Category Archives: Home

Weekly Photo Challenge: Self-Portrait

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They say

we know
who we are
in adulthood –

sister,
not brother,
wife,
not mother  –

a prosaic mosaic,
fragments of a self

but don’t ask me
to complete the picture –

time has lost
more than a few pieces

Weekly Photo Challenge: Celebration

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21 years married today –

cause for celebration,

wouldn’t you say?

😀

xxx

Because it’s my wedding anniversary today, I’m celebrating my other half by posting some photos he took

on another day of celebration – NYE 2009

Sydney – NYE 2009

Sydney - NYE 2009

Sydney - NYE 2009


Weekly Photo Challenge: Waiting

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“The next
train due to depart
platform 3
goes to
Kepler-22b,

first stop – Gliese 581 g,
then all stations to Kepler-22b.”

*** And thanks to Jo Bryant for this award ***

When it comes to rules, I’m a bit like you, Jo, but I’ll join you for some pirate tea 😉

Wild Conspiracies

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I wrote this in September for Gabrielle Bryden’s National Poetry Week Challenge.

For more animal-flavoured poetry check out Gabrielle Bryden’s Penguin Week series.

***

I ask scribbly gum moths:
Why this graffiti on trees?
“Mind your own business,
they’re just doodles, if you please”

I ask a plodding snail:
Why the squiggles on the path?
“There ain’t nothing in it –
I just do it for a laugh”

I ask the sly hyena:
Why the tunnels ‘neath the trail?
“Well! Installation art’s
not only for the snail!”

I ask the bower bird:
Why that hoard of shining bling?
“Oh, poppet, it’s no mystery
objets d’art are my thing”

I ask the primping zebra:
What’s with the barcode?
“Poor darling, don’t you know?
Stripes are back in vogue”

But, you know, I don’t believe them –
It’s a vast conspiracy
It’s clear that they are sending
secret messages to me…

***

Crystal Fear

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Photo by RIP - ©beeblu.wordpress.com

Above the clouds
the raven circles
below

the world turns
us down
to a fleeting kiss
of ground
in capricious wind’s riddle –
How to unstick gravity?

                      Pull up!
Pull up!

Maximum speed
unbraking hearts arrested
by clarity
a stark reality
in the whispering
of slow-motion minds –

Are              we                  unstuck?

And the raven hovers
and the world turns
and fear takes flight

Why?

Do I not care or
like others before
deny it’s the end
of my world turning?

Then the raven flies south
on flouncing wind
to drown brown lands

And so
we land

on a world
turning
without end

Weekly Photo Challenge: Breakfast

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Once a yearon our 9-hour coastal journey south

we stop off for breakfast

at Narooma’s Quarterdeck Marina

home of fabulous retro kitsch

and the breakfasts of intrepid travellers

and,
if a sudden gust blows in,
fried-egg antimacassars
😀

Weekly Photo Challenge: Wonder

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As is
so often the case,

I took
the photograph
first, then
looked.

Saw the water
messaged fresh across his
name,

and I wondered then

if you were there
in the shade of the oaks
watching me

in distaste.

Style Guides Stole My Brain

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then
I was certain
of semi versus colon
phrase versus clause
en versus em
stop versus pause

but now
Defence does it this way, Academia, that
and for each I must wear a uniquely styled hat
Tech sector, plain English; Marketing, spin
little wonder my head’s in the shape it’s in
and I spend my days completely confounded
debating if words should be merged or compounded
and whether it’s ‘a ton’ or ‘1 ton’ or ‘one tonne’
(get that one wrong and your career’s good as done)
if I can dash with impunity or must double-dot
and when I must…
..and when I must not
and the comma, the comma—oh, don’t get me started!
it once knew its place; now it’s upped and departed
my participally dangling brain in revolt

Oxford, Strunk and Chicago,
it’s your @:^#;$\,&*! fault

————————-

Thanks to The Laughing Housewife for her CoWA this week which cheered me up immensely after a rather gruelling morning at the dentist 😀

Weekly Photo Challenge: Hidden

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Nature hides then reveals its beauty

I took this photo at Myall Lakes last year of what appears to be a cicada that’s just emerged from its nymph shell. Unfortunately, the colour balance of the photo isn’t good even with a bit of doctoring but it gives an idea of the contrast between the packaging and its contents.

Cicada and nymph shell - Myall Lakes, NSW, Australia

And the  poem below is about the duplicitous side of human nature –  (it’s a re-post of one of my earliest on this blog).

Wicked

How witchlike a creature can I be
when the moth at a swipe digs its claws into me
and the blood in my veins cascades to the ground
and the thoughts in my head make no audible sound.

How witchlike a creature do I feel
when a table for two is a cannibals’ meal
and the eggs in the pantry go rotten inside
and the cow in the meadow eats its own hide.

How witchlike a creature do I seem
when the nightmare you chase is my sacred dream
when the pain in your heart is the pleasure in mine
when the warmth that you drink is a poisonous wine.

Everything is not what it seems
The smile on my face is the end to a means.

Special thanks to Gabrielle Bryden for guest-posting me on her blog this week  😀

Weekly Photo Challenge: Possibility

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Change

is always

a possibility

Apartheid Museum – Johannesburg, South Africa

‘The next thing you think, the next action you take will either create possibility for you or it will repeat the past’
Deepak Chopra

Weekly Photo Challenge: Comfort

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Coffee art - Pala Pizza, NYC

I sleep in; you are gone when I wake,
but here in our kitchen,

in the egg in the pan
to be boiled,
the GF bread
already once-toasted,
Vivalto Lungo
in the Nespresso machine (eat your heart out, George),

I find you

It is this that keeps me

these minutiae of love,
all the comfort
I need

Jane Doe (with apologies to dogs, maggots and vampires everywhere)

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Bloggers come and bloggers go
and herein lies one Jane Doe
her tombstone says in Goth Shadow:
‘Just another WordPress blog below’

“Anonymity! Oh, freakin’ no!
I do decree that’s not the go!
For your complacency to grow
my power base, ALL I must know!

No faceless, nameless so-and-sos
will be allowed to stem the flow
your ID to the dogs I’ll throw
while I’m here sucking up the dough!”

Bloggers come and bloggers go
and herein lies one Jane Doe
maggot Zuckerberg, her face-off foe,
has sucked her in from head to toe

Sydney Morning Herald – Click, and Facebook revises privacy

Sydney Morning Herald – Facebook’s power should worry us all

Sydney Morning Heraled – Google launches Facebook rival ‘Google+’