The boats keep coming
Yes the boats keep coming,
Where do people go
When the Earth is full?
Some say take them
Other say no,
But where do they go
When the Earth is full?
There are not many tigers
There are not many tunas,
Where do they go
When we fill the Earth.
Are we all that matters
Is God's creation in tatters,
Where do we go
When the Earth is full?
Ian Matthews
25th October 2009.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
The Elusive Soul
Your warmth holds me,
I cannot see you,
Where art thou, O Soul,
Where doth thy hide?
I walk in pastures new
That now groweth old.
I return unto you
And cannot find thee.
In the hollows
In the woods
Where go you my Soul,
Why do I need you?
Within the pulse of life
The Soul hovers, nonchalant.
The threads of consciousness
Bind the Soul
Connect the Soul,
Where art thou now?
Amongst those twisted myrtles
In the ousing of the sphagnam moss.
In the chatter of the wrens
Or the songs of the seagulls,
Where go you O Soul,
Where do I find thee now?
In the graveyard
By the old yew tree
I glimpsed thee
In the ways of the past.
But the past is gone
And the Soul lives on, in the now.
Where art thou, O Soul,
Where art thou?
Soaring o'er the hills
Of my wanting.
Onward, past the trickling stream.
To the grant place of
Inner strength and light
O Soul, capture me.
Ian Matthews
25th October 2009.
I cannot see you,
Where art thou, O Soul,
Where doth thy hide?
I walk in pastures new
That now groweth old.
I return unto you
And cannot find thee.
In the hollows
In the woods
Where go you my Soul,
Why do I need you?
Within the pulse of life
The Soul hovers, nonchalant.
The threads of consciousness
Bind the Soul
Connect the Soul,
Where art thou now?
Amongst those twisted myrtles
In the ousing of the sphagnam moss.
In the chatter of the wrens
Or the songs of the seagulls,
Where go you O Soul,
Where do I find thee now?
In the graveyard
By the old yew tree
I glimpsed thee
In the ways of the past.
But the past is gone
And the Soul lives on, in the now.
Where art thou, O Soul,
Where art thou?
Soaring o'er the hills
Of my wanting.
Onward, past the trickling stream.
To the grant place of
Inner strength and light
O Soul, capture me.
Ian Matthews
25th October 2009.
Chicken Power
The pecking order's tough.
The going's sometimes rough
And at times
I can hardly see my way through.
I'm told to get real
I always thought that was the deal
Until it's me
Beginning to feel.
So the chicken makes a run
Away from the shun
To the world she knows so well.
It's a living hell
At times -
Stoicism and the like -
More's the pity really,
Cos the only thing
I know how to do
Is to give
Without strings
Without reason
Just to be.
But it's nothing but chicken shit out there,
The lucky ones find their roost
The others just seem to flap around
On the edge of that high, high ground.
Kym Matthews, 1995.
The going's sometimes rough
And at times
I can hardly see my way through.
I'm told to get real
I always thought that was the deal
Until it's me
Beginning to feel.
So the chicken makes a run
Away from the shun
To the world she knows so well.
It's a living hell
At times -
Stoicism and the like -
More's the pity really,
Cos the only thing
I know how to do
Is to give
Without strings
Without reason
Just to be.
But it's nothing but chicken shit out there,
The lucky ones find their roost
The others just seem to flap around
On the edge of that high, high ground.
Kym Matthews, 1995.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Estrangement
In the soft grey light of their awakening dawn
it began by simple means and unintended
easy stages. Sadly, they were ignorant
of its advancing, pernicious existence.
Each day they would walk happily together
while the imperceptible diverging of their path
was cunningly hidden, though they were
side by side in shared knowledge.
One step, one year, one lifetime,
soon they would be so far apart
their separateness would then
be finally understood by both.
From either end of that long corridor
they looked back towards each other
wondering at how they became so distant,
not worrying at how to become rejoined.
In the never-ending confusion of this conflict,
alienation became their abiding collaborator,
as the long years of indifference made their
lives more liveable and less caring for those others.
Their progeny willingly accepted the myths of
distrust spreading quickly with great assurance.
Lives lived in ignorance enhanced the mounting
strength of this powerful, destructive schism.
It has been far too long for any repair, the eons
have made sure, the distance too vast and
the estrangement complete from those companions,
who with us, once roamed this planet in harmony.
it began by simple means and unintended
easy stages. Sadly, they were ignorant
of its advancing, pernicious existence.
Each day they would walk happily together
while the imperceptible diverging of their path
was cunningly hidden, though they were
side by side in shared knowledge.
One step, one year, one lifetime,
soon they would be so far apart
their separateness would then
be finally understood by both.
From either end of that long corridor
they looked back towards each other
wondering at how they became so distant,
not worrying at how to become rejoined.
In the never-ending confusion of this conflict,
alienation became their abiding collaborator,
as the long years of indifference made their
lives more liveable and less caring for those others.
Their progeny willingly accepted the myths of
distrust spreading quickly with great assurance.
Lives lived in ignorance enhanced the mounting
strength of this powerful, destructive schism.
It has been far too long for any repair, the eons
have made sure, the distance too vast and
the estrangement complete from those companions,
who with us, once roamed this planet in harmony.
Exile Dreaming
Raindrops are dream carriers.
They fall and are walked on.
Dreams and raindrops,
all life is nourished by them.
Far away lies a dream,
will it fall from the skies?
O how the clouds were searched
and none was there
not even rain sometimes.
Beautiful rain, rain
to wash green into Eire hills.
Rain to make time pure,
while clouds travel the world,
like a dreamer never seeing
the new lands of the lonely.
Exiles are human raindrops,
soaking into the deserts of indifference,
mixed with the abundance of others
while seeking a new self. Are they
escaping from failure or success?
Some clouds float carelessly,
like lost butterflies, dancing
from sod and sweet flowers
to strangeness wherein they die
and more further go across
all the wide world to touch
other lands and seas for a time,
to sleep soundly and dream
On some Australian shore
or by red dust desert,
where wild sands whistle in the wind,
the tunes of loneliness. And others
upon the highest peak in far Tibet,
they think of home and cry a tear,
for Baile Ata Clait, that city
of ten thousand dreams and more,
or do they sail a ship into the
calling arms of Christ upon a hill
and mix in Rios joust?
Is this the cause that is made to die?
or some forgotten deed
a century gone by is thought,
while walking through some springtime field,
in some forgotten corner of the world.
In time, the dream of home
will shout around the world
being heard by each to each.
Then move they will once more,
to see again, with dimmed eyes of
distance things old and new,
friends forgotten
and remembered all again.
Ah! but distance moves so slowly,
time forever takes its hour
and all those wishes fail to make it real.
So, dreams like raindrops will come anew;
a kind of thinking in a half suspended mind,
that’s an exile dreaming, (I am sure),
for in that thinking and that dreaming,
are my hopes,
with all the prayers I say,
that one day,
I shall be amongst you once again.
Hills and fields of Ireland,
home to me.
They fall and are walked on.
Dreams and raindrops,
all life is nourished by them.
Far away lies a dream,
will it fall from the skies?
O how the clouds were searched
and none was there
not even rain sometimes.
Beautiful rain, rain
to wash green into Eire hills.
Rain to make time pure,
while clouds travel the world,
like a dreamer never seeing
the new lands of the lonely.
Exiles are human raindrops,
soaking into the deserts of indifference,
mixed with the abundance of others
while seeking a new self. Are they
escaping from failure or success?
Some clouds float carelessly,
like lost butterflies, dancing
from sod and sweet flowers
to strangeness wherein they die
and more further go across
all the wide world to touch
other lands and seas for a time,
to sleep soundly and dream
On some Australian shore
or by red dust desert,
where wild sands whistle in the wind,
the tunes of loneliness. And others
upon the highest peak in far Tibet,
they think of home and cry a tear,
for Baile Ata Clait, that city
of ten thousand dreams and more,
or do they sail a ship into the
calling arms of Christ upon a hill
and mix in Rios joust?
Is this the cause that is made to die?
or some forgotten deed
a century gone by is thought,
while walking through some springtime field,
in some forgotten corner of the world.
In time, the dream of home
will shout around the world
being heard by each to each.
Then move they will once more,
to see again, with dimmed eyes of
distance things old and new,
friends forgotten
and remembered all again.
Ah! but distance moves so slowly,
time forever takes its hour
and all those wishes fail to make it real.
So, dreams like raindrops will come anew;
a kind of thinking in a half suspended mind,
that’s an exile dreaming, (I am sure),
for in that thinking and that dreaming,
are my hopes,
with all the prayers I say,
that one day,
I shall be amongst you once again.
Hills and fields of Ireland,
home to me.
Saturday, September 5, 2009
Time and Motion Study
A love song to my husband
Note: If anyone should think this poem is a strange way to express one's love for one's husband, please be reassured. It reflects our sense of humour. And its essence is truthful.
To start at the beginning:
What force transcribes our lives?
What planets collide to change
the course of ants?
What casual occurrence aeons ago
determines our path?
My mother had plenty to say:
“You could have had anyone, if you’d
only wear make-up.”
She had a list—descending, of course:
• A doctor, not in Obstetrics
• A lawyer, not Jewish
• A rich American, not Mormon
• A nice man in middle management.
My husband failed the grade.
But I, desperate and dateless at 39,
took him on.
He told his mother we had met
on Perfect Match, where I was Number 3.
He told me he had money.
He told me the planets had collided
and our fate forged in the fires within.
So be it.
If dogs at airports were trained
to sniff out losers
they would stop at John and bark.
I look at the Milky Way and question
the arbitrariness of life:
distant, indifferent planets colliding away,
making of us what they will.
Down here, off-course as usual,
we toast the kindness of stars.
Cathy McCallum
Note: If anyone should think this poem is a strange way to express one's love for one's husband, please be reassured. It reflects our sense of humour. And its essence is truthful.
To start at the beginning:
What force transcribes our lives?
What planets collide to change
the course of ants?
What casual occurrence aeons ago
determines our path?
My mother had plenty to say:
“You could have had anyone, if you’d
only wear make-up.”
She had a list—descending, of course:
• A doctor, not in Obstetrics
• A lawyer, not Jewish
• A rich American, not Mormon
• A nice man in middle management.
My husband failed the grade.
But I, desperate and dateless at 39,
took him on.
He told his mother we had met
on Perfect Match, where I was Number 3.
He told me he had money.
He told me the planets had collided
and our fate forged in the fires within.
So be it.
If dogs at airports were trained
to sniff out losers
they would stop at John and bark.
I look at the Milky Way and question
the arbitrariness of life:
distant, indifferent planets colliding away,
making of us what they will.
Down here, off-course as usual,
we toast the kindness of stars.
Cathy McCallum
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
And The Band Played On
A true story.
Grandpa Jimmy, my Grandpa Jimmy -
Quick as a flash he would shimmy
Up rope ladders and along wet planks
To slam white hot rivets in the cold steel flanks
Of the massive hull held in the slip -
The fastest, biggest ever ship.
