Hello out there. Soon, my Real Poetry Movies and short stories. Cheers
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Melbourne is my favorite city and much of my writing is inspired by our southern dame. I have four books of poetry available and now I'm working on a short story collection.This pic was taken in my backyard when Bella arrived home from Berlin in August. My books can be bought at Collected Works Bookshop, Swanston St Melbourne city.
Friday, October 26, 2012
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Some poems from ‘Love Poet Live’ Eaglemont Press. 2002.
The poem
Welcome to the last, great,
Non-commercial art form.
Unremarked, unsung, I am rare.
Oxygen, in the swamp of images.
Gaze on these words, reckon
How deep you can go into my dream.
Immerse in my clear stream,
Nourish the meadows of your attention.
Listen to my water song
And drink deeply.
Escape in me to other worlds, where I whisper
Silk across your skin, drip plum juice off your chin.
If you are uncomfortable here,
Let me walk with you, I will be your guide.
The way to read a poem is often.
Walk with me often to the end
Where I will leave you,
Your heart full, my burden eased.
Anthem of my question
What is this Australia
In vision blooming our 21st century republic.
What is this Australia
Invaded and inflicted by genocide
We cringed under the colonial lash.
Exiled in chains over cruel oceans we came
Time and time again destitute, convicts,
soldiers, slaves, freemen, migrants, refugees
braving oceans, braving oceans for freedom.
What is this Australia
The gold miners at Ballarat rising up
In republican frustration
dying at Eureka Stockade
lost the fight, won the day, light of my way.
What is this Australia
Throwing their youth into hell’s throat
On the futile beach-head of Gallipoli.
The war to end all wars decimated my ancestors
My mother was three before she saw her father
Home, intact but his belief forever shaken.
What is this Australia
Grandfather showed me
The Tatungalung camp obliterated
To make way for the Stratford
His neighbours, the fathers, sons, settlers
Poisoning, shooting, murdering, raping
The People of the Land.
What is this Australia
Under my fingernails, under my feet
The rich, deep dirt of Ballarat.
Over my head the Southern Cross
Stars in my eyes my country.
What is this Australia
Dog-shaped, weather-shaped, continent of millennia.
This is the paradox I live and die for.
My parents who raised eleven children
who suffered the Depression
two world wars
the birth of the bomb
fifties Catholicism
mass migration
born before television.
What is this Australia
Born of soiled goods and blood on our book
Believing in freedom above all the rest.
My people who found their heart
Through poetry and sport.
Who found their mind
through gambling and politics.
And who found the vision of their republic
Through Mabo and multiculture.
What is this Australia
It is the nation of the people of the Earth.
Journey to freedom
The pen stumbles across the paper desert.
The thirst that produces mirages propels
The hand searching for the words
To slake a parched mind, soften a cracked tongue.
The compulsion to hear the music of a street
Slipping down the valleys to a city where
A river running through builds and speaks of
Its journey to freedom in your arms.
From - Aphorism suite.
Feet
Not so strange a place
to carry one’s soul.
Alcoholism
Jesus, the trick is,
to turn the wine
into water . . .
Sticks and Stones . . .
What a wonder, the sound and plunder
that comes from a man with war in his mouth.
But words alone never broke a bone,
for wearing vulgar slander,
truly makes one stronger.
Depression
The trick is
To realise there are
Two sides to you.
How you feel inside
And how your friends see you.
You feel like
A crumpled piece of paper.
Your friends say you are wonderful.
Believe your friends.
(From ‘Love Poet Live’ Eaglemont Press. 2002)
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