Sonnet 24
I floated, skipped and danced among the throng,
Like a child’s anticipation of a joy;
Righting all around me that was wrong
And touching the world as if it were a toy.
Come see me walk on water through the night,
Then float across the universe on stars
And pluck the flowers of the sun’s delight
To hear the songs of paper-blue guitars
Where highs and lows touch as a lover’s tease
And Earth is just a fluffy ball of foam
Among the blues of other stars’ release,
The secret breathing of the dying stone.
Come to my ship and let us sail away
Towards that neverland where we shall play.
© Joe Lake
New Day
The sky spreads wide across farewells,
And the sun smiles,
No matter where the end hides,
Rain dances on distant pastures
against renewing, banked clouds,
Birds, joyous, sing
above mountain ocean waves,
Chorus resonating in the long still,
And air is sweet and calm, and angry,
Brushing atop trees in all lands;
The gap is close and a sparkle
breaches every new day.
© Michael Garrad October 2009
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
No 67 Europa Poets' Gazette November 2009
The Slam is over for now. I’m not going to tell you who won. Guess.
We also had the Burnie Shines Europa Poets’ Gold Pot and that was won by a deserved person.
Christmas is my favourite time of the year as I like singing and playing my little organ to the tune of Silent Night.
No inkling of Global Warming in Burnie last winter and we can only take the scientists’ word for the fact that it will get better.
I did manage in a kind of way to get us onto Google’s Blog. You’ll have to type into the Google box, “Europa Poets’ Gazette”
and that should bring you a moment’s joy or you can expose yourself by telling us how bad it all is and that Shakespeare
could do better, or was that T.S. Eliot? Never mind. Write some yourself. It will open your mind to new vistas and horizons.
You will find that after a time, the brain will write your poetry for you and you’ll think that God did it.
Sonnet Undetermined
Deterministically, life is set
As genes and software-instinct wail for me
Where childhood horrors or my social debt
Drives unrelentingly life’s goal and key.
This rule, of course, means that I cannot change
The book of life as written at my birth
And I can only wriggle in its range
As nothing alters my life’s drift and curse.
But I pretend that I can make a choice,
That I can find the good rather than bad
If I can listen to my conscience’s voice,
Ignoring all projections that are mad.
By precedent we do what we must do
As we reject conclusions that are new.
© Joe Lake
We also had the Burnie Shines Europa Poets’ Gold Pot and that was won by a deserved person.
Christmas is my favourite time of the year as I like singing and playing my little organ to the tune of Silent Night.
No inkling of Global Warming in Burnie last winter and we can only take the scientists’ word for the fact that it will get better.
I did manage in a kind of way to get us onto Google’s Blog. You’ll have to type into the Google box, “Europa Poets’ Gazette”
and that should bring you a moment’s joy or you can expose yourself by telling us how bad it all is and that Shakespeare
could do better, or was that T.S. Eliot? Never mind. Write some yourself. It will open your mind to new vistas and horizons.
You will find that after a time, the brain will write your poetry for you and you’ll think that God did it.
Sonnet Undetermined
Deterministically, life is set
As genes and software-instinct wail for me
Where childhood horrors or my social debt
Drives unrelentingly life’s goal and key.
This rule, of course, means that I cannot change
The book of life as written at my birth
And I can only wriggle in its range
As nothing alters my life’s drift and curse.
But I pretend that I can make a choice,
That I can find the good rather than bad
If I can listen to my conscience’s voice,
Ignoring all projections that are mad.
By precedent we do what we must do
As we reject conclusions that are new.
