It’s March again and time marches. There is a gene that retards growth in humans. People with this disease stay young, except that some parts of their bodies are not in tune and the person dies in consequence. Science, being able to control the gene (as seen by me on TV as a documentary) will make us all live for a thousand years, or more. There is no reason why we should not, as the cells in the body regenerate regularly anyway and only a fault in the genes makes us grow old and die. Most birds, for example, don’t age. They just die. Never mind.
Next month is the beginning of our seventh year of publication. We’ve published a hundred local people with poetic aspirations. I’ve tried to put the gazette onto a Google Blog blogger "Europa Poets’ Gazette" and have partly succeeded. Last time I looked it wouldn’t put No. 70 up but it did connect Joe Lake with a slimming company in England. I wonder if they know that I’m fat. Maybe not. I’ve tried Facebook but it keeps asking me for different passwords and secret handshakes. I’ve nearly given up. Once, an email came from Facebook asking who the hell am I to try to communicate with her. There is always a percentage of loonies on the internet and one must be young and naive to be able to put up with the hackers and the general infectors of the mind.
My garden is doing fine. I’ve discovered the secret ingredient to growing vegetables: Cow poo. It worked wonders for the people in the old country. They included their own poo. It still works better than all the artificial fertilisers. I mix it with pottingmix and up come the plants as if someone were pushing them from beneath the earth.
As you can see next door, I’m experimenting with nonsense verse. It’s marvellous. Someone said the other day about my Sonnet’s 2009, that they didn’t make sense. Maybe. But nonsense verse alleviates that problem because it all makes sense not to make sense. It’s like music with no words.
Ontology
(The nature of Being)
Think of the perfect and then think of God,
The all creating, all omniscient entity
Who has designed the world and our lot
Where all is perfect in this sanctity.
If God were evolution, He’d be less
Than great within a sceptic's sordid scheme,
So He must be much more than we can guess.
He must be more, much more than what it seems.
To prove the essence of this Being,
God is better than cannot be assumed,
A perfect force, of ever watchful seeing,
This God could be no accident presumed.
God is substance striving for perfection
A determined Being’s clear reflection.
© Joe Lake
From Philosophical Sonnets 2010
The Bungledoo
I tell you of the Bungledoo
Who owned the big brown lands
Where all the little children do
What no one understands.
The Bungledoo knew Bringaling
The yellow Gunglefoo
Who ate brown land as binngeling
Avoiding all that doo.
But all the children thought it fair
That Dinglebaggle dried
And so could float right through the air
Until you knew, he lied.
The Bungledoo who thought aloud
That bringbet could be done
As Dinglebaggle was a fraud,
As he shouted from a gun.
He stood his ground and spat in vain
At Dooroog’s flying croc
And thought that he could win the blaim,
Deciding to take stock.
But what he didn’t know, the spool,
Was that the king could fly
And so they all swarm in the school
To croak a lullaby.
I tell you of the Bungledoo
Who owned the big brown lands
Where all the little children do
What no one understands.
© Joe Lake
From Musical (Nonsense) Verse 2010
Friday, February 26, 2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
Rag Doll
The little boy who lives
down the lane
is evil,
Or maybe he’s insane,
Plays with rag dolls,
Wears girlie clothes,
And Heaven knows
what goes on behind that door,
No one hears, not one thing,
Nor even saw
his frozen grin in window frame,
Playing at his childhood game,
Whispers loud but no one stirs,
And the cat licks its lips,
Never purrs,
Sitting, satiated, and very still,
Tongue flicking mouth with a will,
Or does it smile
at the girl-dressed boy
who fondles eagerly this rag-doll toy?
© Michael Garrad February 2010
The little boy who lives
down the lane
is evil,
Or maybe he’s insane,
Plays with rag dolls,
Wears girlie clothes,
And Heaven knows
what goes on behind that door,
No one hears, not one thing,
Nor even saw
his frozen grin in window frame,
Playing at his childhood game,
Whispers loud but no one stirs,
And the cat licks its lips,
Never purrs,
Sitting, satiated, and very still,
Tongue flicking mouth with a will,
Or does it smile
at the girl-dressed boy
who fondles eagerly this rag-doll toy?