Grandpa Jimmy, toughest of men.
Plater. Belfast. 1910.
Grandpa Jack, my Grandpa Jack -
Full speed ahead, on course, on tack
He upped anchor to explore the world
Wherever the Union Jack unfurled.
A merchant sailor born to roam -
Rarely, hardly ever, home.
Grandpa Jack, no man's fool.
1912. Liverpool.
One built the ship, one joined the crew,
Though neither man the other knew.
But not for Grandpa Jack the thrill
Of her maiden voyage – he called in ill.
With pomp and cheers she sailed away -
And though he thought he'd rue the day
There came the ice, the fear, the panic:
The ship Jimmy built was named Titanic.
John McCallum 2009
Grandpa Jimmy, my Grandpa Jimmy -
Quick as a flash he would shimmy
Up rope ladders and along wet planks
To slam white hot rivets in the cold steel flanks
Of the massive hull held in the slip -
The fastest, biggest ever ship.
Grandpa Jimmy, toughest of men.
Plater. Belfast. 1910.
Grandpa Jack, my Grandpa Jack -
Full speed ahead, on course, on tack
He upped anchor to explore the world
Wherever the Union Jack unfurled.
A merchant sailor born to roam -
Rarely, hardly ever, home.
Grandpa Jack, no man's fool.
1912. Liverpool.
One built the ship, one joined the crew,
Though neither man the other knew.
But not for Grandpa Jack the thrill
Of her maiden voyage – he called in ill.
With pomp and cheers she sailed away -
And though he thought he'd rue the day
There came the ice, the fear, the panic:
The ship Jimmy built was named Titanic.
John McCallum 2009
Happenstance
Driving home from Weldborough
Taking the back road at the top of the Pass,
The air was thick with moisture
Misty rain was delicate, but didn't last.
The mist started to clear on descent
Past the quarry and over Crystal Creek,
The trees were glistening with raindrops
As the low cloud clung to the peaks.
Then suddenly I was startled by an Emu
That shot out from the old Liberator mine,
It charged off in front of the car
Its legs strutting long and in perfect time.
But the Tasmanian Emu is extinct
What was it doing up here.
No camera to record the incident
No one will believe me, I swear.
The Emu legged it at break neck pace
Forty kilometers as I descended downhill,
Glancing its head I caught its eye
But it run on with an Emu's will.
Crossing over the swift running Groom
It skidded right into the old bridge track,
Then doubled back up the hill behind me
It stood to catch its breath as I walked back.
As I moved closer it crossed the river
Into the bush from whence it came,
An escaped pet I wagered as I got into the car
Continuing home as it started to rain.
Ian Matthews.
Taking the back road at the top of the Pass,
The air was thick with moisture
Misty rain was delicate, but didn't last.
The mist started to clear on descent
Past the quarry and over Crystal Creek,
The trees were glistening with raindrops
As the low cloud clung to the peaks.
Then suddenly I was startled by an Emu
That shot out from the old Liberator mine,
It charged off in front of the car
Its legs strutting long and in perfect time.
But the Tasmanian Emu is extinct
What was it doing up here.
No camera to record the incident
No one will believe me, I swear.
The Emu legged it at break neck pace
Forty kilometers as I descended downhill,
Glancing its head I caught its eye
But it run on with an Emu's will.
Crossing over the swift running Groom
It skidded right into the old bridge track,
Then doubled back up the hill behind me
It stood to catch its breath as I walked back.
As I moved closer it crossed the river
Into the bush from whence it came,
An escaped pet I wagered as I got into the car
Continuing home as it started to rain.
Ian Matthews.
Happenstance
All of life is a happenstance
From the first day of breath
We meet and mingle, fall in and out
Of contacts, til our death.
A birthday celebration seals the fate
A troubled call to triple 0 -
Dealing with other families
Bloomsday cheerios.
Births, deaths, divorce and marriage
Act as the humanist glue -
Humans, like atoms, buzzing about
Upon the planet so blue.
The world revolves in chaotic theory
No order with a God.
Divine providence and destiny here?
Just too many peas in a pod!
Kym Matthews
14th August 2009.
From the first day of breath
We meet and mingle, fall in and out
Of contacts, til our death.
A birthday celebration seals the fate
A troubled call to triple 0 -
Dealing with other families
Bloomsday cheerios.
Births, deaths, divorce and marriage
Act as the humanist glue -
Humans, like atoms, buzzing about
Upon the planet so blue.
The world revolves in chaotic theory
No order with a God.
Divine providence and destiny here?
Just too many peas in a pod!
Kym Matthews
14th August 2009.
Thursday, August 27, 2009
A couple of contributions from Bill Guy on the theme of 'Shopping' from the last session of the Aldinga group:
SHOPPING, ANCIENT AND MODERN
Once were hunter-gatherers,
Sliding through the bush with spear,
Stalking prey in cautious silence,
Taking aim while quelling fear.
Now we’re merely tame consumers,
Trundling down the aisles with trolley,
Snatching pre-packed meat or fish,
Scooping sprouts to go with cauli.
Once were eagle-eyed, fleet-footed,
Risking danger at every stride,
Leaping, striking for the kill,
Bringing back the food with pride.
Now flat-footed and dull-eyed,
Waiting in line at check-out till,
Wishing there was more to life,
Whingeing when we get the bill.
Once were campfire cooks and diners,
Eating what was caught that day,
Drifting towards a peaceful night,
Finding joy in work and play.
Now we are convenience cooks,
Plucking meals from microwave,
Thinking with self-deceptive grin,
‘This sure beats living in a cave.’
THEN AND NOW
They did heroic things together,
defying all the odds;
went mountain climbing, kayaking,
smiled on by the gods.
Adventure days are now long past,
distant lands are off their map;
the local shopping centre
has become their tourist trap.
Still they have their memories,
still together, they explore,
though now it’s for exotic foods
at their super gourmet store
Bill Guy, Adelaide, July 2009
SHOPPING, ANCIENT AND MODERN
Once were hunter-gatherers,
Sliding through the bush with spear,
Stalking prey in cautious silence,
Taking aim while quelling fear.
Now we’re merely tame consumers,
Trundling down the aisles with trolley,
Snatching pre-packed meat or fish,
Scooping sprouts to go with cauli.
Once were eagle-eyed, fleet-footed,
Risking danger at every stride,
Leaping, striking for the kill,
Bringing back the food with pride.
Now flat-footed and dull-eyed,
Waiting in line at check-out till,
Wishing there was more to life,
Whingeing when we get the bill.
Once were campfire cooks and diners,
Eating what was caught that day,
Drifting towards a peaceful night,
Finding joy in work and play.
Now we are convenience cooks,
Plucking meals from microwave,
Thinking with self-deceptive grin,
‘This sure beats living in a cave.’
THEN AND NOW
They did heroic things together,
defying all the odds;
went mountain climbing, kayaking,
smiled on by the gods.
Adventure days are now long past,
distant lands are off their map;
the local shopping centre
has become their tourist trap.
Still they have their memories,
still together, they explore,
though now it’s for exotic foods
at their super gourmet store
Bill Guy, Adelaide, July 2009
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Fickle Word
Did happenstance just make me wait
By Cupid’s partly open gate?
Wherein I spied a comely maid,
As upon loves harp she sweetly played
A touching tune with words divine
That at once I vowed she would be mine.
She glanced at me with eyes demure
And a smile that said ‘be mine monsieur’.
With joyful step I strolled away,
Planning on another game to play.
Then crafty time came swirling by
And she looked at me with saddened eye.
In my garret cold I now pine away
That happenstance destroyed my day
And left me a sad but wiser swain,
To not trust that fickle word again.
By Cupid’s partly open gate?
Wherein I spied a comely maid,
As upon loves harp she sweetly played
A touching tune with words divine
That at once I vowed she would be mine.
She glanced at me with eyes demure
And a smile that said ‘be mine monsieur’.
With joyful step I strolled away,
Planning on another game to play.
Then crafty time came swirling by
And she looked at me with saddened eye.
In my garret cold I now pine away
That happenstance destroyed my day
And left me a sad but wiser swain,
To not trust that fickle word again.
Happenstance Humour
Does happenstance come by each day,
when someone says, ‘oh by the way’?
Is happenstance a state of mind,
That happens to put you in a bind?
Does happenstance crop up too much
When someone says, ‘oh such and such’?
Then happenstance will have a slap
At some other unsuspecting chap.
Does happenstance control the flow,
So no poor sod can have a go?
But happenstance will loose control
When some smart alec is on a roll.
Does happenstance make your day go bad,
So everyone will say, ‘oh dear me, how sad’?
Then happenstance will have had its way
To collar us on this happenstance day.
So now you see what I‘ve been at,
Putting happenstance in to bat,
So we can all bowl true and straight
And smash happenstance right out the gate.
What fun to watch its slow demise,
So that we can now with ease surmise,
What the world it would be like
When happenstance must take a hike
And disappears o’er yonder hill,
Because it had to take a pill
And leave us here the better off
So that we don’t have to snout the trough
And find a way to cast a line
On words of rhyming now to dine,
Why make such a hullaballo
About happenstance’s bally hoo.
This verseing thing gives me such a pain
Trying to rhyme these silly lines again
So I’m off to try out something new
And leave happenstance to each of you.
I surrender to the trial of it
And bury happenstance in the pit,
Of rubbish verse or doggerel stuff
And I will disappear like a magic puff
Of clearing wind from out the blue
That’s scattered happenstance for all of you.
So good bye from it and me. I say
It’s been a happenstance sort of day.
No more we’ll hear this nasty word
I hope you have all been truly cured
From using it to make a verse
Cause trying it is such a curse
To finally put the thing away
And let the others have their say
On what it’s really all about,
Giving happenstance some real clout
This stanza is the last from me,
I done my best you can surely see
I’ve laid to rest the beast that true,
So now the afternoon is up to you.
when someone says, ‘oh by the way’?
Is happenstance a state of mind,
That happens to put you in a bind?
Does happenstance crop up too much
When someone says, ‘oh such and such’?
Then happenstance will have a slap
At some other unsuspecting chap.
Does happenstance control the flow,
So no poor sod can have a go?
But happenstance will loose control
When some smart alec is on a roll.
Does happenstance make your day go bad,
So everyone will say, ‘oh dear me, how sad’?
Then happenstance will have had its way
To collar us on this happenstance day.
So now you see what I‘ve been at,
Putting happenstance in to bat,
So we can all bowl true and straight
And smash happenstance right out the gate.
What fun to watch its slow demise,
So that we can now with ease surmise,
What the world it would be like
When happenstance must take a hike
And disappears o’er yonder hill,
Because it had to take a pill
And leave us here the better off
So that we don’t have to snout the trough
And find a way to cast a line
On words of rhyming now to dine,
Why make such a hullaballo
About happenstance’s bally hoo.
This verseing thing gives me such a pain
Trying to rhyme these silly lines again
So I’m off to try out something new
And leave happenstance to each of you.
