Tuesday, October 20, 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Michael Garrad
We stare at death the moment we are born. So, tell us something we don’t know, you might be thinking.
Even as I write this, I am older. As you read this, you are older.
Every word, every character, every keyboard stroke, ages me. I am older now than when I started writing this editorial and the same for you.
Micro-seconds we cannot buy back, no matter how very much we might yearn for things to be different.
Age is the enemy.
Young and beautiful now, with dreams stretching into infinity - only what we have is finite. Childhood becomes teens, 20s becomes 30s and 40s, middle-age becomes old-age. No escape. We are in life’s trap.
We think we can defy the odds and that nothing will ever change - we will stay as we are but now, all of us, you and me, are older.
Are we wiser? Well, that’s another matter.
These are keystrokes I will never make again, for the words have been typed and I have aged, as you have. The second hand keeps moving on the clock-face and even if we wind it back, we cannot halt time’s movement.
Think about this. But hurry, you are getting older and death is waiting patiently.
Ungiving
Suckling from the one
who cannot give,
For this one has always been barren,
And does not give life,
There is no nurture in warmth,
Just a lure to the mother
who is never there, long gone
if she ever lived,
The suckle without satisfaction,
Desire and need in arid succour,
Flesh that does not yield,
As with fruit withering on vine,
We know it lies there,
Alluring, patient, ungiving.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Even as I write this, I am older. As you read this, you are older.
Every word, every character, every keyboard stroke, ages me. I am older now than when I started writing this editorial and the same for you.
Micro-seconds we cannot buy back, no matter how very much we might yearn for things to be different.
Age is the enemy.
Young and beautiful now, with dreams stretching into infinity - only what we have is finite. Childhood becomes teens, 20s becomes 30s and 40s, middle-age becomes old-age. No escape. We are in life’s trap.
We think we can defy the odds and that nothing will ever change - we will stay as we are but now, all of us, you and me, are older.
Are we wiser? Well, that’s another matter.
These are keystrokes I will never make again, for the words have been typed and I have aged, as you have. The second hand keeps moving on the clock-face and even if we wind it back, we cannot halt time’s movement.
Think about this. But hurry, you are getting older and death is waiting patiently.
Ungiving
Suckling from the one
who cannot give,
For this one has always been barren,
And does not give life,
There is no nurture in warmth,
Just a lure to the mother
who is never there, long gone
if she ever lived,
The suckle without satisfaction,
Desire and need in arid succour,
Flesh that does not yield,
As with fruit withering on vine,
We know it lies there,
Alluring, patient, ungiving.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66
Natural Forces
Natural forces are at work today,
Trees moan, arched in battle with autumn’s moods,
Leaves whirl in motley amber cartwheels,
Seas heave in defiance of summer’s death,
But all that concerns me is my long unruly hair -
Streamers in the wind.
© June Maureen Hitchcock May 2009
Natural forces are at work today,
Trees moan, arched in battle with autumn’s moods,
Leaves whirl in motley amber cartwheels,
Seas heave in defiance of summer’s death,
But all that concerns me is my long unruly hair -
Streamers in the wind.
© June Maureen Hitchcock May 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66
Invulnerable
You may think with my gentle smile
and appeasing way that I am invulnerable.
A steel girdle created in my infant year
from objurgation
from the cold hands of a nurturer
has camouflaged my true self.
Outwardly I may seem pliable,
Willing to be subjugated,
But inward I simmer with resentment
of you and others of your kind.
But then, again, who are the real vulnerable ones
For vulnerability has no class boundaries?
How often those who appear
invulnerable become religious zealots or socialists
To seek revenge and uplift their kind.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
You may think with my gentle smile
and appeasing way that I am invulnerable.
A steel girdle created in my infant year
from objurgation
from the cold hands of a nurturer
has camouflaged my true self.
Outwardly I may seem pliable,
Willing to be subjugated,
But inward I simmer with resentment
of you and others of your kind.
But then, again, who are the real vulnerable ones
For vulnerability has no class boundaries?
How often those who appear
invulnerable become religious zealots or socialists
To seek revenge and uplift their kind.
© Judy Brumby-Lake
October 2009 Gazette
Sonnet 79
When we are sleeping in our beds at night
We drift down different rivers through a park
Where peaceful creatures play in our sight
And rainbow colours glitter, dance and spark.
We float and spin in boats of soft design
Entangled as a single entity
Where we can melt within the poem’s rhyme
To set the spirit, mind and body free.
But then cold fear is gloating in the dark
And threatens when we open our eyes;
The wrench of hate may tighten our heart,
As flies the whale from too much sun and dies.
If you’d let go then surely I would drown
Away from life where I have played the clown.
Joe Lake
When we are sleeping in our beds at night
We drift down different rivers through a park
Where peaceful creatures play in our sight
And rainbow colours glitter, dance and spark.
We float and spin in boats of soft design
Entangled as a single entity
Where we can melt within the poem’s rhyme
To set the spirit, mind and body free.
But then cold fear is gloating in the dark
And threatens when we open our eyes;
The wrench of hate may tighten our heart,
As flies the whale from too much sun and dies.
If you’d let go then surely I would drown
Away from life where I have played the clown.
Joe Lake
October 2009 Gazette
At 3 am
Shapeless silver-shod moonlight splashes
the polished floorboards where I like to stand
with you
at 3 am
while your breathing follows an arc
back to sleep
in my arms
While I wait
for an arrival of steady rhythm:
rise and fall, rise and fall
and the soft weight of sleep
to hold your weight against me.
The curtain is half-open against the quiet world
where everyone is asleep in their own silence,
Except you
and me,
But I can wait,
I’ve got all night
And nowhere else to be.
© Cameron Hindrum
Cameron is the coordinator for the national Poetry Slam.
Shapeless silver-shod moonlight splashes
the polished floorboards where I like to stand
with you
at 3 am
while your breathing follows an arc
back to sleep
in my arms
While I wait
for an arrival of steady rhythm:
rise and fall, rise and fall
and the soft weight of sleep
to hold your weight against me.
The curtain is half-open against the quiet world
where everyone is asleep in their own silence,
Except you
and me,
But I can wait,
I’ve got all night
And nowhere else to be.
© Cameron Hindrum
Cameron is the coordinator for the national Poetry Slam.
October 2009 Gazette
Feature Poet
A Whistling Kite
Soaring - swooping - tumbling flight
Airborne grace - a joyous sight.
Earthbound me, wishing that I might,
Just for a moment - be a kite.
© Peter Stratford
Dementia
Decades spent together
As life’s great tune we played
The richness of love’s memories
Into our mind’s book laid.
But, slowly, as one ages,
It seems some evil grip
Reached in amongst the pages,
And from it volumes ripped.
Then a thought comes clearly,
"I need to walk the dog."
"Our dog’s been gone for years now."
This voice sounds through a fog.
The face looks vague, familiar.
Her head just slowly nods.
Beyond my comprehension
Is why she sits and sobs.
© Peter Stratford
A Whistling Kite
Soaring - swooping - tumbling flight
Airborne grace - a joyous sight.
Earthbound me, wishing that I might,
Just for a moment - be a kite.
© Peter Stratford
Dementia
Decades spent together
As life’s great tune we played
The richness of love’s memories
Into our mind’s book laid.
But, slowly, as one ages,
It seems some evil grip
Reached in amongst the pages,
And from it volumes ripped.
Then a thought comes clearly,
"I need to walk the dog."
"Our dog’s been gone for years now."
This voice sounds through a fog.
The face looks vague, familiar.
Her head just slowly nods.
Beyond my comprehension
Is why she sits and sobs.
© Peter Stratford
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