© Michael Garrad February 2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
Corner Store
Pitch black the night,
Blind in the dark,
No white light,
No friendly glow,
The corner store is shut,
And maybe never opened,
And they weren’t there,
Perhaps never had been,
Did the birds sing?
Was it a flautist's note?
Or nothing at all?
Perhaps the rain dancing,
Or clouds crying,
Wind against face,
Or face against wind?
Or was it the sun laughing,
Hollow and white?
Or nothing at all?
A baby crying,
Or a gasp?
What are tears and smiles
in the very long slumber?
The Death,
Free-wheeling on a roundabout,
On and on,
Is it painful?
Or nothing at all?
A crumb of dirt maybe,
Playing on parched grass,
One particle that lolls
in the undergrowth,
Buried by incalculable years,
Stark tree, whose branches groan
and strain against a weak foothold,
It will fall in a thousand years,
And be nothing at all,
Did it feel a limb snap?
Did the trunk scream
as the bough fractured?
Did it happen?
Did I happen?
Were embers glowing red-bright,
Or was it a fog beam in a no-day?
Or nothing at all?
The corner store did not exist
at the end of the lane,
And the lane runs always,
Not a twist, not a turn,
It never was,
Never is,
Nor was I,
And it isn’t painful
because Death is nothing at all,
And life is nothing at all,
It has never been,
And the end is
the beginning of nought.
© Michael Garrad February 2010
Pitch black the night,
Blind in the dark,
No white light,
No friendly glow,
The corner store is shut,
And maybe never opened,
And they weren’t there,
Perhaps never had been,
Did the birds sing?
Was it a flautist's note?
Or nothing at all?
Perhaps the rain dancing,
Or clouds crying,
Wind against face,
Or face against wind?
Or was it the sun laughing,
Hollow and white?
Or nothing at all?
A baby crying,
Or a gasp?
What are tears and smiles
in the very long slumber?
The Death,
Free-wheeling on a roundabout,
On and on,
Is it painful?
Or nothing at all?
A crumb of dirt maybe,
Playing on parched grass,
One particle that lolls
in the undergrowth,
Buried by incalculable years,
Stark tree, whose branches groan
and strain against a weak foothold,
It will fall in a thousand years,
And be nothing at all,
Did it feel a limb snap?
Did the trunk scream
as the bough fractured?
Did it happen?
Did I happen?
Were embers glowing red-bright,
Or was it a fog beam in a no-day?
Or nothing at all?
The corner store did not exist
at the end of the lane,
And the lane runs always,
Not a twist, not a turn,
It never was,
Never is,
Nor was I,
And it isn’t painful
because Death is nothing at all,
And life is nothing at all,
It has never been,
And the end is
the beginning of nought.
© Michael Garrad February 2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
Pervasive Power
The pervasive power of the rich,
The pervasive power of those who hold
status and degrees;
The pervasive power of those with a facade of class, acquired without toil or effort,
Where a person of this social pack
Is often placed at the top,
Whilst those without pervasive power
Will be designated to a mediocre and invidious job
By those with a facade of smiles,
The pervasive people with power.
Ideas Wrongly Attributed
Often, inconsequential persons’
Ideas are surreptitiously stolen
and the Creator’s name altered.
Inconsequential persons
are never credited as the creators
of original ideas.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
Golden Goodbye
I watch the setting sun shimmer on the water -
Layers of molten gold, appliquéd on green velvet,
And I remember how you adored gold -
You were always swathed in it from head to toe.
Now, your dust scatters in the summer breeze,
Setting on the gold you loved so much.
© June Maureen Hitchcock December 2009
The pervasive power of the rich,
The pervasive power of those who hold
status and degrees;
The pervasive power of those with a facade of class, acquired without toil or effort,
Where a person of this social pack
Is often placed at the top,
Whilst those without pervasive power
Will be designated to a mediocre and invidious job
By those with a facade of smiles,
The pervasive people with power.
Ideas Wrongly Attributed
Often, inconsequential persons’
Ideas are surreptitiously stolen
and the Creator’s name altered.
Inconsequential persons
are never credited as the creators
of original ideas.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
Golden Goodbye
I watch the setting sun shimmer on the water -
Layers of molten gold, appliquéd on green velvet,
And I remember how you adored gold -
You were always swathed in it from head to toe.
Now, your dust scatters in the summer breeze,
Setting on the gold you loved so much.
