Gazette 99, What Have The Strong . . .

What Have The Strong Successful

Women Done For Us?

What have the strong successful women done for us,

Gandhi, Thatcher,

Meir, Marcos and Perόn?

Their aims were masculine, hungering for power

in their world of men;

not for the betterment of us, their sisters,

we who have no voice.

We are the down-trodden and the powerless,

we women walk a step behind our man,

carrying the burdens.

We are those subject to mutilation,

with its indignity and pain

and life-long suffering,

or forced, as little girls,

to marriage

or are raped.

Always it is the woman,

who, when violated, bears the blame,

The suffering by stoning,

or at least, the casting out from family and friends,

for we contaminate them with our guilt.

Impossible for us to rise

to be law-maker, a judge,

a power-broker, with the aim to rid the world of weapons,

nuclear “deterrents”, monitoring by stealth,

detention of illegal immigrants, or giving

health assistance to the poor.

For now, when we, the underprivileged,

or these our children, lack for food or clothing,

shelter, sanitation, water,

safety, treatment for disease,

our dire privations do not register with you,

you the fortunate ones well-housed, well-fed,

and elegantly coiffured.

Our children spend their days

scrabbling in toxic rubbish dumps,

detritus from those affluent across the world,

no education, work, or any hope

our pains may yet be lessened,

if you care.

We are the women and children

at the bottom of the heap.

Remember us and let us not continue to despair.

© Mary Kille

Gazette 99, Morning and My Cat

Morning

The morning sun comes through my window

awakening my senses.

I gaze around at my surroundings,

rose-pink walls,

books on the chest of drawers waiting to be read.

Through the bay window

I see the fern leaves waving in the breeze,

yellow and purple flowers dance.

I glance at the time, only early yet.

Back to dreamland for a while.

© Cathy Weaver

My Cat

Pillamena,

ya should have seen her

on the walking track,

disguised as a man in black

when someone yelled,

“Ya bloody nigger!”

She turned into a tiger

and with a feral snigger

she tore the racist bastard in two,

pausing only to regurgitate

his fine walking shoes.

© Loretta Gaul, April 2012

Gazette 99, The End

The End

Hands of the old wall clock showed only minutes left before the hour

when he’d hear again its so familiar chime.

Yet he simply sat there motionless

so many thoughts criss-crossing through his head

as they jostled for a space within his mind.
He noticed little things that he’d looked at so many times

yet somehow they’d not registered before;

framed certificates hanging neatly lined along one wall

trophies of effort and accomplishment.

Worn buttons on the desk phone bore witness to its      use

where his fingers touched - how many thousand      times?

Coffee cup rings staining a corner of his desk and

overlapping into a shapeless faded blob.

Varnish worn through to bare timber

along the desk edge where his belly rubbed.

Suddenly, chimes from the clock re-focused him,

but only briefly, and he rose

to move robotically through the motions of closing up again.

But this time reluctantly -

a deep down sense of loss seeping through him,

and yes, a hint of pain

Last night the party had been great

with family and workmates all around, in festive mood

as the room filled with laughter.

But that was yesterday and now long gone.

The metallic clack of the door latch as it closed behind him

pierced like a bullet through his chest.

Then he stepped wearily into the evening

from his final day at work.

Tomorrow?... tomorrow the unknown world of

retirement awaited him.

© Pete Stratford. 10.4.12

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No. 97

Fear Of Darkness   A serial novel by Joe Lake.

(So far: Julie’s husband has had an accident and disappears. At the police station Julie sees two people who have no reflection in the mirror. Next, her husband is back and she notices two marks on her neck after she takes a dream-like excursion through the universe. Then, she meets a social worker who says that she is from five hundred years in the future who gives her a ring to travel in different dimensions. They step into a parallel universe and return. Susan leaves but

 warns Julie not to turn the ring as this could be dangerous.)

          

 “Julie, you there?” John moved his arms wildly into the fog.

        “I’m here. Hang onto me if you like.”

        “Why are you standing up? I’ve tied you to the bed.”

        “We’re in a parallel universe. Here we’re the same and not the same and I still don’t know whether our bodies are in the caravan still.”

        “You’re frightening me. Go back to where we were.”

        “I’ll turn the ring.” Julie did and found herself lying on their double bed in the van, still tied up as John still sat on the bed next to her.

        “What happened? We were here and then we were not. You’ve hypnotised me.”

        “No, I wish it were that simple. I’m a traveller now and it’s fun. Well, it is. I can go anywhere. Actually I don’t know where I’m going when I turn the ring but at least it’s out of your control.”

“I think you’re mad and I still don’t understand.” John put his head between his legs and closed his eyes.

“Untie me.” He did. All the while he shook his head.

“There! We’re going for a trip now?”

“No. Susan told me not to turn the ring by myself. I could end up anywhere and never get back. You’d like that?”

“No, you’re strange but I am too and now that we’re retired, I don’t mind a bit of an adventure.”