I surrender to the trial of it
And bury happenstance in the pit,
Of rubbish verse or doggerel stuff
And I will disappear like a magic puff
Of clearing wind from out the blue
That’s scattered happenstance for all of you.
So good bye from it and me. I say
It’s been a happenstance sort of day.
No more we’ll hear this nasty word
I hope you have all been truly cured
From using it to make a verse
Cause trying it is such a curse
To finally put the thing away
And let the others have their say
On what it’s really all about,
Giving happenstance some real clout
This stanza is the last from me,
I done my best you can surely see
I’ve laid to rest the beast that true,
So now the afternoon is up to you.
In Shakespeare's keep
Happenstance is but a silly, random word that
To William Shakespeare might have occurred
For inclusion within his comedies designed.
Though folk today are less inclined
To let it easily roll off the tongue
In any conversation just recently begun.
Now methinks that Wordsworth nare abused
And Coleridge would have been less than amused
To use it plainly, so to speak, in what e’r they wrote
Or said in speech to others of their kind,
Over mussels or juicy steak and claret when they dined.
But hear me out I beg you do, this word will have me
Harras you, until we gently lay it down to sleep,
So it may stay forever in William Shakespeare’s keep.
To William Shakespeare might have occurred
For inclusion within his comedies designed.
Though folk today are less inclined
To let it easily roll off the tongue
In any conversation just recently begun.
Now methinks that Wordsworth nare abused
And Coleridge would have been less than amused
To use it plainly, so to speak, in what e’r they wrote
Or said in speech to others of their kind,
Over mussels or juicy steak and claret when they dined.
But hear me out I beg you do, this word will have me
Harras you, until we gently lay it down to sleep,
So it may stay forever in William Shakespeare’s keep.
Glorious Happenstance
The atonal vortex of a long darkness
is breathing the pulse of a beginning
that will make making a pleasure of
force and a light to be reckoned upon.
Teeming against itself that pulse
Rubs all its energy towards a
construction of richness, which will
blast small pieces into a new self.
Deeper dark than the dark of the grave
is the darkness before that pinprick of
light begins the unstoppable growth
foredoomed to become darkness again.
In one split second of rich confusion the
whole new conflagration took place
before time could alter or contain the
outcome of its own glorious happenstance.
is breathing the pulse of a beginning
that will make making a pleasure of
force and a light to be reckoned upon.
Teeming against itself that pulse
Rubs all its energy towards a
construction of richness, which will
blast small pieces into a new self.
Deeper dark than the dark of the grave
is the darkness before that pinprick of
light begins the unstoppable growth
foredoomed to become darkness again.
In one split second of rich confusion the
whole new conflagration took place
before time could alter or contain the
outcome of its own glorious happenstance.
Saturday, May 9, 2009
The Swimmer
In turgid water with arms outstretched,
each determined stroke a bold act to
move within the grip of its cold embrace,
trying to temper the body in its motion.
His naked buttocks quiver in the dark
chilled sea; an endless soaking purgatory.
From squeak of dawn he has waited with
keen determination for this ritual hour.
Can you see him dive deeply into the
darkness, eyelids closed tight like a clam
as he travels the path of least resistance,
a silent fear of lost direction his only thought.
Tendrils of kelp torment his pale flesh,
their elongated swirls make his efforts
a sad imitation of the sea’s inhabitants
as they tease this inept, late-come mariner.
He has baptised himself in the ancient mother
with scant regard for her fluid validation
while he travels through her pulsating womb,
awaiting the chance to crawl into to a new life.
Blurred vision allowes shards of virid sunlight
guide him towards the sanctuary of ancient
granite, warmed and awaiting his shivering,
lumbering form; he slither slowly ashore.
Droplets of living moisture evaporate upon his
invigorated self, allowing those other travellers
begin their own cycle of life on this strange orb, as
did the ancestors of all through the mercy of time.
Adrian Kavanagh
each determined stroke a bold act to
move within the grip of its cold embrace,
trying to temper the body in its motion.
His naked buttocks quiver in the dark
chilled sea; an endless soaking purgatory.
From squeak of dawn he has waited with
keen determination for this ritual hour.
Can you see him dive deeply into the
darkness, eyelids closed tight like a clam
as he travels the path of least resistance,
a silent fear of lost direction his only thought.
Tendrils of kelp torment his pale flesh,
their elongated swirls make his efforts
a sad imitation of the sea’s inhabitants
as they tease this inept, late-come mariner.
He has baptised himself in the ancient mother
with scant regard for her fluid validation
while he travels through her pulsating womb,
awaiting the chance to crawl into to a new life.
Blurred vision allowes shards of virid sunlight
guide him towards the sanctuary of ancient
granite, warmed and awaiting his shivering,
lumbering form; he slither slowly ashore.
Droplets of living moisture evaporate upon his
invigorated self, allowing those other travellers
begin their own cycle of life on this strange orb, as
did the ancestors of all through the mercy of time.
Adrian Kavanagh
Travel So Unwisely Undertaken
When all is trouble and time
is taken from within our grasp,
it is only then we can fly to
the farthest reaches of ourselves
And find that place within,
which opens to our own world
of truth and quiet understanding.
A travelling clock ticking forever is
The untimed, jumbled, countless thoughts
painting mindless pictures we are
least likely to see or comprehend
until we stop moving and observe,
Quite clearly that those images
too have moved on and left us
bewildered by the constant travel
we have so unwisely undertaken.
is taken from within our grasp,
it is only then we can fly to
the farthest reaches of ourselves
And find that place within,
which opens to our own world
of truth and quiet understanding.
A travelling clock ticking forever is
The untimed, jumbled, countless thoughts
painting mindless pictures we are
least likely to see or comprehend
until we stop moving and observe,
Quite clearly that those images
too have moved on and left us
bewildered by the constant travel
we have so unwisely undertaken.
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Viewfinder
At 18 I was gauche, looking for a destination
Not a tram ride to St Kilda.
My father and I, both innocents abroad,
Woke after our first night overseas
To a different light, an out-of-sync perspective
And hopefully, heartbreakingly,
The beginnings of wisdom.
Years on I remember most the air–
Aromas from the city at dawn. Thin elusive wisps
Stay with me, lingering exotically
Until in some suburban street
Passing, say, a local takeaway they rekindle
And fill my mind with heat and markets,
The sweaty crush of foreign bodies
And sweet desire for saffron-scented skin.
I rarely travel these days. Back home and cloistered,
My father long dead,
I look at faces in Polaroids and hope those few
Who planned their own escape
Survived the journey. Too late for me.
Tonight I eat my fragrant Vindaloo
And mourn my lost love, a young boy
I glimpsed once in a crowd in Karachi,
And never forgot.
Cathy McCallum
Not a tram ride to St Kilda.
My father and I, both innocents abroad,
Woke after our first night overseas
To a different light, an out-of-sync perspective
And hopefully, heartbreakingly,
The beginnings of wisdom.
Years on I remember most the air–
Aromas from the city at dawn. Thin elusive wisps
Stay with me, lingering exotically
Until in some suburban street
Passing, say, a local takeaway they rekindle
And fill my mind with heat and markets,
The sweaty crush of foreign bodies
And sweet desire for saffron-scented skin.
I rarely travel these days. Back home and cloistered,
My father long dead,
I look at faces in Polaroids and hope those few
Who planned their own escape
Survived the journey. Too late for me.
Tonight I eat my fragrant Vindaloo
And mourn my lost love, a young boy
I glimpsed once in a crowd in Karachi,
And never forgot.
Cathy McCallum
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Jobs
Two poems from the April 4 session of the Aldinga Poetry Group written around the theme of ‘Occupations’:
BEYOND ALL DUTY
‘Home duties’: how banal, how beautiful.
So cold a phrase yet it defined
the enriching life-work
of a generous-hearted mother.
She loved her home so that the duties
it imposed on her were transmuted
into acts of joy or satisfaction
and infused that home with her heart’s warmth.
The bleak official term conveyed
none of her great qualities:
her unselfishness, her humour
her power to heal grief and sadness.
Instead, it cast her as a servant,
working through a dull routine;
just a domestic automaton,
devoid of spirit, wit or passion.
But to her children, looking back
on her long and committed life,
‘homemaker’ not ‘home duties’
best sums up her brilliant career.
Bill Guy, Adelaide, April 2009
JUST ANOTHER JOB
I am a people smuggler.
I see your face wrinkle in disgust,
you recoil as though I am a leper:
you have stamped me with the stereotype.
You view me as a mercenary
sucking money out of misery,
a trafficker in desperate souls,
a profiteer and ugly parasite.
But wait! You call yourself humane;
you support all good causes:
whales…old-growth forests…refugees.
Ah, yes – let’s go back to refugees.
Consider how many thousands
Ffeeing execution or torture
would fail to find their refuge
without the aid of people like me.
Not just now but throughout history:
cotton-field slaves escaping north,
Jews on the run from the Gestapo,
or Kurds hunted by Saddam’s gang.
It’s not refugees who condemn
those who smuggle them to safety;
it’s the politicians and bigots
who want to keep them out.
Sure, the smugglers are getting paid;
they’re doing a job; it keeps them alive.
Sometimes, though, it triggers their death;
no refugee can be a greater victim.
All I ask is you don’t judge me
solely by my occupation.
Though not brave myself, I know
some in my business to be heroes.
Bill Guy, Adelaide, April 2009
BEYOND ALL DUTY
‘Home duties’: how banal, how beautiful.
So cold a phrase yet it defined
the enriching life-work
of a generous-hearted mother.
She loved her home so that the duties
it imposed on her were transmuted
into acts of joy or satisfaction
and infused that home with her heart’s warmth.
The bleak official term conveyed
none of her great qualities:
her unselfishness, her humour
her power to heal grief and sadness.
Instead, it cast her as a servant,
working through a dull routine;
just a domestic automaton,
devoid of spirit, wit or passion.
But to her children, looking back
on her long and committed life,
‘homemaker’ not ‘home duties’
best sums up her brilliant career.
Bill Guy, Adelaide, April 2009
JUST ANOTHER JOB
I am a people smuggler.
I see your face wrinkle in disgust,
you recoil as though I am a leper:
you have stamped me with the stereotype.
You view me as a mercenary
sucking money out of misery,
a trafficker in desperate souls,
a profiteer and ugly parasite.
But wait! You call yourself humane;
you support all good causes:
whales…old-growth forests…refugees.
Ah, yes – let’s go back to refugees.
Consider how many thousands
Ffeeing execution or torture
would fail to find their refuge
without the aid of people like me.
Not just now but throughout history:
cotton-field slaves escaping north,
Jews on the run from the Gestapo,
or Kurds hunted by Saddam’s gang.
It’s not refugees who condemn
those who smuggle them to safety;
it’s the politicians and bigots
who want to keep them out.
Sure, the smugglers are getting paid;
they’re doing a job; it keeps them alive.
Sometimes, though, it triggers their death;
no refugee can be a greater victim.