© Joe Lake
No. 67 Europa Poets' Gazette, November 2009
Beyond Hunger
Beyond the hunger
it waits,
In the twilight,
Still,
Watching
as leaves rest,
Even the breeze
has vanished,
Silent stillness,
Ravenous in this
half light;
It can wait
as long as the eye blinks,
As long as the
longest day,
Vigilant,
With voracious appetite,
It listens to the rain
and counts every drop,
Seeks the weak
in a second of
crying passion,
And then pounces
when defence
is impossible.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
This Face
The sun cuts deep,
And canopy green submits
to shadow, stark,
Shaped by light and breeze,
Hollows of black are eyes,
Nose sharp in profile,
Mouth frozen in grin and grimace,
Trees and bush are this face
Mood dark, stare set,
A human image no more
than prism trick,
Silent, watchful,
Eager to play with broken mind,
Gone with the night,
Or was that the moon dancing?
Pray that slumber is peace,
When black has swallowed this shape,
By dawn, it will glare again,
As clouds clutter around this sun,
Fear the mask in green
For it moves in frightful pattern
with every whimsical element
that is the essence of tireless death.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Beyond the hunger
it waits,
In the twilight,
Still,
Watching
as leaves rest,
Even the breeze
has vanished,
Silent stillness,
Ravenous in this
half light;
It can wait
as long as the eye blinks,
As long as the
longest day,
Vigilant,
With voracious appetite,
It listens to the rain
and counts every drop,
Seeks the weak
in a second of
crying passion,
And then pounces
when defence
is impossible.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
This Face
The sun cuts deep,
And canopy green submits
to shadow, stark,
Shaped by light and breeze,
Hollows of black are eyes,
Nose sharp in profile,
Mouth frozen in grin and grimace,
Trees and bush are this face
Mood dark, stare set,
A human image no more
than prism trick,
Silent, watchful,
Eager to play with broken mind,
Gone with the night,
Or was that the moon dancing?
Pray that slumber is peace,
When black has swallowed this shape,
By dawn, it will glare again,
As clouds clutter around this sun,
Fear the mask in green
For it moves in frightful pattern
with every whimsical element
that is the essence of tireless death.
© Michael Garrad September 2009
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Cameron Hindrum
At Storys Creek
Except for the ghosts of houses, an abandoned town
has no memory.
The footprints of man and building dissolve
into gathering ground.
An abandoned river with banks of rust
carries poison-weighted water
away from the rain off the distant bluff.
Rain is merciful, gentle here, no weeping
for open scars or lost fortunes.
The pillagers are gone, having reaped
what they could, leaving us to sow
while soft rain seeps into wounded earth
through piled waste, and taints itself.
Below the scars and wounds, and waste,
still waters in a forgotten river
watch the lazy sky.
© Cameron Hindrum
Except for the ghosts of houses, an abandoned town
has no memory.
The footprints of man and building dissolve
into gathering ground.
An abandoned river with banks of rust
carries poison-weighted water
away from the rain off the distant bluff.
Rain is merciful, gentle here, no weeping
for open scars or lost fortunes.
The pillagers are gone, having reaped
what they could, leaving us to sow
while soft rain seeps into wounded earth
through piled waste, and taints itself.
Below the scars and wounds, and waste,
still waters in a forgotten river
watch the lazy sky.
© Cameron Hindrum
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Joe Lake
Sonnet 44
Sometimes you’re ugly; then you’re beautiful;
Sometimes you’re young and then you’re old as time;
Sometimes I fear you; then you’re wonderful;
Sometimes the world is chaos; then it’s rhyme.
I always love you even when I hate;
I always hate myself when I’m in love;
I always stop to ponder our fate;
I always wonder if I love enough.
I never thought to fall in love with you;
I never hoped for such a blissful life;
I’d never know the way, or what to do;
But always wanted you to be my wife.
Why do you now refrain from kissing me,
A lover down to earth and on his knee?
© Joe Lake
Sometimes you’re ugly; then you’re beautiful;
Sometimes you’re young and then you’re old as time;
Sometimes I fear you; then you’re wonderful;
Sometimes the world is chaos; then it’s rhyme.
I always love you even when I hate;
I always hate myself when I’m in love;
I always stop to ponder our fate;
I always wonder if I love enough.
I never thought to fall in love with you;
I never hoped for such a blissful life;
I’d never know the way, or what to do;
But always wanted you to be my wife.
