Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No. 97

Hot Stuff

I’m not that keen on summer, you know.

I almost prefer to have frost and snow.

The only good thing about summer for me,

I can roam the house in my shortie nightie!

I hang clothes on the line in my nightie so    fine,

But I have to wear clothes when we go out to

        dine.

Then I eat like a horse and sweat like a pig!

What a pity that nighties are so infra dig!

© Vi Woodhouse

Finding His Way Across

Finding his way across

Lands near and far;

Drawing power from the sun

And the most distant star.

Carried along by the wind;

Nourished by the rain,

Filled with scent from flowers,

Birdsong and all of nature’s

Sweet refrain brings forth memories

Inspired by wishes and dreams,

Imagination is woven

In mysterious colours and seams.

© Cathy Weaver

Towards The Morning

Towards the morning,

pink fingers intrude the night,

prising the horizon

open.

Nothing new today. Grey.

Early fog and drizzle,

and rain in the afternoon -

as though we might have spoken yesterday,

any day, when the sun was smiling.

As if we would.

© Kate Ahearne

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No 97

Domesticity

The sun stole through the curtains

Competing with the glitter of the gowns

Of the ladies on the TV set.

Smoke spiralled towards the ceiling, creating

An atmosphere of a Chinese den.

Books about the world’s history and the working

Of man’s mind are neatly stored behind glass doors

Whilst women’s magazines, fresh off the press,

Coffee stained and dog-eared, are sprawled on the floor.

A woman dressed in housewife’s uniform,

Sombre coloured sloppy track suit (no-brand name)

And down-trodden slippers,

Is oblivious to the traffic outside,

For she sits with eyes transfixed to the box,

The box, a provider of her mental stimulus

And the soul of her survival.

The phone rings, she does not respond for

The problems of her friends in the box are

Too enormous to ignore.

Also, her mind is not in this world of mortgages

And housewives’ toils, but the world of Hollywood -

A world where her life would be insignificant.

As she immersed in the world of glitter,

The doorbell rings - she does not hear.

A woman in housewife’s uniform enters on tippy toes

So she too can enter the world of glitter,

The world of strained emotions

Where the world’s problems are so gigantic compared

To the women in housewives’ uniforms.

© Judy Brumby-Lake 1992

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No 97, May 2012

In France (or Anzac Day)

Blocks of rocking men march to the drums.

The Inglis, dark and calm, beds the moon,

To the sky, a slanting rain of guns.

The boys quietly fish through the ti tree,

Playing, joking, running free.

Blocks of rocking men march to the drums.

Sunrise over the river, a golden rush,

Sunrise over the trenches, a leaden slush,

To the sky, a slanting rain of guns.

Sunset over the river, a spray of red,

The tide runs bloody with dread.

Blocks of rocking men march to the drums.

The frost lies clean and pure on green field

The muddy snow hardens and does not yield

To the sky, a slanting rain of guns.

Wynyard boys and men lie dying near trenches.

Back in Tasmania we worry and weep.

White bait in the river and the fish are jumping.

To the sky, a slanting rain of guns,

Blocks of rocking men march to the drums.

© Patricia Turner

Joe Lake's Sonnet

A Sonnet

The disaffection of a troubled life
Where all existence may seem dull as blur
Where boring hatred cuts you like a knife
And nothing that is art may then occur.
You wallow in self-pity and distress
You search for answers but can’t find the way
And blame the world for causing all your stress
Believing what all other people say.
Then, through the mists of reason and some rhyme,
Four Jewish scribes created an illusion
With waking sensibility in time
They blessed you with their absolution.
All was lost, a saviour was created
That calms the mind and has all fear abated.

