a crackle of cockatoos & deafening smoke feathers take on the gore flint sharp, the white-hooked scream Written for Sarah's dVerse poetics. "the 4 elements"
Category: bushfires
Sanctuary Walk
as we walk the ancients shriek feathered song of dinosaurs and in the pond, a rippled grey sky white butterflies' irregular ascent soft handed clouds blindfold the mountains i turn away from information boards extinction: the past's blunt tail a black swan dives and dives dripping from beak's red blade in my wrinkled heart a … Continue reading Sanctuary Walk
Two Years After the Fires
(i) on the ridges trees in death black arms still flexed for holding up the sky but it falls strung between them whitely broken such soft caressing of their limbs now rain comes the marching of time slick silver arrows (ii) we walk in a valley torn flat trees prostrated by flood the tinny upper … Continue reading Two Years After the Fires
that clown
the young man that clown lit match between thumb and forefinger pretending incomprehension as he dances swifter than blown shadows cackling like the dry boughs and the snuff of leaves his eyes caught flames of glee his pupils wick focused that lit match flickering licking fondly redly between thumb and forefinger and crackling in the … Continue reading that clown
The Stepmother’s* Wardrobe
after a spring when fashion turned to yellow in ever-dying shades and Earth’s red bones broke through a tearless anorexic world the queen with flair mis-spelled, chose a wardrobe of vibrant, silky scraps ballooning spinnakers of ripping orange and jibs in singing blue out-prisming autumn but smoking to black (a cinematic feat) that was what … Continue reading The Stepmother’s* Wardrobe
Summer
This is what I remember: forty degrees and a Halloween glow at 6pm; we took our children up Mt Ainslie to see a city under siege - the sewer brown smoke bloodying the sun. The lake dread gold, Tolkien's Smaug unleashed summer ashes raining Written for dVerse's Monday Quadrille "Ash"
The Place We Live
The sun sits in leaky splendour; watermelon juice staining this upholstery this smog brown décor this Faberge sunset this velveteen smoke haze. A cloying choice but here we all sit in our plush living room our shrine of consecrated ignorance and listen to the clock and the crackle roar of our future. Written for Misky's … Continue reading The Place We Live
They Have Hearts Too
pour happy thoughts into your breakfast bowl that summer mayn't dry out hope leaving it on footpaths adrift amongst the stepping stone madness of commuter feet try looking for a moment through the spectrum of flowers petal art by vein they have hearts too open to the sun begging for bees and if they wilt … Continue reading They Have Hearts Too
Things that Pass
It was said that all things must pass: the big wheels turning, turning over the drought-lands, the down-and-out lands cattle skeletons ploughed in like rotted ships fence-posts - frayed and far-fetched zippers - dragging lines of wind-sawn wire – dun and drear the fierce fires rolling, roiling wanton flames - the lunge and buck, the … Continue reading Things that Pass
The House at No. 3
Seventeen years ago a roar engulfed the singing pines - countless breaths exhaling the needle sting of smoke. They stood in shredded funeral garb flinging glowing ember flowers onto us below. They witnessed our syncopated falling and the operatic scream of twisting steel, the cymbal crash of exploding windows. We knelt prostrate before the fire bowed and broken: an army in black surrender. Up on the hill, now between the sleek sheets of glistening modernity and long embedded gardens, I am still here. The run-away grass (that feathered doom) tickles my concrete pad. The triad tongues of fire, water & tanin have left printed shadows and the jagged prod of steel beams into nothing is my toothy skyline. The house that was.
A True Story
Summer and if the sun were a smoker its ankle would be twisting its knee describing satisfying arcs as it squashed us butts under its big chunky-soled boot but it's not the sun that's smoking. We've been to the markets and we're walking back to the car grass crunching underfoot like natural-grown cellophane. Rain has … Continue reading A True Story
Looking Back
such a summer ripe with wetting fattened fruits primed for netting I saw the moon had grown mouldy dully grey and rumpled oldly cockies shrieking raucous, shocking days aprick with grass seeds, socking humid shroud of air that holds me ropes of rain plunging boldly pinned and damp as limping moth ‘neath the sky, its … Continue reading Looking Back
Tanka
Mountain shrouds rising behind trees’ black, dead-armed scream. River’s rush below. My tears are for the wombats... all wildlife who starved or burned My first attempt at a Tanka - a Japanese poetry form explained by Ingrid at EIF.