Why do you now refrain from kissing me,
A lover down to earth and on his knee?
© Joe Lake
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Joe Lake
The arts are not cumulative. Just when we feel to have produced the perfect poem or painting or installation, whoosh, the arts head off in a different direction.
Here are some traditional guidelines to criticism: Be interesting; make a point, be moral; expand the mind; no prejudice or lampoons; be serious and sincere; help the reader to change for the better; write simply; don’t be obscure; make it pleasent reading; have new ideas; help people to think; help the reader to make the right choices in their lives.
Congratulations to Mary Kille and Vi Woodhouse for jointly winning first prize, and the money, in the Burnie Poetry Slam; Peter Stratford came second and Loretta Gaul third. They go on now to better things and maybe to Sydney at the Opera House where the prize is huge.
Don’t forget Burnie Shines, Europa Poets’ Gold Pot which is a glass goblet filled with the gold coins of participants. It is to be held on Friday, October 30, at 5.30 pm at the Burnie Library. Vi has organised the musical entertainment and there will be a little supper.
My tulips have turned out huge; their colours are yellow, red and mauve. The vegetable seeds in their toilet roll centres in potting soil inside the icecream container have dared to show their little green sprouts tentatively and eventually will be planted into the garden. I’ll have to cut the grass again because it won’t stop growing.
We had a blogger, blogspot site that showed the month’s poems. Now I can’t find it. I’ll have to ask my four-year-old nephew. He’ll fix it. It’s hard in old age to do what the young ones do with their Facebook and blogs and websites, and what-not so easily.
At the library, when Elaine Harris broadcast on Harry Potter, a little boy came along and recited the whole first chapter of the latest book. I won’t tell you how much I could remember.
Here are some traditional guidelines to criticism: Be interesting; make a point, be moral; expand the mind; no prejudice or lampoons; be serious and sincere; help the reader to change for the better; write simply; don’t be obscure; make it pleasent reading; have new ideas; help people to think; help the reader to make the right choices in their lives.
Congratulations to Mary Kille and Vi Woodhouse for jointly winning first prize, and the money, in the Burnie Poetry Slam; Peter Stratford came second and Loretta Gaul third. They go on now to better things and maybe to Sydney at the Opera House where the prize is huge.
Don’t forget Burnie Shines, Europa Poets’ Gold Pot which is a glass goblet filled with the gold coins of participants. It is to be held on Friday, October 30, at 5.30 pm at the Burnie Library. Vi has organised the musical entertainment and there will be a little supper.
My tulips have turned out huge; their colours are yellow, red and mauve. The vegetable seeds in their toilet roll centres in potting soil inside the icecream container have dared to show their little green sprouts tentatively and eventually will be planted into the garden. I’ll have to cut the grass again because it won’t stop growing.
We had a blogger, blogspot site that showed the month’s poems. Now I can’t find it. I’ll have to ask my four-year-old nephew. He’ll fix it. It’s hard in old age to do what the young ones do with their Facebook and blogs and websites, and what-not so easily.
At the library, when Elaine Harris broadcast on Harry Potter, a little boy came along and recited the whole first chapter of the latest book. I won’t tell you how much I could remember.
October 2009 Gazette No. 66, Loretta Gaul
Under A Streetlight
Under a streetlight
a man croons.
His eyes older
than his body
will ever be.
He sways as he sings
with the intensity
of his memories
’til the light becomes
an inferno.
He flames and flares
brightly into Hell’s
uselessness.
We made love
just one time,
and as I lean
back into that memory,
I inhale his ashes
deeply into every pore.
© Loretta Gaul
Under a streetlight
a man croons.
His eyes older
than his body
will ever be.
He sways as he sings
with the intensity
of his memories
’til the light becomes
an inferno.
He flames and flares
brightly into Hell’s
uselessness.
We made love
just one time,
and as I lean
back into that memory,
I inhale his ashes
deeply into every pore.
© Loretta Gaul
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