All I ask is you don’t judge me
solely by my occupation.
Though not brave myself, I know
some in my business to be heroes.
Bill Guy, Adelaide, April 2009
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
ART
Finches on Fender guitars
On a desert island
In the midst of the city bars.
Room to move and reflect
On the sounds created
By the feathered sect.
Women weeping for ruined relics
Iraqi's treasures scorned
No regard for history's chic.
War - the enemy of art
That seeks to destroy
The creative heart.
Uplifting of the soul and mind
Art is the panacea.
Where the milling throng can find
An outlet for their desires.
Cornered and corralled mostly
The masses encouraged to aspire.
Kym Matthews
1st March 2009
On a desert island
In the midst of the city bars.
Room to move and reflect
On the sounds created
By the feathered sect.
Women weeping for ruined relics
Iraqi's treasures scorned
No regard for history's chic.
War - the enemy of art
That seeks to destroy
The creative heart.
Uplifting of the soul and mind
Art is the panacea.
Where the milling throng can find
An outlet for their desires.
Cornered and corralled mostly
The masses encouraged to aspire.
Kym Matthews
1st March 2009
The Skeleton Remains
Oil painting by Vincent van Gogh (1853-1890) entitled 'Skull of a skeleton with burning cigarette' Antwerp, winter 1885-86.
A man walked and wandered
Aimlessly around,
Absorbing all of natures art,
The light, the sights, the sounds.
A white sandy beach, the turquoise sea,
The long patterned trunks of the old gum tree,
The orange lichen, the greens and the browns,
The sparkle of a dew drop, the colours abound.
Suddenly a curled finger beckons
Through a dark shaded door,
A hand grabs his shoulder
And thrusts him to the floor.
As his eyes adjust to the darkness,
Shadows slowly appear,
A click of a switch spotlights
Artworks astonishingly queer.
The man stands up and wanders
Around and around and around
As he views each of the objects,
He wonders, is the artist's statement profound?
For the displays are human skeletons
Some painted, some jaded, some cracked,
Arranged in a multiple of poses,
Life so elegantly brought back.
Then he heard voices whispering
Chitter chatter obsessive and bleak,
Condemning the display as pagan,
Not insightful, enriching or unique.
The artist sat on a box
In a darkened corner of the room,
Absorbing the praise and the criticism
The long day would be over soon.
The man beckoned with his finger
On the other side of the door,
A hand grabbed the artist's shoulder
And thrust him to the floor.
His eyes flashed wide open
Scanning the surrounding show,
Of natures artwork on display
Unaltered, unchanged it flowed.
From mountain to sea and all inbetween
He closed his eyes and his mind's eye could see,
The image of his skeletal artworks
Alive, alone and free.
The man thought the artist brave
His intent he did not know,
Both men stood up and pondered
Silhouetted in the suns afterglow.
Ian Matthews
1st March 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
Poetry Information
Attention! ExStanza Bloggers if you are keen to find out about poetry in the press. There have been some very interesting articles on poets and poetry in some recent copies of the Age. I found them very informative, sufficiently so, I wish to present details here.
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 24, 2009 Page 25
Telling a Hawk from a Handsaw is a new book of poetry by Chris Wallace-Crabbe. It is Published by Carcanet Press, $25.95. The review is by Gig Ryan, the Age poetry editor. Download this article from the Age web page or order the book from the library or perhaps buy it in Launceston when you can.
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 31, 2009. Page 21
The Ulster farm on which Seamus Heany was raised remains in him and in his work – assured, exhilarating but not complex, writes John Clarke.
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus He any By Dennis O’Driscoll Faber & Faber $49.95. In this book Heaney shares his thoughts with O’Driscoll. It will be an interesting read for any one interested in the Irish, Nobel Prize Winner poet!
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 31, 2009. Page 22
Poetry: There are voices of power and glory in Australian poetry and John Kinsella’s new anthology gives us a wide selection of them, says Peter Craven, Read the article then go and buy the book if you feel it might inspire your writing.
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry
Edited by John Kinsella
Penguin, $35.00
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday February 7, 2009 Page 24
Anniversary: This month, one of the greatest poets of our age, Peter Porter, celebrates his 80th birthday. He tells Craig Sherbourne, about the crucial role poetry has played in his life.
Porter’s latest book, Better than God is published by Picadore at $29.95. Craig Sherbourne is the author of two memoirs, Hoi Polloi and Muck (Black Inc). His poem, Slipper appears below.
Slipper.
Slip your feet in the shoes of the water,
the fake-leather brown of it, and wear standing.
Your pair of red bunch of toes - eel boots in river - so current-long
the ends of them turn up like fashion.
Pebble and pop of caverns letting their fluid out where the banks burst.
Sea is miles away walking in its own pair of tides.
Here you can break in a horse of white water
and not be spilled where you trap it in your thighs,
it is froth-lame with rocks.
Name it Curry for its shandy-dirty sands.
Bareback it till your hands can fin no more, so cold and numb.
Then, leg after leg, you mortar and pestle back home over crunch,
though home is gone. Look all you like for someone there
they are loving in other places with another you.
Night lisps and warms in the pines
Craig Sherbourne
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 24, 2009 Page 25
Telling a Hawk from a Handsaw is a new book of poetry by Chris Wallace-Crabbe. It is Published by Carcanet Press, $25.95. The review is by Gig Ryan, the Age poetry editor. Download this article from the Age web page or order the book from the library or perhaps buy it in Launceston when you can.
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 31, 2009. Page 21
The Ulster farm on which Seamus Heany was raised remains in him and in his work – assured, exhilarating but not complex, writes John Clarke.
Stepping Stones: Interviews with Seamus He any By Dennis O’Driscoll Faber & Faber $49.95. In this book Heaney shares his thoughts with O’Driscoll. It will be an interesting read for any one interested in the Irish, Nobel Prize Winner poet!
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday, January 31, 2009. Page 22
Poetry: There are voices of power and glory in Australian poetry and John Kinsella’s new anthology gives us a wide selection of them, says Peter Craven, Read the article then go and buy the book if you feel it might inspire your writing.
The Penguin Anthology of Australian Poetry
Edited by John Kinsella
Penguin, $35.00
The Age A2 Weekend Magazine Saturday February 7, 2009 Page 24
Anniversary: This month, one of the greatest poets of our age, Peter Porter, celebrates his 80th birthday. He tells Craig Sherbourne, about the crucial role poetry has played in his life.
Porter’s latest book, Better than God is published by Picadore at $29.95. Craig Sherbourne is the author of two memoirs, Hoi Polloi and Muck (Black Inc). His poem, Slipper appears below.
Slipper.
Slip your feet in the shoes of the water,
the fake-leather brown of it, and wear standing.
Your pair of red bunch of toes - eel boots in river - so current-long
the ends of them turn up like fashion.
Pebble and pop of caverns letting their fluid out where the banks burst.
Sea is miles away walking in its own pair of tides.
Here you can break in a horse of white water
and not be spilled where you trap it in your thighs,
it is froth-lame with rocks.
Name it Curry for its shandy-dirty sands.
Bareback it till your hands can fin no more, so cold and numb.
Then, leg after leg, you mortar and pestle back home over crunch,
though home is gone. Look all you like for someone there
they are loving in other places with another you.
Night lisps and warms in the pines
Craig Sherbourne
Saturday, March 7, 2009
On Cathy's Theme
I wondered on this theme called art
And stumbled from the very start,
For deep within my beating breast,
It quick became a deadly pest.
I searched for words both bright and gay,
I searched for weeks if I searched for a day,
But none about this thing arrived and
Throughout that time I bare survived.
This art you see is a damn cool dude,
In lots of ways it can be might shrewd
And to me it would not dare present,
Until my creative juices I had spent.
For Cathy and John it was their call
And a challenging theme they threw to us all ,
O, it made me strive and sweat and toil,
It made my blood near bloody well boil.
Then one fine moment it there popped up,
In a golden orb like a brazen young pup,
Ah! Here, says I it’s my chance to show
Their chosen theme with an artful flow.
So these few words I wrote right well,
And for the theme of art they’ll ring the bell,
Yez can all cheer loud as I deliver my spiel,
And allow me now some applause to steal.
But Cathy please and John too I say,
For when it comes your next poetry day,
Do choose a theme with greater ease
For we poets like to shoot the breeze
And pen some lines with power and might,
Not like this stuff that appears so trite,
With simple couplets that crash and bore,
That’s not how I want to take the floor
But if these few words can make me shine,
Then that for art they will do just fine
And now I says this is your bloomin’ lot
For if I go on it will just be tommy-rot.
It’s over now you can take your ease
And clap or boo just as you please,
I have done my best you can surely see,
So who’s the poet that comes after me?
Get up now quick and speak a powerful line,
Cause you wouldn’t want to borrow mine, for
I’m finished here and I’ve done a quare ol’ job
Praising up the theme of art to this here poet mob.
Adrian Kavanagh,
February 13th 2009.
And stumbled from the very start,
For deep within my beating breast,
It quick became a deadly pest.
I searched for words both bright and gay,
I searched for weeks if I searched for a day,
But none about this thing arrived and
Throughout that time I bare survived.
This art you see is a damn cool dude,
In lots of ways it can be might shrewd
And to me it would not dare present,
Until my creative juices I had spent.
For Cathy and John it was their call
And a challenging theme they threw to us all ,
O, it made me strive and sweat and toil,
It made my blood near bloody well boil.
Then one fine moment it there popped up,
In a golden orb like a brazen young pup,
Ah! Here, says I it’s my chance to show
Their chosen theme with an artful flow.
So these few words I wrote right well,
And for the theme of art they’ll ring the bell,
Yez can all cheer loud as I deliver my spiel,
And allow me now some applause to steal.
But Cathy please and John too I say,
For when it comes your next poetry day,
Do choose a theme with greater ease
For we poets like to shoot the breeze
And pen some lines with power and might,
Not like this stuff that appears so trite,
With simple couplets that crash and bore,
That’s not how I want to take the floor
But if these few words can make me shine,
Then that for art they will do just fine
And now I says this is your bloomin’ lot
For if I go on it will just be tommy-rot.
It’s over now you can take your ease
And clap or boo just as you please,
I have done my best you can surely see,
So who’s the poet that comes after me?
Get up now quick and speak a powerful line,
Cause you wouldn’t want to borrow mine, for
I’m finished here and I’ve done a quare ol’ job
Praising up the theme of art to this here poet mob.
Adrian Kavanagh,
February 13th 2009.
In Homage To His Art
For Robert M Barnes.
What mastery of the brush and knife do I see before me?
Extravagant images have indulged my eyes with rapture.
Mountains and valleys of colour display an astute
construction only a gifted mind could conceive.
Pigment piled majestically upon pigment in such dazzling form,
the great Titan could not have thought to colour his own pallet.
In this sunlit room I bask, entranced and earnestly humbled
by the abundant splendor of so much careful pulchritude.
