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
It happens on shuffle about two am the mushrooms kick in and I’m back again there are cartoon tug boats pulling cars up Elizabeth Street and on the corner with Bourke we finally meet you’re the she devil waiting on the stairway down I see you and I want to run but there’s only water above ground
my next decision anchors me to your face and my fate your forked tongue a serpent flickers like a snake then you grab me by the arm and march me straight to the pit where we romp and we stomp to a demonic beat I look around for the band but they’re across the the street I squint and I lean over oh my god it’s Canned Heat the boogie is like music no one has ever played before my head is grooving in a groove demanding more and more
the shots keep on coming the baskets of joints the buckets of mushrooms all make their point I’m driven I’m driving the boats make bow waves sloshing against car doors wipers swishing at rain there are clowns in the building with clown smiles on clown heads their clownish white faces fill me with dread then the road starts unwinding like a ribbon in the wind I’m on it then I’m off it then I’m back on again
but the buildings have gone there’s just more water and waves the car wallows I flounder wondering will I be saved as the light in the sky gets wrapped like a present and the ribbon like road forms a bow for an instant before everything lurches the world tilts and I merge with blackness then foliage because I miss the next curve
there’s a thumping on the roof by a man in a dressing gown there’s blood on my face from my head running down there are broken teeth in my mouth making me spit but the fog in my head means I just sit and sit I see a smoking red engine wrapped round an ethereal tree which like the devil woman it seems was keen to meet 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!
I will not go back, I will not go back I will not go back because my mother died when I was a child and my father became so absent he might as well have left at the same time
it is not as if there was a family left around which to gather and share lives, hurts and hopes because looking after myself became my only hope
it is not as if there was a safe front door I could walk through any time of day or night because the front door was closed and I was not offered a key
it is not as if there was an alternative refuge which I could call my own because he gave any potential space away along with everything else
it is not as if there was a paternal welcome ever awaiting me because he usually didn't even bother to show up
no, I will not go back. I will not go back I will not go back because now he is dead even the false hope has gone
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
My father's death still bothers me because I think it’s a sin to die after 68 years of fathering without letting your boy in
and I see him as doubly negligent to have lost his mind in the end so that the only time I got to share with him was when he was beyond ever becoming a friend
I am partly responsible for giving up trying since I recognised his absence from my life and now I also resent his absence by dying as much as I resented in me his lack of faith
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
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.
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.
Journey of my heart Cruel and toxic broken part Black heart poison dart
My self inflicted trauma is become a deep dark relentless melancholy. I fall dizzyingly into omnipresent guilt. With you I became a madman without you nothing no one.
Your pain my journey of meaninglessness. An ever increasing blank space of loneliness my destination. I steadily fade from the light until I am no longer visible at all. My self destruction.
I could not save myself even if I wanted to. I descend to my end. I spiral into a cycle of self loathing and misery. I am left ever alone in the company only of justifiable self contempt and vitriolic spite.
My own worst enemy. Your worst enemy. Me.
I will never recover from what I did to you. In my heart only jealousy. In my possessiveness only violence. A masquerade of love.
My black heart to blind to see. A journey to your death was always a journey to my death. Now willingly.
Approaching my death Is no natural cycle I made this happen
A response to Frank’s d”Verse Haibun prompt “journeying”.
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.