© June Maureen Hitchcock December 2009
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
Pervasive Power
The pervasive power of the rich,
The pervasive power of those who hold
status and degrees;
The pervasive power of those with a facade of class, acquired without toil or effort,
Where a person of this social pack
Is often placed at the top,
Whilst those without pervasive power
Will be designated to a mediocre and invidious job
By those with a facade of smiles,
The pervasive people with power.
Ideas Wrongly Attributed
Often, inconsequential persons’
Ideas are surreptitiously stolen
and the Creator’s name altered.
Inconsequential persons
are never credited as the creators
of original ideas.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
Golden Goodbye
I watch the setting sun shimmer on the water -
Layers of molten gold, appliquéd on green velvet,
And I remember how you adored gold -
You were always swathed in it from head to toe.
Now, your dust scatters in the summer breeze,
Setting on the gold you loved so much.
© June Maureen Hitchcock December 2009
The pervasive power of the rich,
The pervasive power of those who hold
status and degrees;
The pervasive power of those with a facade of class, acquired without toil or effort,
Where a person of this social pack
Is often placed at the top,
Whilst those without pervasive power
Will be designated to a mediocre and invidious job
By those with a facade of smiles,
The pervasive people with power.
Ideas Wrongly Attributed
Often, inconsequential persons’
Ideas are surreptitiously stolen
and the Creator’s name altered.
Inconsequential persons
are never credited as the creators
of original ideas.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
Golden Goodbye
I watch the setting sun shimmer on the water -
Layers of molten gold, appliquéd on green velvet,
And I remember how you adored gold -
You were always swathed in it from head to toe.
Now, your dust scatters in the summer breeze,
Setting on the gold you loved so much.
© June Maureen Hitchcock December 2009
Europa Poets' Gazette, No 68, December 2009
Barnacles
Glued fast onto its chosen rock
Twice daily washed by waves,
Antenna combing fluid world
For nutrients it craves.
So thus it grows hard calcine tube
Amidst colony of kin,
Link in the ocean’s food chain,
It shelters dark within.
This creature boasts no pearly shell,
No pleasing note does sing,
Man finds no pleasure in it -
Boat men have cursed this thing.
Through swirling tidal changes,
So many darks and dawnings,
It simply, in its shell, exists,
And then it too starts spawning.
© Pete Stratford 29.11.09
Patchwork
She lay on the sand, watching the race -
White sails cutting triangles out of a sapphire sky,
These were the colours and design she would use
On the patchwork quilt she was making.
She sighed - if only solving all her troubles
Was so simple!
Patchwork girl, lying on patchwork sand,
Watching patchwork sky -
In a patchwork world.
© June Maureen Hitchcock February 2010
Glued fast onto its chosen rock
Twice daily washed by waves,
Antenna combing fluid world
For nutrients it craves.
So thus it grows hard calcine tube
Amidst colony of kin,
Link in the ocean’s food chain,
It shelters dark within.
This creature boasts no pearly shell,
No pleasing note does sing,
Man finds no pleasure in it -
Boat men have cursed this thing.
Through swirling tidal changes,
So many darks and dawnings,
It simply, in its shell, exists,
And then it too starts spawning.
© Pete Stratford 29.11.09
Patchwork
She lay on the sand, watching the race -
White sails cutting triangles out of a sapphire sky,
These were the colours and design she would use
On the patchwork quilt she was making.
She sighed - if only solving all her troubles
Was so simple!
Patchwork girl, lying on patchwork sand,
Watching patchwork sky -
In a patchwork world.
© June Maureen Hitchcock February 2010
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
On Jonson Street
Byron Bay, August 2005
On Jonson Street the lines of chalk
fade in angled sunlight -
shapes of sun and fish
curved on a black canvas of bitumen,
near
cheap breakfasts and the endless beach
neoprened bodies flicking wet
arms over fibreglass
waiting on the sun-warm water,
for the surf.
On Jonson Street the traffic flows
the traffic stops, the traffic slows
past curry houses and craft emporia
past flocks of backpackers,
soft curls and hard vowels,
tanned, dreadlocked, in bare feet
along the edges of Jonson Street
Chalk lines fade toward the gutter
- the sun bleeds off the canvas -
as silhouettes, slick in shiny black
replace the street with sand
staring at the water.