He stands nearby, unhurried, confident, quiet and smiling,
supported by his angular assistant, the veritable companion
on wheels, its strong frame firmly holds that other fighting
the advancing ravages of a cursed internal enemy.
I marvel at his hands, they have created, nurtured on to canvas
vigorous tones, subtle dashes of light and shade in patches
too numerous to decipher, those spacious havens of delight
creating images of our world to fill the hantle with pleasure.
One scene captivates, it is but a small example of his gift.
Eight trees stand, their tight trunks burnt with deep indigos,
rubicund sunset, absorbing me into their evening languor.
I am satiated with visions of happiness touching my soul.
They metamorphose into four broad barked giants, each
with equal colour telling me I have seen inside their sap.
He looks with amused detachment at his offspring,
waiting for a comment, a judgment, a commitment?
Questions come to me; I ask, the responses are delivered
with careful honesty in the gentle brogue of his Scottish ancestry.
He speaks in low tones, almost whispers, answering with easy
words of explanation, while making casual inquiries of my nous,
Exposing without rancor my limited knowledge of the medium.
I flinch at each query unable to raise my own answers to his
exalted level of understanding; he does not ridicule but
nurtures me towards his acquaintance of this age old agency.
He is an artist of unique talent marking his own space on
the universal canvas, awaiting the opportunity to depart
without grandiose recognition and euphoric clamour, for his
oeuvre will carry him unto the throne of remembrance.
Adrian Kavanagh. January 27th 2009.
What mastery of the brush and knife do I see before me?
Extravagant images have indulged my eyes with rapture.
Mountains and valleys of colour display an astute
construction only a gifted mind could conceive.
Pigment piled majestically upon pigment in such dazzling form,
the great Titan could not have thought to colour his own pallet.
In this sunlit room I bask, entranced and earnestly humbled
by the abundant splendor of so much careful pulchritude.
He stands nearby, unhurried, confident, quiet and smiling,
supported by his angular assistant, the veritable companion
on wheels, its strong frame firmly holds that other fighting
the advancing ravages of a cursed internal enemy.
I marvel at his hands, they have created, nurtured on to canvas
vigorous tones, subtle dashes of light and shade in patches
too numerous to decipher, those spacious havens of delight
creating images of our world to fill the hantle with pleasure.
One scene captivates, it is but a small example of his gift.
Eight trees stand, their tight trunks burnt with deep indigos,
rubicund sunset, absorbing me into their evening languor.
I am satiated with visions of happiness touching my soul.
They metamorphose into four broad barked giants, each
with equal colour telling me I have seen inside their sap.
He looks with amused detachment at his offspring,
waiting for a comment, a judgment, a commitment?
Questions come to me; I ask, the responses are delivered
with careful honesty in the gentle brogue of his Scottish ancestry.
He speaks in low tones, almost whispers, answering with easy
words of explanation, while making casual inquiries of my nous,
Exposing without rancor my limited knowledge of the medium.
I flinch at each query unable to raise my own answers to his
exalted level of understanding; he does not ridicule but
nurtures me towards his acquaintance of this age old agency.
He is an artist of unique talent marking his own space on
the universal canvas, awaiting the opportunity to depart
without grandiose recognition and euphoric clamour, for his
oeuvre will carry him unto the throne of remembrance.
Adrian Kavanagh. January 27th 2009.
Ode to Art
O, elusive muse pray tell, wherever do you hide?
In some dark cave beyond my reach, is that where you abide?
Or deep within the mind of man you make a scant abode,
In some golden valley or dainty fen, so we are often told.
Where you have gone to sulk within your hidden lair,
I will look, I will seek and endlessly I will hunt you there.
For others too have sought to know the magic that you hold
And thus create a work so fine their life will turn to gold.
But yet it is my pure desire to capture your elusive power
And make you subject to my will, for this the world I’ll scour.
Then when I have you where I need I’ll set you free to work,
Upon the tatters of my soul where some desires still lurk.
The joy will be my day of days to say I have you near,
As off to celebrate with mates and ample liquid cheer,
Though I must be weary for with all your flaming spite,
You will desert me in a flash while I enjoy my well earned skite.
There is no rhyme nor reason why I have to beg you so,
For many others write and paint and sculpt, it surely is the go,
But me, dear muse, I weep and gnash, in pain and anguish too,
As I wash all my writings and precious paper down the loo.
So have mercy, dear muse, on one so desperate to win a trick,
Which makes his friends declare that after all you’re really not a spoil sport.
It will be fine dear friend of mine when I can say you’ll not be bought
Then the two of us can have a laugh when on this poem we consort.
That’s all you have to say to me after such a battle royal,
Is it because you’d think the words I wrote would ultimately spoil
And turn to dust and wither on the arm that worked such toil?
Fear you not I’m no such fool my mind is like a tightened coil.
The very chance you took to hide in some dark hole below,
Had given me the reason to strike such a merry blow
And scribe the words I now do read, and read them rightly slow,
That when I’m done and praise be mine I will allow you go
Back to your haunt in dark and drear the place you like to hide,
So that folk like me with you in tow can never with you abide.
So fare thee well, o muse of mine, be free of me for now
And let me finish this wordy thing then I can take a bow.
It is off we go, the pair of us, you to hide and me to seek,
The where with all to write some more and passion well to keep,
Where writing is concerned I fear I am so mild and meek,
Then I will have to dream of you when I enter blessed sleep.
Adrian Kavanagh,
January 07, 2009
In some dark cave beyond my reach, is that where you abide?
Or deep within the mind of man you make a scant abode,
In some golden valley or dainty fen, so we are often told.
Where you have gone to sulk within your hidden lair,
I will look, I will seek and endlessly I will hunt you there.
For others too have sought to know the magic that you hold
And thus create a work so fine their life will turn to gold.
But yet it is my pure desire to capture your elusive power
And make you subject to my will, for this the world I’ll scour.
Then when I have you where I need I’ll set you free to work,
Upon the tatters of my soul where some desires still lurk.
The joy will be my day of days to say I have you near,
As off to celebrate with mates and ample liquid cheer,
Though I must be weary for with all your flaming spite,
You will desert me in a flash while I enjoy my well earned skite.
There is no rhyme nor reason why I have to beg you so,
For many others write and paint and sculpt, it surely is the go,
But me, dear muse, I weep and gnash, in pain and anguish too,
As I wash all my writings and precious paper down the loo.
So have mercy, dear muse, on one so desperate to win a trick,
Which makes his friends declare that after all you’re really not a spoil sport.
It will be fine dear friend of mine when I can say you’ll not be bought
Then the two of us can have a laugh when on this poem we consort.
That’s all you have to say to me after such a battle royal,
Is it because you’d think the words I wrote would ultimately spoil
And turn to dust and wither on the arm that worked such toil?
Fear you not I’m no such fool my mind is like a tightened coil.
The very chance you took to hide in some dark hole below,
Had given me the reason to strike such a merry blow
And scribe the words I now do read, and read them rightly slow,
That when I’m done and praise be mine I will allow you go
Back to your haunt in dark and drear the place you like to hide,
So that folk like me with you in tow can never with you abide.
So fare thee well, o muse of mine, be free of me for now
And let me finish this wordy thing then I can take a bow.
It is off we go, the pair of us, you to hide and me to seek,
The where with all to write some more and passion well to keep,
Where writing is concerned I fear I am so mild and meek,
Then I will have to dream of you when I enter blessed sleep.
Adrian Kavanagh,
January 07, 2009
I Wish I Could
I wish I could paint like Peter Paul Rubes
Or Freida Kahlo or some lesser mortal,
I would be content with the good oil.
O, I wish I could write like William Shakespeare
Or Simone de Beauvoir or some lesser mortal,
I would be happy with the ink in my veins.
I wish I could sculpt like Michael Angelo
Or Camille Claudel or some lesser mortal,
I would be satisfied with the block on which I stood.
O, I wish I could compose like Beethoven
Or had a voice like Callis or some lesser mortal,
I would trill to the trembling of the chords.
Alas it is not to be, I do not compare,
My efforts are miniature but wait, for I too
Can stand tall in the paddock with the great when
I complete my task in art, for I feel lifted that
I have it done.
It may not be grand. It may never win a prize and yet,
It is sufficient that I have made my own art. I do not care,
My art is for me and you my friends to share.
Adrian Kavanagh,
January 09 2009.
Or Freida Kahlo or some lesser mortal,
I would be content with the good oil.
O, I wish I could write like William Shakespeare
Or Simone de Beauvoir or some lesser mortal,
I would be happy with the ink in my veins.
I wish I could sculpt like Michael Angelo
Or Camille Claudel or some lesser mortal,
I would be satisfied with the block on which I stood.
O, I wish I could compose like Beethoven
Or had a voice like Callis or some lesser mortal,
I would trill to the trembling of the chords.
Alas it is not to be, I do not compare,
My efforts are miniature but wait, for I too
Can stand tall in the paddock with the great when
I complete my task in art, for I feel lifted that
I have it done.
It may not be grand. It may never win a prize and yet,
It is sufficient that I have made my own art. I do not care,
My art is for me and you my friends to share.
Adrian Kavanagh,
January 09 2009.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Sea of mystery
A work of art rests on the rocks.
The ocean placed it there –
High above the waterline
As though it sought to share
The beauty of a simple thing
The sea thought it might keep –
A treasure formed by wind and tide
And surging currents deep –
This work of art, this tree stump
Turned and honed and shaped
Takes pride of place upon the rocks
In shells and seaweeds draped.
Some stroll the sandy coastlines
To another ocean’s beat
And gaze in awe as wavelets
Scatter diamonds at their feet –
While liquid silver dolphins
Rise and dive and twist
And gulls etched high up in the sky
Soar above the mist …
The work of art is on the shore
As though on proud display –
But the cove is small and hidden:
And no one walks this way.
John McCallum 2009
The ocean placed it there –
High above the waterline
As though it sought to share
The beauty of a simple thing
The sea thought it might keep –
A treasure formed by wind and tide
And surging currents deep –
This work of art, this tree stump
Turned and honed and shaped
Takes pride of place upon the rocks
In shells and seaweeds draped.
Some stroll the sandy coastlines
To another ocean’s beat
And gaze in awe as wavelets
Scatter diamonds at their feet –
While liquid silver dolphins
Rise and dive and twist
And gulls etched high up in the sky
Soar above the mist …
The work of art is on the shore
As though on proud display –
But the cove is small and hidden:
And no one walks this way.
John McCallum 2009
Symbiosis
On The Son of Man by Magritte
René, I visited you once in a dream
but you, near death, failed to recognise me
– your best-known creation.
No matter. We’re the same, we two.
Beneath my varnish
each layer of pigment carries your DNA.
Each stroke of paint invests me
with your personality and the burden
of your ambition.
In my canvas world, I wear my bowler hat
as proudly as if I had been born and died.
Like you, yet not like you.
And life—or not-life—has its compensations.
When people remember Magritte it’s my image
that inhabits their mind, not yours.