Everywhere I go I find John Keats at restaurants at shows at poetry meets I ask him from whence do you come good sir he lowers his eyes and ponders from where clearly I come from what is my history why here why now and why to you is no mystery
I come from the 19th century when poetry was proper from a time of common dying of virulent smother and though my living was done in joy and in haste a short life so full but a future laid waste I feel grievous loss of what could have been further words of nourishment through me were to be seen
i see my poetry lives on but with it I as a ghost a poet lost to the world mere transient host of love truth and wisdom beyond my young years spoken words and transcripts for the world’s longing ears such that when it comes to longing I am the best thus I cannot I will not lay my purpose to rest
so I have found thee my muse my restless spirit to guide I will occupy you as poet and create from inside your already worthy and agile mind a readily moldable person generous and kind one prepared to work throughout night and through day to fulfil a life’s vision for a last stand and I say an influence I will exert I no malign despot just there to whisper words lost to time is my plot
my muse will know human hearts and souls to the core and my muse will channel poetry such as never heard before my muse will be one with me in spirit and in word opening minds to joyous wonder at every utterance heard but with my haunting alas comes an ever pungent smell of death thus I propose when done to bequeath to my muse a full life’s fragrant breath
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
The water is still a deep deep blue giant distant mountains are blue too there’s a pretty wooden jetty for me to sit on with you in your light cotton dress broad bands of blue
the sky is picture perfect blue there’s an old rowing boat tied up too it’s blue
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
you knew
a chill wind blew an icicle dart straight through my heart pumping vital red to sluggish dying blue
the world around me turns dread blue I feel it mind and body through like a heaviness I can’t escape a smothering blue oppressive weight
on this warm picture perfect blue summer’s day sitting beside you deep dark blue and frozen to a jetty pretty above turbulent water dark deep blue I discover your love is no longer true
My name is loss I come to you when all you have had is crumbling when all you have given is riven with me loss is humbling
my name is grief and I bear the pain of loss when you are humbled beyond belief when you thought you would be always proud and strong I am here to tell you that you were wrong
my name is relief when comes a day you realise that grief will eventually deliver a clearway a freedom from regret at losing what you had gained losses your mind held and retained these burdens your cross until you find you can accept loss
my name is acceptance where past material possessions and anxieties prove hollow where a hopeful path is a worthy path to follow where reflective plans present themselves as many possible futures where eventual understanding of loss the future nurtures and our transient presence can still be an enriching presence a new time we have in which to live to love enjoy feel touch smell hear see and give
A little pain alerts me to a risk unto my life a larger pain unnerves me causing misery and strife a debilitating pain is unnecessary by any worth or measure I wish such pain revised to a commensurate pleasure
why severe pain exists at all is a mystery to me none can understand or explain its crippling purpose satisfactorily the great joy of childbirth is excessively marred for the mother oft the exhausting process of dying is complicated by many ways to suffer
the unlimited pain reflex is a blight on the human experience think how well a mild pain cap would make significant difference why does this exaggeration of a mindful tool become a sensory debilitation raging until done?
it’s only conceivable purpose is to be weaponised by some to torment and torture others until they do what they are bidden or for a perverted sense of fun
I say cut the neural pathways of terrible unbearable pain and let us be the masters of our lives relieved of such a bane
The god above is all seeing the god of love permits hate the god of kindness promotes suffering the god of justice encourages restraint the god all knowing refuses the future the god of intervention awaits on fate the god of forgiveness exercises judgement on the select souls who make it to heaven’s gate
I am attaching a trigger warning here. This poem is about witnessing a death under horrible circumstances. All too often such deaths are afterward referred to as part of a generalised experience that denies the raw truth of severe witness trauma. A truth that is embedded not just in loss, but also in living with the graphic detail.
I remember that awful December, when bushfire turned our world to cinder. Ah yes, I remember, I saw her surrounded by brilliant embers, alight on the burning grass. With shaded eyes I approached her, willing the fire to pass. But her eyes repelled me as she was torched, boiling as she screamed. I saw them dripping, down scorched cheeks they streamed in streaks that never made it to the ground. Only then did she fall. Only smoke for a pall. Never again to be around.
God bless my daughter. I’ll never forget her. To her spirit I remain eternally bound.
I don’t believe I have heard someone else recite one of my poems before, let alone so insightfully analyse it. Nigel has done both and I am very grateful for his sincere dedication to the task. As with other poet’s works he has explored, I think it makes for a worthwhile listening and reading experience. Thank you for the honour of hosting one of my pieces of work and taking such good care of it Nigel. I am honoured.
