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.
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.
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
We look like fools and we feel like wraiths we slave in the fields we need a rest but the guards say we'll work on until our death
as the sun rises higher the temperature climbs the water warms we’re going out of our minds all for a few minor crimes the overseers's daughter she tempts our loins to add to our misery because she’s just fine
so I say to my neighbour I think it's time to make the move leave this behind i wait for the right moment to add crime on crime
with a pick I break the chains that bind and I leave that line without a sign determined to be the one that they never find
I run through the fields I run through the bush I run desperate I run in a rush in the furtherest place I find my kind I settle into my new life of crime upon crime
as the hunt goes on me they’ll never find because my escape was right my escape was a sign that day god smiled on me he had criminals on his mind and to criminals he was kind because god is merciful and god is just every now and then he looks also after us
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
Artist unknown (would love to credit). Photo taken on campus Australian National University, Canberra 2017.
I was twenty-six by the time I finally met him she introduced the man who took my place I know now she’ll never forget him I’m not even in the race so the last two years have been wasted since I was twenty-four I’ve grieved and sulked and mooched about waiting for another chance with her I was sure he was a loser maybe even someone like me someone just employed to amuse her just the way I was employed it’s now easy to see I loved her so much I fucked it up I let her keep me dangling on a string because she always hated to be on her own I never realised she was just using and then this other guy suddenly came on the scene I don’t even know where they met I was sure it wouldn’t last I’d just bide my time she’d drop him and forget but he’s actually a lovely guy polite confident and interested with a very handsome face I'll never be the man he is for her I'm so far off the pace and I hate the dude all over again because he reflects my humiliated disgrace
Could it be that I the purity in the sky should cast a discerning eye over my breeding stock of human worth my goods and chattels harvest of the earth?
Could it be that they have gone irrevocably astray despite my clear direction to follow my instruction my example to embrace peace and love as do I in heaven above?
Could it be that I master of earth and sky should punish the fear and loathing the hatred and the gloating in the name of God above despite my principle of love?
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?
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).
You're going to take nothing from no one because debts get in the way you're going to take nothing from no one so you can say the words you want to say never going to be part of society because in society you make mistakes your mistakes will be your own but you'll make the rest of us pay
you're not gonna let anyone ask about what made you so selfish and mean that stuff is for your mind only so the rest of us can’t twist your dreams you’ve turned away from science from politicians and academics mad you’ll make all your own decisions take responsibility for all you have and tell the rest of us crazy mixed up people .....
endlessly what to do ask us to think about consequences how they should be made up to you be the individuals you want us to be enjoy a state of narcissism ignore fake laws and social responsibility and never pay a tax again in this false deep state society you always challenge the facts even though facts keep the country afloat despite weight of your discredited attacks ever suspecting conspiracy afoot never recognising the rules that keep order and protect you ignore useful social tools to leave the rest of us a wreck in the name of sovereign citizenry seek to look only after yourself applying your proclivities exclusively to personal wants by stealth
take nothing from no one except defence roads and schools take nothing from no one because national interest is for fools take nothing from no one abuse generous public infrastructure take nothing from no one except sewers, clean streets and water take nothing from no one make your own rules then lecture the rest of us - better educated than you a pseudo educated creature
the rest of us appreciate degrees of being regulation bound we are more common sensible than you social media complainers with few justifications to be found so take nothing from nobody except all the things you need only take all the good stuff leave everyone else to bleed take nothing from no one and never think to give anything back you will keep taking all you want until cohesive society cracks
I haven’t been in the habit of submitting my writing to be published elsewhere. However, I was recently introduced to https://spillwords.com and thought the site looked like a good place to start. Happily, the editorial team chose to give me some space https://spillwords.com/author/seanmathews/ for my recent poem ‘two cups of tea.’ I am thankful for their encouragement. Maybe it is time to try more submissions.
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
poetography.ink 