It’s enough.
Cathy McCallum
Two poems on Art
Instant Fish
Instant Fish
by Phidias!
Add water
and they swim.
Peter Porter
Following is a commentary on the poem posted on a blog:
Note: Phidias was a Greek sculptor whose statues were so realistic that
they seemed to be alive.
Porter's take on Phidias is amazingly self-referential; like the fish
being described, the poem expands and takes on layers of meaning in the
mind of the reader. In just 9 short words, Porter manages to invoke the
ideas of life as art and art as life, the meaning of representation, the
role of the viewer, even the effects of time...
(Lest anyone think that I'm reading too much into what is actually a
piece of nonsense, let me add that I thought of many of the above issues
when I first read that poem; later (much later), I read a book of
criticism which had Porter say the same things about this poem. So
there.)
thomas.
Unbalanced
Fu-I loved the green hills
And the white clouds.
Alas he died of drink.
And Li-Po
Also died drunk.
He tried to embrace a Moon
In the Yellow River.
Denis Johnston (1901-1984)
Commentary from the web:
Li Po (AD 701-62) and Tu Fu (AD 712-70) were devoted friends who are traditionally considered to be among China's greatest poets. Li Po, a legendary carouser, was an itinerant poet whose writing, often dream poems or spirit-journeys, soars to sublime heights in its descriptions of natural scenes and powerful emotions. His sheer escapism and joy is balanced by Tu Fu, who expresses the Confucian virtues of humanity and humility in more autobiographical works that are imbued with great compassion and earthy reality, and shot through with humour. Together these two poets of the T'ang dynasty complement each other so well that they often came to be spoken of as one – ‘Li-Tu' - who covers the whole spectrum of human life, experience and feeling.
Instant Fish
by Phidias!
Add water
and they swim.
Peter Porter
Following is a commentary on the poem posted on a blog:
Note: Phidias was a Greek sculptor whose statues were so realistic that
they seemed to be alive.
Porter's take on Phidias is amazingly self-referential; like the fish
being described, the poem expands and takes on layers of meaning in the
mind of the reader. In just 9 short words, Porter manages to invoke the
ideas of life as art and art as life, the meaning of representation, the
role of the viewer, even the effects of time...
(Lest anyone think that I'm reading too much into what is actually a
piece of nonsense, let me add that I thought of many of the above issues
when I first read that poem; later (much later), I read a book of
criticism which had Porter say the same things about this poem. So
there.)
thomas.
Unbalanced
Fu-I loved the green hills
And the white clouds.
Alas he died of drink.
And Li-Po
Also died drunk.
He tried to embrace a Moon
In the Yellow River.
Denis Johnston (1901-1984)
Commentary from the web:
Li Po (AD 701-62) and Tu Fu (AD 712-70) were devoted friends who are traditionally considered to be among China's greatest poets. Li Po, a legendary carouser, was an itinerant poet whose writing, often dream poems or spirit-journeys, soars to sublime heights in its descriptions of natural scenes and powerful emotions. His sheer escapism and joy is balanced by Tu Fu, who expresses the Confucian virtues of humanity and humility in more autobiographical works that are imbued with great compassion and earthy reality, and shot through with humour. Together these two poets of the T'ang dynasty complement each other so well that they often came to be spoken of as one – ‘Li-Tu' - who covers the whole spectrum of human life, experience and feeling.
Friday, February 20, 2009
The Radicals.
What is our being?
Why are we here?
Do we get to take a step further?
Are we coming near?
Do we smile now
And nod our heads to agree?
Is that the way we succeed
In contemporary society?
Does having the same thoughts
And aspirations intend
To make us individuals
Of which we heartily defend?
We're all just running in circles
Not sure of our direction
Hoping to meet up with it
Under conservative protection.
13th January 1980
Kym Matthews
Why are we here?
Do we get to take a step further?
Are we coming near?
Do we smile now
And nod our heads to agree?
Is that the way we succeed
In contemporary society?
Does having the same thoughts
And aspirations intend
To make us individuals
Of which we heartily defend?
We're all just running in circles
Not sure of our direction
Hoping to meet up with it
Under conservative protection.
13th January 1980
Kym Matthews
My Home
How you calm me
With your pounding.
How you ease me
With your strength.
How could I live without you?
Or even attempt to try.
You were my companion during youth
And also my advisor at certain times.
So much power I feel
From you.
Your music is sweetest
On silent summer nights,
Accompanied perhaps by the shrill song of cicadas
Announcing their arrival.
Your beauty is boundless.
I sit here, still at awe
By your unyielding temperament.
Let your waves lick my wounds,
For the ocean is my home.
With your pounding.
How you ease me
With your strength.
How could I live without you?
Or even attempt to try.
You were my companion during youth
And also my advisor at certain times.
So much power I feel
From you.
Your music is sweetest
On silent summer nights,
Accompanied perhaps by the shrill song of cicadas
Announcing their arrival.
Your beauty is boundless.
I sit here, still at awe
By your unyielding temperament.
Let your waves lick my wounds,
For the ocean is my home.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The Digital Age
The digital age is a marvellous thing
It promises a lot -
More quality time with significant others
Looking at a screen,
Signing up to Facebook
To see holiday snaps.
Is this the quality to which we aspire
I think not.
The digital age is a marvellous thing
Less use of paper the claim.
Opening centres in regional towns
Accessing the 'net at last.
Negotiating budgets, plans, policies and more
For the bureaucratic beavers consuming copies galore.
Unfettered appetite sees our forests feverisly felled.
When will it stop?
Shame, shame, shame.
The digital age is a marvellous thing
Do all your business online -
Myriads of numbers controlling the process,
Passwords remembered each time.
Call centre assistance available 24/7,
Web support and tech help for the masses
Structures in place that never deliver -
Unlike that age-old tradition
Of drinking very fine wine.
17th February 2008
Kym Matthews
It promises a lot -
More quality time with significant others
Looking at a screen,
Signing up to Facebook
To see holiday snaps.
Is this the quality to which we aspire
I think not.
The digital age is a marvellous thing
Less use of paper the claim.
Opening centres in regional towns
Accessing the 'net at last.
Negotiating budgets, plans, policies and more
For the bureaucratic beavers consuming copies galore.
Unfettered appetite sees our forests feverisly felled.
When will it stop?
Shame, shame, shame.
The digital age is a marvellous thing
Do all your business online -
Myriads of numbers controlling the process,
Passwords remembered each time.
Call centre assistance available 24/7,
Web support and tech help for the masses
Structures in place that never deliver -
Unlike that age-old tradition
Of drinking very fine wine.
17th February 2008
Kym Matthews
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Interview with Peter Porter
The following is an interview with the poet Peter Porter from The Australian Review, written by Darleen Bungey
I thought it was an interesting addition to the discussion about poetry.
Cathy
DREAM WORLDS
IN 1935, when he was six, Peter Porter was standing on the veranda of his weatherboard home, shaded from the Brisbane sun by an unlined galvanised roof and a canvas blind, when miraculously, "almost like the angel of the lord", he says, a word appeared.
The word was death. "It came into my mind and it's hardly been out of it ever since," says Porter, now widely considered one of the finest living poets in the English languge. "I have never had a moment without anxiety -- apprehension -- always the feeling of a possible predator over the shoulder."
He was an only child, born after his parents suffered five miscarriages, and no doubt his anxiety was forever heightened when, three years after he grasped the concept of death, it was made real by the his mother's sudden death from a burst gall bladder. In 1974, Porter's first wife committed suicide.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, an international honour roll for poets, includes three of Porter's poems: two tragic, one satiric, a good indication of the weight of Porter's oeuvre. One of the poems is Porter's intimate and moving funeral rite to his partner.
Titled An Exequy, it begins:
In wet May, in the months of change,
In a country you wouldn't visit, strange
Dreams pursue me in my sleep,
Black creatures of the upper deep --
Though you are five months dead, I see
You in guilt's iconography
Porter's dreams, he let slip in an earlier conversation, are still apocalyptic and continue every night. By day, he hunts them back down and fashions them into intricate works. "Poetry has to be made, it doesn't lie around waiting for you to pick it up; words are its material," he says. Porter doesn't use these images from what he calls "the alternative world" directly, but tries to capture their strange atmosphere. "The waking life is constantly under control but produces all the material the sleeping life uses," he says. "Things that are only reportage in life come alive in the experience of the dream world. A poet has to have invention, like a novelist, you don't just sit there and pour a bucket of blood over the page."
Porter's invention is broad. He employs all manner of rhyme, meter and form, with a rich variety of stage and cast, from the interior of a quiet English church to a war-waging Greek god; from felines to contemporary fat cats; from a Renaissance painter to a serial killer; from the shores of the Shoalhaven River on the NSW south coast to the mouth of the Deben Estuary in Suffolk, England.
While he often uses colloquialisms, he freely quotes German and Latin and some of the most obscure words in the English language. "Poetry," he says, "is language at its most concentrated form."
For all his wry takes on life and his expositions of pain and death, the essence this poet so often distils is battle-worn hope. In An Exequy, he takes loss and loneliness and redeems it. He encourages understanding: "No one can say why hearts will break / And marriages are all opaque". He shows how aloneness -- "I have no friend, or intercessor / No psychopomp or true confessor" -- can live alongside connectedness: "But only you who know my heart / In every cramped and devious part".
Is it Porter's sense of impending doom, along with the 70 steep steps leading to his London flat that he has climbed three or four times a day for almost 50 years, that gives Australia's most eminent off-island poet his gusto, and his poetry its zest?
Last October, straight from a gall-bladder operation -- which, given his family history, must have been unnerving -- and a long-haul flight from London, he launched immediately into a speaking tour of Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, never missing an opportunity to socialise with old friends and colleagues along the way.
For years on most Fridays he lunched with a group of London editors and writers, including Clive James, Martin Amis, Mark Boxer, Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan. The lunches are not so regular now; some of the younger men find it "too dissipating".
Not Porter. Although he's not particularly interested in food, he is a self-proclaimed "gentleman who lunches". The lure is conversation. His is always served spiced with wit, peppered with quotes and garnished with metaphors, all of which enhance but never overwhelm the main ingredient, directness.
Another longstanding friend, Porter's biographer Bruce Bennett, a leading scholar of Australian literature, when asked what he wanted as a farewell honour replied that he would like to bring Porter home to take part in a two-day discourse on "place".
Place is often the question where Porter is concerned: Why did he leave Australia? When will he return? Porter has lived in London for 57 years and is often referred to as a British poet. But open the cover of any volume of his poems and the sounds from the land of his birth come bursting forth. A breath of air, the "red wind carrying dust on to my Sunday shoes", the whisper of leaves of "eucalyptus slipping past", the creak of "old windmills with their corrugated-iron sails", and the cackle of "kooka / with its caco-creado, magpie mutts / what messages they drag across the sky!"
The conclusion of Porter's poem, National Service, suggests the cord will never be cut:
I moved on: I live in London: I've grown quite mannerly.
