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
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
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.
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
poetography.ink 