounds and where I found such difference I did recoil at its oppressed nature there then cans were rattled the songs were long about victory and strength but for those lost and weak who did not belong there was to be no defence as push came to shove and drama spilled onto this public stage the large protest became a test of where the power is really laid how it would be used to push a point of view not clear to absolutely everyone unless to power they were already connected or held the butt of a gun there is apparently no place for everyone under our glowing democratic sun for those left out it was time to think and maybe time to run
For those seeking wu: Artist Martin King in his studio. Photo Michael Taylor.
Wu comprises the ethereal properties every astute observer and collector seeks to discover and contemplate in a work of art. Through soul deep application of mind to work, the true artist unconsciously transfers the elements of wu into each piece. Wu is found in the place where heart, spirit, creativity and labour merge to engender an aesthetic completeness that can make an observer’s personal appreciation a deep and pleasurable experience.
As such, the wu in any work of art reflects the embodiment of each creator proportionate to their skill and ways of knowing and communicating the intent of their work. Through ingrained wu the observer can in turn identify, absorb and emotionally connect with the very personal elements thereby embedded.
Deliberate reflection and attendance to the presence of wu precipitates the flow of emotion, peaceful or turbulent, and intrinsic understanding that is the purpose of all art. Only through wu can the observer hope to be truly moved by the artist’s creation, its existence, its presence in the now.
Note: this is my development of the concept of “wu”, an idea referred to by Philip K. Dick in his masterpiece of science fiction ‘The Man in the High Castle‘.
We recently had to evacuate three generations of our family from three households across northern and central Victoria. Due to multiple and extensive bushfires, we watched with anxiety as they flared and ebbed and flared again towards our various homes. Fortunately, we all returned to intact houses. Many were not so lucky.
As the climate situation gets worse, with every New Summer we feel the new fear rise again.
All work is my own and you can share it as much as you like.
poetography.ink 