But death will put me on the tram to Annerley
And I'll look out for the familiar sign on the shop
Bushells' Blue Label: I'll have got to my stop.
While Porter often portrays Australia as a disappointing, sometimes fearful, encounter -- he has described Sydney Harbour as the River Styx -- he also speaks of early memories with all the recall of a man describing the first sighting of a lover. Little of those long, and long-anticipated, trips to Sydney that he made as a small boy with his mother every Christmas has been forgotten: the train travelling along the Northern Rivers district, seeing jacaranda trees at Grafton, watching the dawn break over Woy Woy, then the Town Hall clock signalling their arrival, and the street photographers on the concourse jostling to seal the moment.
Finally, Circular Quay and a clanging gangplank leading on to a ferry named after a governor-general's wife -- the Lady Denham or the Lady Chelmsford -- and the excitement of the boat trip carrying him past boat houses to the stone house built by the hands of his maternal grandfather. And there, as Porter recalls in Landscape with Orpheus, "and there is the old latch / The gate, the pepperina tree, the ferry rounding / Onions Point".
In his early 20s, believing Brisbane a blight, Porter fled to Britain. He talks of London as an office, a place of work: he likens his knowledge of it to negotiating a supermarket.
His accent, even after such an immense absence, is still Australian but his charm and self-deprecation are English. He claims that his name is so "silly", no one could take him seriously as a tragic poet. He also says he has always thought of himself as "someone you wouldn't particularly want to know". He is chronically diffident, especially when he returns to Australia. "I left, there's no excuse for that," he says.
But there is a caveat. "If I were 21 in 2008, I wouldn't go to Britain. I'd wait until I had achieved what I wanted in Australia. There are opportunities here now, people are interested now." If he has any criticism it is that there is "too much navel gazing; for where Australia stands in the world and what people think of us".
Does Porter feel at home anywhere? His poems would suggest not. He is probably most at home in the middle of a good lunch, anywhere. Or perhaps contained within the borders of his large, white slip-covered chair, the centrepiece of a room devoted to books and manuscripts. By day the chair is lit by the northern sun washing off the white walls of the neighbouring Victorian building in the Paddington Square; at night it is illuminated by a small blue china lamp perched on the mantel above his head, wire dangling down past the back of the chair. It is here he reads.
Porter memorably once said, "The best way to learn anything is like a dog: to roll in it." He doesn't believe in courses or creative writing classes. The aspiring writer should "just read, read, read". In London, a job as an advertising copywriter, which supplied material for his sardonic, often quoted A Consumer's Report, kept him fed but unhappy. He quit when his work as a freelance critic became frequent enough to make it possible. He has contributed thousands of reviews for journals and newspapers and is a constant voice on the BBC. In the early years, radio was a saviour. "A lot of keeping myself alive was turning up at the studios and talking," he says. Penury, Porter claims, is the penalty for being a poet. If he were ever to contemplate returning to Australia -- packing up his many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry -- he would have no real residence. "I don't have a house, any money. I haven't accumulated any possessions apart from books and records."
There has been no alternative to this life of glittering prizes but little financial reward: "If you don't write poems and you're a poet, you feel sick," he says.
When his friends gather in London next month to salute him on his 80th birthday, he will be signing his 22nd volume of poetry, Better Than God. He is still exploring, still looking to expose himself through his poetry and, he says, if that means "getting into trouble so much the better".
He says he would like his epitaph to be "last to leave". His readers will be hoping that, in his ninth decade, he will continue getting himself into all the trouble in the world.
I thought it was an interesting addition to the discussion about poetry.
Cathy
DREAM WORLDS
IN 1935, when he was six, Peter Porter was standing on the veranda of his weatherboard home, shaded from the Brisbane sun by an unlined galvanised roof and a canvas blind, when miraculously, "almost like the angel of the lord", he says, a word appeared.
The word was death. "It came into my mind and it's hardly been out of it ever since," says Porter, now widely considered one of the finest living poets in the English languge. "I have never had a moment without anxiety -- apprehension -- always the feeling of a possible predator over the shoulder."
He was an only child, born after his parents suffered five miscarriages, and no doubt his anxiety was forever heightened when, three years after he grasped the concept of death, it was made real by the his mother's sudden death from a burst gall bladder. In 1974, Porter's first wife committed suicide.
The Norton Anthology of Poetry, an international honour roll for poets, includes three of Porter's poems: two tragic, one satiric, a good indication of the weight of Porter's oeuvre. One of the poems is Porter's intimate and moving funeral rite to his partner.
Titled An Exequy, it begins:
In wet May, in the months of change,
In a country you wouldn't visit, strange
Dreams pursue me in my sleep,
Black creatures of the upper deep --
Though you are five months dead, I see
You in guilt's iconography
Porter's dreams, he let slip in an earlier conversation, are still apocalyptic and continue every night. By day, he hunts them back down and fashions them into intricate works. "Poetry has to be made, it doesn't lie around waiting for you to pick it up; words are its material," he says. Porter doesn't use these images from what he calls "the alternative world" directly, but tries to capture their strange atmosphere. "The waking life is constantly under control but produces all the material the sleeping life uses," he says. "Things that are only reportage in life come alive in the experience of the dream world. A poet has to have invention, like a novelist, you don't just sit there and pour a bucket of blood over the page."
Porter's invention is broad. He employs all manner of rhyme, meter and form, with a rich variety of stage and cast, from the interior of a quiet English church to a war-waging Greek god; from felines to contemporary fat cats; from a Renaissance painter to a serial killer; from the shores of the Shoalhaven River on the NSW south coast to the mouth of the Deben Estuary in Suffolk, England.
While he often uses colloquialisms, he freely quotes German and Latin and some of the most obscure words in the English language. "Poetry," he says, "is language at its most concentrated form."
For all his wry takes on life and his expositions of pain and death, the essence this poet so often distils is battle-worn hope. In An Exequy, he takes loss and loneliness and redeems it. He encourages understanding: "No one can say why hearts will break / And marriages are all opaque". He shows how aloneness -- "I have no friend, or intercessor / No psychopomp or true confessor" -- can live alongside connectedness: "But only you who know my heart / In every cramped and devious part".
Is it Porter's sense of impending doom, along with the 70 steep steps leading to his London flat that he has climbed three or four times a day for almost 50 years, that gives Australia's most eminent off-island poet his gusto, and his poetry its zest?
Last October, straight from a gall-bladder operation -- which, given his family history, must have been unnerving -- and a long-haul flight from London, he launched immediately into a speaking tour of Melbourne, Canberra and Sydney, never missing an opportunity to socialise with old friends and colleagues along the way.
For years on most Fridays he lunched with a group of London editors and writers, including Clive James, Martin Amis, Mark Boxer, Julian Barnes and Ian McEwan. The lunches are not so regular now; some of the younger men find it "too dissipating".
Not Porter. Although he's not particularly interested in food, he is a self-proclaimed "gentleman who lunches". The lure is conversation. His is always served spiced with wit, peppered with quotes and garnished with metaphors, all of which enhance but never overwhelm the main ingredient, directness.
Another longstanding friend, Porter's biographer Bruce Bennett, a leading scholar of Australian literature, when asked what he wanted as a farewell honour replied that he would like to bring Porter home to take part in a two-day discourse on "place".
Place is often the question where Porter is concerned: Why did he leave Australia? When will he return? Porter has lived in London for 57 years and is often referred to as a British poet. But open the cover of any volume of his poems and the sounds from the land of his birth come bursting forth. A breath of air, the "red wind carrying dust on to my Sunday shoes", the whisper of leaves of "eucalyptus slipping past", the creak of "old windmills with their corrugated-iron sails", and the cackle of "kooka / with its caco-creado, magpie mutts / what messages they drag across the sky!"
The conclusion of Porter's poem, National Service, suggests the cord will never be cut:
I moved on: I live in London: I've grown quite mannerly.
But death will put me on the tram to Annerley
And I'll look out for the familiar sign on the shop
Bushells' Blue Label: I'll have got to my stop.
While Porter often portrays Australia as a disappointing, sometimes fearful, encounter -- he has described Sydney Harbour as the River Styx -- he also speaks of early memories with all the recall of a man describing the first sighting of a lover. Little of those long, and long-anticipated, trips to Sydney that he made as a small boy with his mother every Christmas has been forgotten: the train travelling along the Northern Rivers district, seeing jacaranda trees at Grafton, watching the dawn break over Woy Woy, then the Town Hall clock signalling their arrival, and the street photographers on the concourse jostling to seal the moment.
Finally, Circular Quay and a clanging gangplank leading on to a ferry named after a governor-general's wife -- the Lady Denham or the Lady Chelmsford -- and the excitement of the boat trip carrying him past boat houses to the stone house built by the hands of his maternal grandfather. And there, as Porter recalls in Landscape with Orpheus, "and there is the old latch / The gate, the pepperina tree, the ferry rounding / Onions Point".
In his early 20s, believing Brisbane a blight, Porter fled to Britain. He talks of London as an office, a place of work: he likens his knowledge of it to negotiating a supermarket.
His accent, even after such an immense absence, is still Australian but his charm and self-deprecation are English. He claims that his name is so "silly", no one could take him seriously as a tragic poet. He also says he has always thought of himself as "someone you wouldn't particularly want to know". He is chronically diffident, especially when he returns to Australia. "I left, there's no excuse for that," he says.
But there is a caveat. "If I were 21 in 2008, I wouldn't go to Britain. I'd wait until I had achieved what I wanted in Australia. There are opportunities here now, people are interested now." If he has any criticism it is that there is "too much navel gazing; for where Australia stands in the world and what people think of us".
Does Porter feel at home anywhere? His poems would suggest not. He is probably most at home in the middle of a good lunch, anywhere. Or perhaps contained within the borders of his large, white slip-covered chair, the centrepiece of a room devoted to books and manuscripts. By day the chair is lit by the northern sun washing off the white walls of the neighbouring Victorian building in the Paddington Square; at night it is illuminated by a small blue china lamp perched on the mantel above his head, wire dangling down past the back of the chair. It is here he reads.
Porter memorably once said, "The best way to learn anything is like a dog: to roll in it." He doesn't believe in courses or creative writing classes. The aspiring writer should "just read, read, read". In London, a job as an advertising copywriter, which supplied material for his sardonic, often quoted A Consumer's Report, kept him fed but unhappy. He quit when his work as a freelance critic became frequent enough to make it possible. He has contributed thousands of reviews for journals and newspapers and is a constant voice on the BBC. In the early years, radio was a saviour. "A lot of keeping myself alive was turning up at the studios and talking," he says. Penury, Porter claims, is the penalty for being a poet. If he were ever to contemplate returning to Australia -- packing up his many awards, including the Whitbread Poetry Prize and the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry -- he would have no real residence. "I don't have a house, any money. I haven't accumulated any possessions apart from books and records."
There has been no alternative to this life of glittering prizes but little financial reward: "If you don't write poems and you're a poet, you feel sick," he says.
