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Tag Archives: verse
In Forests #02
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St Paul’s
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Digital Parking Meters
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The Australian Darter
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The Violent sky
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My poetry
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Rumpus
I am going to tell you a story about what began, thus .,,,,
our underused garage became a room for rumpus.
Little did we anticipate the rowdiness it would encompass,
when rowdy young children began to rumpus plus plus!
Discuss the matter further we must.
This week Kim challenged we poets to craft a quadrille around the word “rumpus”. This is an almost true story. Only the children have changed. https://dversepoets.com/2025/08/25/quadrille-230-lets-kick-up-a-rumpus/
In_Forests_#01
Winter chills
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Room
There is a room in a house on a hill without doors
nobody knows what it was put there for
because nobody knows that it has no doors
the room in the house is alone and forlorn
trapped by its emptiness without any doors
never able to hope for better or more
ne’er an open door through which to explore
Ariel is submarine
Ariel was submarine once seen
where aquatic fossils scraped the sky
submarine is like a dream
of eternal meanderings passing by
like a book written within
like records of the past deep
until revealed or awoken
they have lain millennia asleep
Run river red run dry run dead
In the Valley there are few trees now
since white settlement the river gums have bled
steadily back into ever depleting soil
the dehydrating sap bleeding red
some majestic sentinels remain
on final watch across the floodplain
of gritty dust and cropped introduced grasses
as the parade of indigenous extinction passes
withdrawing from the flats
retreating across the hills
ascending to heaven after suffering grave ills
and the broken remnains of centuries of trees
stand skeletal or lie shattered on the ground
as if awaiting a last chance for redemption
after each falling whoosh and final thump of sound
in atonement for overseeing the loss of forest
they crave to protect their young who escape the cut
of plough or chainsaw or grazing teeth they
enfold survivors in fractured parental branches
fostering the roots beneath
attempting nurture of trunk and leaf
but they have nothing left to bequeath
to young individuals left standing exposed
to sadly age in grief
witness to a parasitic human occupation
a relentless quest by the future’s thief
Waterhole
Water water
in that hole
I see water in that hole
been so dry a heavy toll
now I see water in a hole
drinking drinking
drinking up
I keep drinking hands a cupped
all that water it’s going down
I keep drinking though it’s brown
walking staggering
just how far
to another waterhole reservoir
the door of hope is now ajar
waterholes be my repertoire
heat and sun
pounding down
no further waterhole to be found
in the lee of boulders I go to ground
to die in shade without a sound
Greta
What can you say our young assertive one
with the voice of an innocent and every reason to come
to the land of the people with the frozen tongues
did you hear the voices trapped in the throats of the speakers
the truthsayers the protesters the dumb and the seekers
what will you say my naive one
as a voice for the reticent who want to save their home
where no voices are heard and no listening is done
did you crack the blank shields of the riot police abashing
when your truth and your statements of the obvious were clashing
with the public dialogue of denial that’s in fashion
what do you now see my prescient soul
a world that is scared yet loudly condemning your role
contradiction abounds around what’s believed and is told
but you won’t close your mind your mouth or be controlled
because the need is the need of a world being sold
where ascendant rejections of science’s findings
carry weight disproportionate to tomorrow’s unwinding
and the hope that was youth falls to systemic undermining
I hope that you stand up to the relentless grinding
for across the world there are still people who need you
to attack all the arguments of denial so feeble
they still rise to smother the planet in chaos and evil
but for your pluck and your courage your ability to needle
it does provide a check with words that are real
and challenges others to rise too and reveal
the lies and deception the denialists conceal
I hope and I wish you can change how they feel
what will you say next our young assertive one
If you didn't pick it up the rhythm is sort of set to Bob Dylan's A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall
Betrayal
Where did that government find such murderous intent
imprisoning and shooting their own wherever they went
exercising ruthless summary force
while advising its citizens they have no choice
venomous lies from forked tongues they let rip
their smirking mouths toxic with poisonous lips
vile spittle sprayed from the lips of autocracy
blurs the vision of the masses with talk of democracy
all the while weaponising the rule of law
where justice is now held in the tight grip of a claw
a new dark age is coming where information is missed
where manipulated voters are swayed by each Judas kiss
Red oxygen
Gaia is wounded, Mars beckons
blue is blue, red still angry
Gaia stains carbon black
Mars stained bloody red long ago
Gaia weeps for her children
potent lively lush and green
Mars impotent red rocks and dust
longs for his own offspring
Mars pleads save them Gaia
build great machines
oxygenate the red planet
with a new rusty sheen
Mars pleads save me Gaia
red oxygen
in your time of failing
save me from oblivion
Gaia harnesses depleted resources
Gaia cuts herself and tears
mother sacrifices for her children
Gaia strips herself bare
Her children develop red oxygen
designers discover scale
miners plunder her depths
engineers build to sail
Todays dVerse prompt from Sanna suggested sci fi poetry. I didn’t know it was a thing and now I am pleased to know it is a thing.
