Clover Hitch the clover is in full reach again path’s curve swoons beneath and when rain gallops a million pale dots across the park I see little white flowers fragmented by the storm spring gathers what summer deploys At dVerse this week, Bjorn asks us to create our own aphorisms. I came up with "Spring … Continue reading #dVerse Aphorisms
Spring comes. And with it a silent drift of gold. I sing the old John Williamson song about Cootamundra Wattles and take too many photos of their great yellow tassels. I find their echoes later around finger prints on the car. Adrift, adrift. We don’t know what we breathe until it lands on the right … Continue reading Cootamundra Wattle
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"
The Scratch a face // the colour of porridge gone cold we’re all spun // wool in a ball ‘til the inner cat comes silent pounce draws blood unravelling tide and dreams: red plastic envelopes // hanging on the line type O+ is harder to find written for whimsygizmo's dVerse quadrille "type"
Shoal Cloud periwinkle stars quilted and filtered squamous morsels light the tickled sand shadows twine and splice scales' pleated sheen a thousand bright flecks forming the dark fish shoal cloud rides the tide’s skin blowy as bird feathers carapaced in silver then surface whips white tipped fin & flip unfolding the eloquence of sharks written … Continue reading #dVerse Poetics – Fractals
we say: cast out the man with lantern eyes & brows spelling thunder who slows the deathly flooding in your child blood of blood, sweet woman count not the broken phials and strewn violence! banish him Ausländische Prinzessin! A mother's love is but hysteria. Written for the Sanaa's dVerse Quadrille prompt "Casting a Poetic Spell"
this wind kicks pieces of autumn through a slatted fence and my stratospheric eye chases neon in cerulean blue - orange pekoe stars from plane tree toss. this day is poised before a seasonal hand shakes down winter shutters, the rattle of bare wood and trigger breezes, sunken sky and the whip-snap of frost in … Continue reading Transition
The chicken preens. Filaments of skin, feather tip casings: fallen yellow like static on my sleeve. How readily it knows the art of being itself - a million tiny recollections of an unmet mother. But in the yard magpies ogle. I have my uses. written for dVerse Quadrille #151 (44 word poem including the word, … Continue reading Mothering a Chick
rain hangs like sifted chalk under park lights, still as drama the stage is set: dancers, strung like puppets from a drop-down sky black cat-suits two dimensional against luminescent green jewel-glint & risque poses only bedraggled bark ribbons give the trees away thunder applauds Written for Whimsygizmo's dVerse Quadrille - a 44 word poem including … Continue reading Night Act #Quadrille 150
Paint big ideas on the old blank sky paint them bright to catch the eye Paint some more and paint it large: paint the pollution from our cars and paint the sea a foaming brown and paint the greyness of our towns. Then paint some green in one small place to remind us of Earth’s … Continue reading Painting Hope
‘You all know the wild grief that besets us when we remember times of happiness.’– Ernst Junger, On the Marble Cliffs, John Lehmann, 1947 and so too the garden scrapped of colour the dry soil set to run up every limb and bough and leaf bushes of standing dust sepia shadows replacing bold ink lines … Continue reading Effacing Earth
#dVerse Synchronicity Poem In our dreams, the dregs of our fears unwashed by the gristle-eyed sun, take hold. “Sleep tight” we say, setting bones deep in feathery pillows... until hijacked spun into fear’s vortex, image after image on lidded screens. Horror a nine year old faces, from her own head, eclipsing rest, dark as bat … Continue reading Following them to Sleep
I watch him drum on every top rock or hip hop jazz or groove he’s on the move And melodies with easy sway, He hears his way. He’s in the flow, his body knows. He says his cells have formed a band. From eye to hand and tapping feet they all want beat. Written for … Continue reading Body Groove
to go home and cook dinner or to sit with my friend this unconcerned shade the netting pyramid covering camembert and Ritz biscuits and finely sliced pickled onion kambucha fridge cold the luxury of a sweating glass kids in eternal natter and splatter occupying the pool she brings out cooling ties for our necks and … Continue reading evening lazies