When his friends gather in London next month to salute him on his 80th birthday, he will be signing his 22nd volume of poetry, Better Than God. He is still exploring, still looking to expose himself through his poetry and, he says, if that means "getting into trouble so much the better".
He says he would like his epitaph to be "last to leave". His readers will be hoping that, in his ninth decade, he will continue getting himself into all the trouble in the world.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
THE ANT RACE
Busy, busy little ants
racing round my patio,
missing poles and dodging plants
as though controlled by radio.
But these mighty insect midgets,
while boosting their ecology
spurn all those magic widgets
created by technology.
Like birds on their migratory wings,
they navigate by wondrous instinct,
keeping formation, avoiding pings
however narrow is their precinct.
Their traffic flow across my yard,
dense in scale as any freeway,
is orderly and never marred
by prangs requiring towaway.
There they scurry in single files,
marching with regimental zeal,
criss-crossing pavings, skirting tiles,
heading home for the evening meal.
- Bill Guy, Adelaide, January 2009
Seven consecutive days of 40C-plus heat in Adelaide last week were not conducive to the writing of serious poetry (although South Australia would have made the ideal setting for Dante's Inferno). I, therefore, indulged myself in the above little frolic as my contribution to the latest session of the Aldinga group on the theme of Insects. Warmest (!) wishes to all my highly creative ExStanza colleagues.
Busy, busy little ants
racing round my patio,
missing poles and dodging plants
as though controlled by radio.
But these mighty insect midgets,
while boosting their ecology
spurn all those magic widgets
created by technology.
Like birds on their migratory wings,
they navigate by wondrous instinct,
keeping formation, avoiding pings
however narrow is their precinct.
Their traffic flow across my yard,
dense in scale as any freeway,
is orderly and never marred
by prangs requiring towaway.
There they scurry in single files,
marching with regimental zeal,
criss-crossing pavings, skirting tiles,
heading home for the evening meal.
- Bill Guy, Adelaide, January 2009
Seven consecutive days of 40C-plus heat in Adelaide last week were not conducive to the writing of serious poetry (although South Australia would have made the ideal setting for Dante's Inferno). I, therefore, indulged myself in the above little frolic as my contribution to the latest session of the Aldinga group on the theme of Insects. Warmest (!) wishes to all my highly creative ExStanza colleagues.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
A word on words poetic
Cathy has drawn my attention to a very interesting article in the December 27 – 28, Weekend Australian Review. She has, by now, possibly passed it on to all the members of ExStanza, if not do contact her. It is written by Kerry Cue and it questions the quality of today’s poets and the poetry they write, which she points out is written, in the main, without due diligence to the reading public.
The appreciation of poetry is so personal that it is very difficult to write in such general terms as has Cue but she may have had in mind the fundamental rules, which I would think, anyone who aspires to write meaningful poetry must take into consideration and indeed abide by, otherwise the end result can not and must not be taken as poetry.
Our group, I do believe, puts in an enormous amount of creative effort, working with a dedication and sincere commitment, with automatic focus on the ‘rules’ to allow each piece to be called or understood as ‘lyrical poetry’, though some among us do disagree on a particular poem, its style, construction and by times, an ultimate meaning. That is how it should be, must be. Thank goodness for the freedom to be critical. That brings me to the vexed question of what actually constitutes a lyrical poem or in fact good poetry. Is there bad poetry? What might appear good to one may be bad to another. Subjectivity again; it will keep rearing its head.
S. M. Schreiber, (a very short bibliography is included at the end of this little essay) in his book An Introduction to Literary Criticism, has some very strong words to say on the subject of ‘good poetry’. He uses a number of high powered poets to back up his argument. In the chapter titled, WHY DO POETS WRITE IN VERSE? SOUND IN POETRY, he states, and I quote. ‘So habitually do poets write in verse that it is not uncommon to find the two words, verse and poetry, used as if they were interchangeable. Yet, of course, “Thirty days hath September…” (which is Coleridge’s example of verse, which is not poetry), or:
In sixteen hundred and sixty-six
London burnt like a bundle of sticks
have no more relation to poetry than would the same two statements were they made in prose. And, conversely, the prose translation of the Song of Solomon in the Authorised Version of the Bible is as much poetry as in any verse poem which we read. Whether any piece of writing is poetry or not depends upon its content, (although, as you will see later, it is true that the poetic content does not become “a poem” until it has found its appropriate form): “verse” and “prose”, on the other hand, have reference solely to form. The word “verse” simply indicates any piece of writing in which the syllables are so arranged as to produce a recurring rhythm, regardless of what that rhythmical arrangement of words in used to convey to us. Any piece of writing in which the rhythm does not recur *(Free verse apart. See note below) is prose, again irrespective of its content. Yet, nevertheless, two facts remain: not only have the vast majority of poets, major and minor, chosen verse as their medium but – even more significantly – every one of the greatest has done so; there is no prose poem in existence which can challenge comparison with the verse-poetry of Homer, Dante, Shakespeare. This cannot be by chance; great poets are not sheep, unthinkingly following the herd; were it possible to transmit the supreme poetic experience in the form of even the most “poetic” of prose some one or other of them would, by experiment, have made the discovery. Hence the verse form must possess some virtue which, when a poet uses it, can transmit “poetry” to us as no prose is able to’.
Schreiber includes a note on “Free Verse” at the end of the chapter but suggests that it will complicate the issue this early in the piece and we should ignore it. If these little essays continue I will include it at a later date.
He details a significant amount of material in a not too intellectual discourse on the various attributes of poetry; its construction, form, sound, ear-training for the correct reading and thus understanding of a poem and under a separate section, deals in great detail with imagery but I shall leave that for another day.
I would like to quote him further on his discussion of, What is Poetry? This section, which I will not print in full is a rather enlightening piece and I wonder if anyone else will agree with him or find some of his comments rather old and out of date? He says, ‘Poetry, in the general sense, is the expression of the imagination” (Shelly, A defence of Poetry). The content of pure pose is facts or ideas directed to our understanding; it tells us something. Poetry, on the other hand, however much our understanding may be engaged (and it may have profound intellectual content), sets out not primarily to tell us something but to make something happen to us. And what “happens” is the re-creation in our imagination, as a first-hand experience, of something which the poet’s imagination has created. When we remember a prose book we remember what the author said in it or if it is a novel, what happened to the characters; when we remember a poem we remember something which that poem has made us ourselves see, feel, experience’.
Here, I would like to digress, for in the above I have to take issue with him, particularly with reference to the characters in a novel. I have read many a novel in which I have not just remembered what happened to the characters, I have been deeply affected by descriptions of scenes: places of great beauty or of devastation, in which no character was actively participating, involved or engaged in any activity. Prose writing often does create its own very special emotional reaction and is that not seeing, feeling and ultimately experiencing?
He goes on in the same section, ‘When we have read Keats’s Ode to a Grecian Urn what we remember is not that Keats, in the year 1818, saw (in his imagination) an urn with certain scenes depicted upon it, that he so felt its unchanging beauty that he underwent the experience of passing out of time into eternity; rather it is what we ourselves, in proportion to our capacity for response, have seen the “still unravish’d bride of quietness”, changeless beauty untouched and untouchable by time and that we in our own person have, momentarily, passed out of time into timelessness where beauty is the eternal absolute’.
I have to leave it there for now because I think Mr Schreiber has gone a bit over the top. Yes, Keats Ode is a superb poem but I certainly did not drift of into the ether when I read it at school, nor did I when I read in as a young adult, even though I could sense its greatness and when I read this particular piece, I once again took to the Ode, hoping to finally break through the mist of ignorance and be touched by the brilliance of the work. Well Mr Schreiber, I have failed once again. I find the poem, long, difficult to come to grips with, uneven in its metre and certainly noting of the beauty which Keats discovered. Obviously I am missing something either very basic or perhaps the quality of superb poetry eludes me still. I much preferred his Isabella.
Now I know full well that Keats observed all the ‘rules’ and ‘regulations’ in his poetry writing. I know full well that the Ode is recognised as a masterpiece. But yet, I fail to be emotionally snared by its beautiful words and I have to admit, though even still reluctantly that there are plenty of excellent words in amongst the majority, which do not touch me so much. Let me quote a few. The last two lines in of the second stanza,
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Indeed I can see the painted figures, black against the earthen background, so I suppose I am able to accomplish some of what Schreiber has said, but it is far from going into a state of ecstasy about the blessed thing. I have been much more moved by more down to earth topics.
In stanza three there are lines which I fine quite touching.
And happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy, happy love!
There is a soft, gentle rolling off the tongue in the second line, which make me feel pleasantly calm, though spoiled somewhat by the repetitive happy in the next. I accept the fact there are many who find this poem a delight. I think that because I find it so damn difficult to have my imagination work on any idea I might dig up for a poem that I might feel a bit of envy for Mr Keats and his, when it delivers a poem that the world of well educated, well read, literary boffins declare is a masterpiece.
Now a bit of information on S.M.Schreiber. I do not know what the two initials stand for but will hunt him up on the Internet and advise later. He is or was, (I do not know if he is still working in the field of education, I would doubt it) a lecturer to students who were preparing for the Oxford and Cambridge Entrance Examinations in Classics, Modern Languages and English and the book from which I have taken his comments was produced under the auspices of the Commonwealth and International Library and published by Pergamon Oxford English Series in 1966. Over forty years ago yet the same rules and fundamentals for writing poetry hold good today as they did then. Do they? I wonder.
I wonder what, if any comments, this piece might inspire? Surely, there must be some argument about whether the ‘rules’ are applicable today or whether we can go hell for leather and write whatever we like and call it poetry, prose poetry, free verse, abstract or whatever. Do we think the philosophy that Aristotle, in his seminal work ‘Poetics’, ascribed to poetry is alive and well in the lyrical poetry of today’s writers? Closer to home, do we think that we, as a poetry group, display the quality and standard in our poems that would make Kerry Cue change her comments from those in the article that started me off on this quest?
Monday, January 5, 2009
Scaliger turns deadly pale at the sight of watercress. Tycho Brahe, the famous astronomer, passes out at the sight of a caged fox. Maria de Medici feels instantly giddy on seeing a rose, even in a painting. My ancestors, meanwhile, are eating cabbage. They keep stirring the pot looking for a pigfoot which isn’t there. The sky is blue. The nightingale sings in a Renaissance sonnet, and immediately someone goes to bed with a toothache.
Charles Simic
Cathy McCallum writes: This is a prose poem by Charles Simic, the poet laureate of the United States. It's from his book The World Doesn't End which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. I really like the oddness of his imagery, the way he sets up a thought visually. You don't need to know the people he mentions to 'get' it.
Charles Simic
Cathy McCallum writes: This is a prose poem by Charles Simic, the poet laureate of the United States. It's from his book The World Doesn't End which won the 1990 Pulitzer Prize. I really like the oddness of his imagery, the way he sets up a thought visually. You don't need to know the people he mentions to 'get' it.
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