The joyful bush rings
With clear voice melodious
A Gray Shrike-thrush sings
Gray shrike-thrush
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Tag Archives: Photography
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.
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..
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!"
flowers
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?
upside city view
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
Landscapes
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).
Hey na vro po
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
Autumn Haiku #01 (revisited)
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