The joyful bush rings
With clear voice melodious
A Gray Shrike-thrush sings
Gray shrike-thrush
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Tag Archives: photo
Land vs Sea
I observe in the sea it’s platitudes
It’s calming roll
It’s restful waves
of the sea I perceive shallow altitudes
a horizontal view
and it’s lack of depth too
for you can’t see below the surface
and you can’t see beyond the blue
you can’t see the forest for the trees
because there are no trees to view
the sandy strand is featureless
the rocky shore is hard
the only things admirable above water and sand
are those artefacts made of man’s hands
so give me the land on any day
three dimensional in every way
and I’ll show you something to truly explore
such a visible nature there is always more
certainly the sea has its underworld
it’s depths it’s animals it’s vegetation beneath
but to spend time there is the wrong environment
for we mammals with an air breathing requirement
so give me the countryside mountains and plains
give me river valleys deep lush from rain
give me woodlands or jungle vibrant with life and colour
give me diverse deserts never the same as each other
River #05
He runs down to the river
I mean really runs
so hard the dust flicked up by his rubber thongs partially obscures the back of him
his excitement is palpable
his delight contagious
ah, the river
slow lazy fat and brown
cool wet deep and inviting
on a relentless 40 degree day
as he sheds first his bucket hat
then his T shirt
and flips the flipping flopping thongs from his feet
he lets out an exultant “Whoop!” of sheer unadulterated anticipatory pleasure
as he leaps off the steep sandy bank
defies gravity
and launches through the air like a rocket
his board shorts balloon out behind him
his pale thin and lanky preadolescent body curls into a foetal position as
he flies across the water
to execute a classic 12 year old bomb
and i smile and smile all the while
I remember this time this place to where I always wanted to return one day with my own child
to make it what I always wanted it to be, but never would be for me
a life disrupted, interrupted
father and son
I am content
Water fern haiku
Water fern's wet roots
Anchor and nurture green fronds
The future looks good
If you love me
If you love me
will you touch me?
Will you show how much you want me?
Will you need me just like I’m needing you?
If you miss me
will you kiss me?
Will you come over when I’m lonely?
Will you give me all the things I want to give to you?
If you're there for me
act accordingly,
look into each other’s eyes with me.
Will you be there where I would be
to show you care for me like I care for you?
If you see me
in the country,
will you come to me, yes run to me
with open arms to receive me as I run to you?
When I’m working
in the city
will you ease the stress that gets me?
Will you soothe me with caresses like I do for you?
What is love to me?
When all that I can see
is you avoiding me?
It’s more than I can bear!
Take a tip from me,
so we survive you see,
say you're still loving me.
That’s all I want to hear!
Urban bio link haiku
Transport corridors,
diverse bio links?
Urban saviours? I don’t think!
Spring came early
Spring came early
but it should still be winter here don’t you see
the days are already warm and the sun is strong
winter didn’t last very long
the birds are foraging for insects on the ground
and amongst blossom everywhere
the shrike thrush and swallows are nesting in sheds and car ports
oblivious without a care
but car owners are not amused
while more small creatures emerge looking confused
the grass should be flat, sparse and short
borne down by the cold and frost
but instead the mower labours through a thick upstanding vital green
and the weeding tools in the growth get lost
I look out from the verandah in bare feet and T shirt
dismayed at the sight that greets me
I ask myself how did we allow this great hurt?
this quickening of the seasons now so fast it daily grieves me
Spring Haiku #02
White bird, yellow crest.
Hollow incubator nest.
Before hatchlings, rest.
Alone
I walk alone upon the path
In deep discussion that makes me laugh
here I am a social being
talking to myself without seeing
a single soul from week to week
and no desire with which to seek
companionship or another’s humour
tall tales or disrespectful rumour
I know myself I can rely on me
I can be the person I want to be
I can see the things I want to see
and if need be I can more easily flee
alone
Winter Springs Warm
If winter is now to be spring
here’s the thing
summer is going to be scorching and long
the sun will beat down dangerous and strong
more intense fires will more frequently burn
for longer in more places each in their turn
as the driest droughts on earth each year
will become hot enough to boil our tears
2026 has seen Melbourne and Sydney’s hottest winters on record. This is no surprise because we all witnessed signs of Spring beginning in July.
Individually we feel powerless. Locally we are powerless. Nationally we continue to vote based on personal short term needs. Globally we hopelessly observe desperate hand wringing and inconsequential action with resignation.
The Love Party
this kiss, first of spring
two lovers, lives joined as one
sparks - The Love Party
On a perfect spring day the wedding takes place. The setting a pillow soft grassy sward of green subtly dappled by the fresh blooming leaves and branches above. This verdant carpet gently slopes down to the tumbling Spring Creek below. Running water creates a tinkling backdrop to a natural amphitheatre.
The semi circular gathering of friends, family and other loved ones is awash with anticipation. The new season’s golden sunshine adds to the warm inner glow in which each soul present dreamily basks.
A murmur precedes a parting, a joyous gasping announces the arrival of two brilliant smiles on radiant faces. Black patent leather shoes and open white sandals step gracefully down the way. The crisp pin striped navy suit attired Emerald is arm in arm with Georgia in a shimmering white satin jacket and trousers that flash and ripple in the light breeze. Emerald and Georgia are married. They seal their commitment with their first married springtime kiss ..... and the three day Love Party begins.
Mish set this week’s d”Verse Haibun prompt. Check it out. https://dversepoets.com/2026/08/31/haibun-monday-wedding-bliss/
New thinking and processing required
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.
From our local conservation blog: Strathbogie Ranges Nature View.
Podcast Episode: deep dark blue
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.
Find the original poem here: https://poetography.ink/2026/05/19/deep-deep-blue/
no one is at home
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!
Another glorious Victorian walk.
Reblogged from Strathbogie Ranges Nature View, another walk worth a look..
in the doghouse
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
Strathbogie Ranges Nature View (SRNV)
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.
A Melbourne beaches walk from afternoon into the evening
missed
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
The last dune
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
choose your own future
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 lighthouse of ghosts
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.
Democracy, where for art thou?
"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:
The crossing
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!"