An Instant Library
Recently, my parents acquired a book put together by their community about the fires and then the floods which swept through the area last summer. People contributed photos and stories of their experiences. The book shows humans doing their best in a world turned totally crazy. On their faces are fear, sadness, determination, and hope. … Continue reading An Instant Library
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling this way…
Fandango’s Flashback Friday (only I’m late because we were away for the weekend) suggests posting a blog from this date on a previous year. I don’t have Friday’s exact date but this is only one day out. I hope you enjoy…
I
hate this wind and the brown sky and the pluming brown dust and the
brown, brown oval… except where the sprinkler has leaked and there
is a patch of rich green – a puddle reflecting what used to be.
The
scraping leaves exfoliate my heart like an acid. On days like to
today (today, when it was supposed to rain) I find it so hard to
believe that everything will be okay.
As
I walked this morning, a few spats of rain found their way to the
ground, like salt on a meal. When I got home I looked at the radar.
Down south, there is rain. So that is something.
Yesterday
at the fruit shop, the cashier lady, just returned from 6 weeks “at
home” in Bhutan commented that “compared to home, Australia is a
desert”. She landed, on Friday, in Sydney, thinking it an overcast
day, expecting…
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Spirit
What is this "human spirit" this mysterious, awesome thing? It's basically an iron stake to which the injured cling. We're proud of our "resilience" (our giant brains love words) but frankly our self obsession is verging on absurd. Our spirit is definitely human: that's obvious to me but the spirit part is not unique! It's … Continue reading Spirit
The House at No. 3
Seventeen years ago a roar engulfed the singing pines - countless breaths exhaling the needle sting of smoke. They stood in shredded funeral garb flinging glowing ember flowers onto us below. They witnessed our syncopated falling and the operatic scream of twisting steel, the cymbal crash of exploding windows. We knelt prostrate before the fire … Continue reading The House at No. 3
Australia’s Summer
I cannot forget your steely-white glare; the too-hot press of you against my skin. My body contracted until cracks appeared. Plants wilted, waterholes sucked in and my body fissured abandoned to exuberant wind and the angry roar of carbon-crazed dragons. The smoke rolled over us all like hell's too-slow envoy. Before it, a syndicate of … Continue reading Australia’s Summer
Waiting..
(I wrote this for a competition in which there was a 1000 word limit. It didn't win so, several months later, I think I will publish it here.) It turns out that waiting is the hard part. You decide that waiting needs to be redefined to mean “empty space; opportunity for useless worry.” As the … Continue reading Waiting..
Living in 2020
We started with fires and then muddy mires, then a lockdown of worldwide trade Then Scomo's spat with China, well that's nothing minor when your economy needs First Aid. And now... what the blazes? So many malaises! It's that incorrigible school house pot. Most of the nation in enforced isolation but it seems the … Continue reading Living in 2020
I Love Winter
Under this aluminium sky the day feels blank as a factory wall. The chickens fluff fatly keeping busy in the sunless dirt. The washing hangs limp and two dimensional in front of the enthusiastic budding of the Magnolia. It is winter with its grumpier face on. Pretty tame, you have to say, compared to … Continue reading I Love Winter
An Open Letter
Dear Prime Minister Morrison, I am not a supporter of yours but I have been pretty impressed with how you have dealt with COVID19. And for me, the big difference is that you have listened to experts. It seems to be a common malfunction among Australian managers in general (and politicians in particular) that they … Continue reading An Open Letter
Weather the weather
So P is outside raking leaves. "What?" I hear you say. "I thought you said it was summer!" Too right. The summer has been too hot for our plane tree. About 70% of its leaves turned yellow and fell. Our front yard is deep in browned leaves. It really looks autumnal. Of course, we have … Continue reading Weather the weather
The Onceler
Today as I ate my lunch I spoke to Mum. She told me about the distress of visiting their neighbour whose property was at the point where two big fires converged. She told me about all the dead wildlife - possums, roos, wombats and a wallaby barely able to hop who they couldn't help. … Continue reading The Onceler
January
Tomorrow is the last day of January. What a hell of a January it has been. And I mean hell as in hellish. There have been a few redeeming moments but in general I would rate it as one of the worst months of my life. A few people have said to me (making contact … Continue reading January
A Personal Peek
P has done real battle now. He has been there on the front among 30 foot flames, writhing fire hoses, heat, choking smoke, his hat struck by water from the water bombers, glad for the cool reprieve, too awash with adrenaline to feel fear or exhaustion. He has looked after a man who forgot to … Continue reading A Personal Peek