“I’ll wait for Susan. In the meantime, why don’t we both sleep? It’s been a difficult time.” John held her hand and touched the ring.

“I could turn it when you’re asleep.”

“You better not. The ring is a kind of transmitter, connected to some powerful station sending from another universe next to ours and I don’t understand any of it. I think I’ll give it back to Susan or hide it so that it can’t do us, you and me, any mischief.”

John held Julie’s hand and was looking for the ring. It had gone. “It’s not there!” he said.

“I’ve already hidden it where you’ll never find it. It’s a kind of invisible pouch and I can’t tell you where it is.” With that, Julie fell asleep and after a while John could hear her gentle snore.

“She thinks she is so smart, but I’m the man here and I’ll get the ring off her! Who knows what it could do, even get me some money,” he thought.

(To be continued next month)

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No 97

The days are turning cool and we sleep better. Judy and I took the dogs to the beach where they love running in circles as if herding sheep.

We bought some clearance cherry liqueur chocolates left over from Easter. There is no end to our suffering. I still play bridge and I am not sick of it yet. I’m doing indoor bowling but we are on a losing streak. My film script is moving towards completion but I have to spend a few nights typing it all up. My cancer seems to have stopped killing me for now and that should be good, except I don’t trust it.

Otherwise life is perfect. I live in my scripts, shooting and chasing people all through Cradle Mountain and then at night to sleep peacefully while dreaming of pleasant things that will never happen and the next day we’re chasing imaginary villains up and down mountains - how could life be better?

On Being II

Our lives are drawn towards a central core

To reproduce a substance into life

And here to form and open up a door,

The first beginning of that human hive. 4

We congregate and mingle and we make;

Constructing structures that sustain the cell

To reproduce from blueprints in its wake

And stimulate to feed and know and tell. 8

Yet soon enough the wheel grinds to a halt

So that the substance must be dissipated

Where Being and its essence may be culled,

Decayed into its parts, disintegrated. 12

   But other templates rise to build these blocks

   To make a different substance from these stocks.

© Joe Lake

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No 97

My View with Michael Garrad

We all play up and play The Game. Society sets the rules. But who is Society? What is Society?

We are constantly under pressure to conform. How we behave in public - even how we behave in private!

As we grow up, we are taught the rules -through school, to early adulthood, to being a responsible family person, to minding what we say and how we act, to body language! There is not an aspect of our lives that is not governed by what is considered as “acceptable”.

If we try very hard not to conform, we are labelled a rebel, odd, different, outlandish! It is most important that “we do all the right things”.

Who dictates what is right and what is not? Who determines we must be this or that? Societal pressure - that’s what!

Oh, but we have freedom to think! We live in a democracy! How wonderful is that! Democracy is just another way of controlling us because we are so grateful for that, we accept the constraints that go with it. Freedom with conditions!

We never are who we truly are. From birth to death, from Labor, Liberal, Green to “don’t know”, from the most intimate moments in our lives, to our sexuality, to the workplace, to leisure space, to financial space - to head space!

Yes, please, I’d like some head space right now!

Showers

May I sit upon your bed

and nurture you now you’re dead?

Post-mortem, still, I can be near,

Dare I, in anger, with a tear

dress your brow in cool delight

and wonder, ponder, how it might

have been, those early hours,

’midst early morning showers

as you slipped violently away?

Naught a word that I could say,

Regret sits heavy in my head,

Your body’s here but you are dead.

© Michael Garrad March 2012

Tasmanian Europa Poets' Gazette No. 97

Red-Hot Mama

I sat at my home computer, with mail I was about to write,

when up pops a little panel saying someone wants to

        Skype.

Now I didn’t know this stranger, with the oddest sounding

        name

of “Smoulderin’ Red Hot Mama” saying “call me - if you’re game!”

But I was feeling cautious, despite this inviting hype

and wasn’t sure this was for me, or if this caller was my

        type.

Then giving it some moments thought, I responded

        to the call,

since this was all anonymous no harm could come at all.

Well, Red Hot Mama’s picture really took me by surprise -

a teddy bear, in lingerie, with bright shiny button eyes!

Red Hot Mama had no video, but in a husky voice

said my Skype name sounded interesting -

“Sugar Daddy” was such a lovely choice.

Now this was getting scary, so I promptly stopped the call

for this sort of thing can get you into trouble

and it’s not my scene at all.

I was really quite upset and shaken

so went outside and took a stroll,

to avoid some online porno scheme

to end up chased by Interpol!

As I wandered through a car park

an old Classic parked there caught my eye

and with an interest in old motor cars

I sneaked a look inside, as I walked by.

There, sitting hunched up in the front seat

with a laptop on her bony knees

and typing with arthritic fingers,

a great grandma, if you please!

But, there on the seat beside her -

and this fairly took my breath away -

A eddy bear with shiny eyes,

and all dressed up in lingerie!

© Pete Stratford 22.3.12