We walked into Christmas in the slow way that days do when you’re waiting. By five pm on Christmas Eve I could see the drag on my son’s face. I thought this time thing, it needs a new bus driver. Two weeks of crawl and the long long night-light shadows creeping into the hall from … Continue reading Haibun Monday – Celebration
stand gently here, my friend breathe listen after the storm two bottles, half empty produce a haunting song making harmonies like telephones lines tinselled with dripping light they're not entwined like lover trees but see them bathe taking on evening and sky's renaissance purple Written for Mish's dVerse Quadrille #142 (include the word tinsel)
the sun our fair weather friend agreed to an “in-spirit” contract whereby like bottled lemonade his fizz may be captured, flat-packed on roof-tops and then sipped straw-like through wires but some of us prefer, hands in pockets hunting for the gravy of burnt dinosaurs Written for dVerse - Linda's Quadrille prompt "Fair"
I’ve never found a four-leaf clover yet to wave around as evidence of luck; that’s not to say I feel at all bereft. Still, in patches, my hopeful eyes gets stuck. When hairy clouds leave dandruff on clover it glitters – zirconia - but soft and round. The leaves bedazzle - dainty flakes all over … Continue reading Leaving Clover #Novelinee
deep scuba sweep - generous void of undersea gloom down to strangled kelp and coral beaks’ nip. a clam’s stiff lips womp and steal my heart, blows hollow bubbles prismatic nothing ballooning in organ's place. meanwhile in sequestered dark, unforgiving ridges beat at my blood Written for dVerse's Quadrille Prompt "Heart"
crude wooden tripods stand tethered human pendulums swinging amongst fumes and fuming damming politicians and incandescent commuters damming the city’s arteries a timely attack the heart on the hill* bloodless while the body rages taut fists enacting death throes of a planet in need *Australia's Parliament House is commonly referred to as "the house on … Continue reading Extinction Rebellion
August follows from a grey and fearful July – the closed hatch of cities in lock-down. Concrete and buildings hunkered under shifty, flannelette skies. The grime of recycled messages from haggard, mesh-faced leaders. Closed front doors, a stultifying blank. Resentment breeds as fast as the virus itself. Different areas, different rules. Anger like pavement cracks … Continue reading August – Haibun Monday
One night, before I lost my hair, a very dear friend and I had a long online chat which had me in stitches. From picturing myself bald, with a tweed peaked cap and horn-rimmed glasses, we suddenly invented a whole new character - Alpatooti. This mysterious being brought me so much laughter - along with … Continue reading The Roller Ride
the smudge of time insouciant minutes like sentences missing punctuation the run or the muddle therein whittle time like a pencil tip watch grey curls fall littering white paper finger on pause I’m here until called a smudge of time insouciant minutes like sentences Written for dVerse Quadrille #130 include the word smudge
I sit, warmly blanketed, in a bland room. The dim light on the wall opposite is an assault on my closed eyes. There’s no clock and no windows. The air conditioning hums loudly for intervals and then cuts off. My eyes water but I don’t raise a hand to brush the liquid away. Sometimes I … Continue reading PET Scan
tiny baby eyes the colour of rain on the Brindabellas limpid pools placid in the churn of seaside rocks - the world unleashed around you eyes so big and still, they dwarfed your cheeks; drew me in captured me knitted blue innocent pouches the swimming sapphire trust I must try to live inside, to deserve … Continue reading The Blue Deal
dear moon, your full & timeless clock face lumbers sweetly to sky's zenith nightly to be clipped by nature's secateurs until in quiet arc you let blackness paint your trail. but such brief concession! re-seeding bravely unshyly reigniting unfurling, centripetal your stubborn orbit unmaimed Written for dVerse's Quadrille #127 Planting Seeds
My reflection is under threat like a bilby or a platypus. Sightings are getting rarer. In photos there’s a me I don’t remember with long legs and short shorts and shoes without socks before the spiders came and spun blue webs around my calves in thickly knotted thread Back then I dyed my hair (even … Continue reading My Reflection
Out of the Cave 