© Joe Lake

Joe Lake's Novel, Fear Of The Dark

So far: Robert and Julie came in their Winnebago from Sydney with the aim of settling in Tasmania. They were parked on Cooee beach when they took a walk in Burnie Park. A blonde woman in a rubber mask was stalking them. Robert chased her and ripped off the mask when the woman ran away. When they got back to the Winnebago the van was rocked by someone. Robert got his shotgun, stumbled and the gun went off into the ceiling. Robert hit his head as he fell backwards and became unconscious. Julie called the police and ambulance.
“No, I won’t come in the ambulance. There’s a scooter attached. I’ll lock up the van and drive up to the hospital. It’s on top of the hill, isn’t it?”
“That’s right. We’ll see you up there.”
The ambulance left with Robert inside. He was still unconscious.
Julie turned to the policemen, “Can I lock up the van?”
One of the policemen said, “Better not.”
Julie unhooked the scooter, swung it out on it’s little crane and set it onto the ground where it immediately started. She put it onto its stand. She went back inside the van, where a police officer was taking photographs.
“Will you be all right by yourselves until I come back?”
“Fine,” said the officer.
Julie jumped onto the scooter, pushed it off its stand, put it into first gear and let the brake-like clutch go. She switched on the lights, turned the hand grip that was the throttle and drove off. She always felt as if she were flying. The small wheels gave that impression. When fifteen minutes later she arrived at the emergency entrance to the hospital, she parked the scooter and went straight to the counter.
“I’m Julie Jones. My husband was taken up here by ambulance only a few minutes ago. Can I see him, please?”
The lady at the counter looked at a woman in a nurse’s uniform at a desk in the back. The nurse shrugged her shoulders. The woman at the counter said, “Not here.”
“But he fell, in the Winnebago, and hit his head and then the gun went off.”
“I’m sorry,” said the nurse at the desk. No ambulance arrived here in the last hour.”
“Then where would it have gone?” Julie’s blood drained from her head. She began to panic.
“Maybe they went to Latrobe?”
“That’s between here and Devonport?”
“Yes.”
“Can you find out?”
“Yes.”
The nurse picked up a telephone and conversed for a few minutes seemingly being re-connected again and again. Finally she said to Julie. “No ambulance went anywhere in the last hour.”
“I’d better get back to the van. The police would know.” With this she turned and forgot to say thanks. She ran to the scooter, started it and a few minutes later she was back at the spot where the van was supposed to be. It had gone. There was no sign of anyone.
“Julie kept the scooter idling with the lights full on. She stared. Her body froze, then she burst into an insane laugh. What would she do now? She still had the mobile phone. She’d have to find the police station but first she’d ring 000. (To be continued)

gazette no 80 December 2010, Joe Lake's Opinion

I love Christmas. Someone I know calls it
Hanukkah.
I used to be Santa in department stores where I felt like a king, a ruler, as you have your subjects come to make petitions. I used to tell them that I’d see what I could do. There are shining faces of worship that’s something beyond their dreary lives. Some would try to pull my beard and wig off. I gave it away because some seediness intruded, unfortunately.
I didn’t want any part of that.
But most of all what I like about Christmas are the lights. If you remember my poem,
The Fairylights - I like Christmas trees and baubles, and the packages presents come in, and ginger bread, and walnuts, and decorations generally, and I like ham. I even thought seriously about eating myself to death. I couldn’t afford it. But more than anything I like the hymns. Don’t stand near me when I sing. It’s not a pleasant experience.
I wish you all a happy Christmas and may all your dreams come true. Oh yes, and a happy Hanukkah.

gazette no 80 December 2010

This is her song -

My name is Barbara and this is my song - the beginning and the end, and the end which has many beginnings.

I hear the birds, I feel the sunshine and the rain, I let the wind dance on my face, I taste what is beautiful and what is sour, I delight in every scent upon the blossom.

As a child, I laughed and cried, I played with friends, I lived in the bosom of family, I cast my own net and followed my dream. One day, the nightmare began, long, long ago. And then the descent.

I struggled, I hoped, I prayed. But the mind closed one fine day and I could see everyone from a darkened room, curtains pulled, and the walls closed in while others skipped in the park.

The trap was set and of my own making. Medication, they nodded in concert. Let the tablets do their work, let them provide the buffer between green trees and the very longest night. Let this be the regime, the way of life, the beginning and the end.

And my friends drew away, and I turned and ran because this room was my haven, my sanctuary, my hope, my life and death, my solitude, my contemplation.

I was quite alone.

Thoughts screamed in the induced slumber and more, and more, they plied me with a multitude of drugs, numbing the pain, separating me from control of myself, for who I am.

I am a human being. I am a woman.

Hear me cry when the door has closed, when a hand has waved goodbye, when there is silence, when there is only me and the doorway, and nothing but a blister-pack of sheer oblivion.

Is anything real now? Can I touch this beginning and end and the end which is the beginning?

Cruel doctors bless the medication, the chemicals that play with my head. Enough of these drugs will fix the problem, like a magician waving a wand. Take them by the mouthful and enjoy!

Does anyone listen?

No, only the one with the prescription pad and a scrawled signature. Write my life in pharmacist language! My life played out on a piece of paper. Easy that way. Time to forget and for them to forget me. The prescription absolves them of responsibility. So easy with a scribble, a phone call and then off they go to another cocktail party - “Daaarling, imagine us living like that!”

I am human and I am a person!

I am me!

There are some who hear me, who sit in the dark, in the filtered light, who care much, who watch, who need some certainty, as much as I do.

This is my song and it has only just begun!