Belief
She doesn’t have faith like Jesus
But she does believe in love
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she does celebrate life
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she always tries to be kind
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she leads a generous life
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she worships nature and its gifts
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she volunteers and gives a bit
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she does believe in peace
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she can turn the other cheek
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she believes in equality for humankind
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but believes in freedom of speech and mind
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but believes in growing knowledge and skills
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but believes people should not kill
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but believes in doing good and always will
she doesn’t have faith like Jesus
but she should be honoured still
Written for the dVerse challenge from Andrew. When we take up poetic arms in any cause, we are trusting that “the pen is mightier than the sword!”
Ink
As I write
I’m in between
the space of work
and home yet seen
I fill my time
in this nowhere land
writing poetry
without a brand
brandless poetry
there’s a thought
cos without a brand
it comes to nought
do I care?
not really no
I do it for pleasure
not for the show
but if I’m honest
I’d like it seen
by some of the public
ah, that’s just a dream
I sit on the train
I write in between
I write and think
what does it mean
this purposeless ink?
Thanks to Dora. This week’s dVerse poetics challenge was to use the concept of liminal in a work. I found myself writing in exactly that space, as I often do. Sorry, I missed the Mr Linky cut though!
Rain
The people are raining in bits and blobs
the rain is red bled tears and sobs
the people are flying up through the sky
arcing like rag dolls to heights very high
the thunder is frightening the lightning is death
the people are dying taking last breaths
fleshy lumps are dropping back to their berth
with fractured bones falling to rattle the earth
the children are worst as their bodies burst
with each new detonation another curse
as the soldiers wade through the carnage they create
claiming it’s orders no difference can they make
instructions come from those sitting above
but the executioners fit in with them hand in glove
while mothers cry and fathers weep
some bodies may heal but other scars run deep
and the harm ensures an eye for an eye
more and more people will rain from the sky
Melissa’s dVerse prompt for we poets today references the surrealism of Rene Magritte. I chose the painting Golconda (1953) of raining men to address the terrible wars around the globe and our repeated failure to learn the lessons of history.
Lover’s leap
L is for love’s early phase, all hot and bothered
all fractious, disruptive restless, in doubt
E is for eliciting confirmation from others
who tell you it’s real, dubious or not
A is for arrow straight through the heart
the pain of the piercing love’s peculiar stress
P is for pain-free when new love departs
established and certain is when love is best
This week Lisa appropriately asked we dVerse poets to use the leap year as a prompt. https://dversepoets.com/2024/02/27/dverse-poetics-tuesday-2024-poets-leaping/
Angel
Angel carry your heavy payload
until god asks for it one day
Angel bitter, discard your halo
throw it worlds away
Angel fly to heaven above
dive to hell below
Angel receive peace from a dove
or scavenge it from a crow
Angel weep soul deep
until your very last breath
Angel sleep the long sleep
pray yourself to death
Angel just Angel lust Angel thrust
Angel sing Angel cling Angel wring
Angel must Angel bust Angel dust
Angel wing left wing right wing broken wing
Angel nothing
The dVerse prompts from Melissa today were inspired by Kurt Cobain’s birthday. I chose to take one line from a Nirvana song and reflect on the feelings that might drive a suicide. It was a harrowing exercise and I am sorry if it causes hurt. https://dversepoets.com/2024/02/20/happy-birthday-kurt🎉/
The mariner
I navigate life as a mariner
sailing unpredictable seas
Respectful yet wary
of what they might bring to me
the sea is my natural element
alternating tranquility with power
for me there is no better firmament
to anchor each ticking hour
the waves provide each peak and trough
of life’s brief and epic journeys
that for me is always enough
with the pleasure and pain they have earned me
afloat I bob between the layers of over and undersea
in my boat my capsule of life I bob most jauntily
when l’m aloft the view ahead is a matter of degree
when down below the view is fine,not seen murkily
time will come I’ll be called down deep by Davy Jones
my time of clear air or storms on water will be done
I’ll find a sandy bed to rest and place my ageing bones
afar from the binding land, eyes dead to the blinding sun
My insouciant self
I cherish my insouciant self
The one who never worries me
I treat this careless one as health
whose world is anxiety free
without this one where would l be?
walking around with a frown
but my insouciant self helps me see
how to turn that frown upside down
The truck
Down upon him the big rogue truck bore
Last thoughts were of those he adored
of her and those eyes so deep and brown
he fell in love with those eyes one night on the town
of the lithe girl in the backyard playing with cars
of the teenage boy inside playing his guitars
of the home he loved for its warmth and welcome
whenever he arrived back from long hauls and then some
there was the dog with tail wagging
as she greeted him excitedly
and the chooks out the back he greeted politely
what would become of his family and home
how could he leave them to fend on their own?
then the truck veered wildly missed by an inch
so close, so close no time to flinch
he shook with shock he shook with fear
he looked at his life and all he held dear
he knew what to do right away
the way ahead was clear
poetography.ink 