© Cameron Hindrum
Byron Bay, August 2005
On Jonson Street the lines of chalk
fade in angled sunlight -
shapes of sun and fish
curved on a black canvas of bitumen,
near
cheap breakfasts and the endless beach
neoprened bodies flicking wet
arms over fibreglass
waiting on the sun-warm water,
for the surf.
On Jonson Street the traffic flows
the traffic stops, the traffic slows
past curry houses and craft emporia
past flocks of backpackers,
soft curls and hard vowels,
tanned, dreadlocked, in bare feet
along the edges of Jonson Street
Chalk lines fade toward the gutter
- the sun bleeds off the canvas -
as silhouettes, slick in shiny black
replace the street with sand
staring at the water.
© Cameron Hindrum
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
On Jonson Street
Byron Bay, August 2005
On Jonson Street the lines of chalk
fade in angled sunlight -
shapes of sun and fish
curved on a black canvas of bitumen,
near
cheap breakfasts and the endless beach
neoprened bodies flicking wet
arms over fibreglass
waiting on the sun-warm water,
for the surf.
On Jonson Street the traffic flows
the traffic stops, the traffic slows
past curry houses and craft emporia
past flocks of backpackers,
soft curls and hard vowels,
tanned, dreadlocked, in bare feet
along the edges of Jonson Street
Chalk lines fade toward the gutter
- the sun bleeds off the canvas -
as silhouettes, slick in shiny black
replace the street with sand
staring at the water.
© Cameron Hindrum
Byron Bay, August 2005
On Jonson Street the lines of chalk
fade in angled sunlight -
shapes of sun and fish
curved on a black canvas of bitumen,
near
cheap breakfasts and the endless beach
neoprened bodies flicking wet
arms over fibreglass
waiting on the sun-warm water,
for the surf.
On Jonson Street the traffic flows
the traffic stops, the traffic slows
past curry houses and craft emporia
past flocks of backpackers,
soft curls and hard vowels,
tanned, dreadlocked, in bare feet
along the edges of Jonson Street
Chalk lines fade toward the gutter
- the sun bleeds off the canvas -
as silhouettes, slick in shiny black
replace the street with sand
staring at the water.
© Cameron Hindrum
Europa Poets' Gazette No. 71, March 2010
Feature Poet
On Reading The Work Of Genevieve Ryan (1984-2005)
Death is absurd at the best of times.
I am reminded of Truchanas, the great
witness of the wilderness, who drowned
in the river he loved. He played Sibelius
while the doomed lake lit up the room.
And Dombrovski, the imagist, the master
photographer, who died in the grasp of
his majestic art. He too liked rivers
and saved them when he could.
His funeral was held on your mountain.
The same mountain, where
on ice-smooth ancient forest rocks
you slipped out into the void, while
all around you, sentinel trees stood silent.
In ancient religious scriptures it says
that life and death will pass away.
But water will always flow, somewhere,
like love,
And memory, happy and clear.
(Genevieve Ryan slipped and fell to her death at Newtown Falls on Mount Wellington in Tasmania in February 2005. Her prolific journals, including poetry and other writings, have been edited by her mother Elizabeth and published as Regards, some girl with words. Available in book shops or through Sid Harta publishers, Melbourne.)
© Cameron Hindrum
On Reading The Work Of Genevieve Ryan (1984-2005)
Death is absurd at the best of times.
I am reminded of Truchanas, the great
witness of the wilderness, who drowned
in the river he loved. He played Sibelius
while the doomed lake lit up the room.
And Dombrovski, the imagist, the master
photographer, who died in the grasp of
his majestic art. He too liked rivers
and saved them when he could.
His funeral was held on your mountain.
The same mountain, where
on ice-smooth ancient forest rocks
you slipped out into the void, while
all around you, sentinel trees stood silent.
In ancient religious scriptures it says
that life and death will pass away.
But water will always flow, somewhere,
like love,
And memory, happy and clear.
(Genevieve Ryan slipped and fell to her death at Newtown Falls on Mount Wellington in Tasmania in February 2005. Her prolific journals, including poetry and other writings, have been edited by her mother Elizabeth and published as Regards, some girl with words. Available in book shops or through Sid Harta publishers, Melbourne.)
© Cameron Hindrum
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