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Gabrielle Bryden’s National Poetry Week Challenge

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Hop over to Gabrielle Bryden’s blog 😀 for details

http://gabriellebryden.wordpress.com/2011/09/02/release-the-inner-poet/

You can read the poems sent to Gabrielle at the links below

Day 1 

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4 – 1

Day 4 – 2

Day 5 – 1

Day 5 – 2

Day 5 – 3

Day 6 – 1

Day 6 – 2

And thanks to Gabrielle for posting ‘Wild Conspiracies‘ on day 2

Happy National Poetry Week 😀

Microcosmos

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Beauty at scale rarely seen
by human eye, but inbetween
lush blades of grass daily spy
a microworld of strange small fry

as this mini-jungle wakes
from dark of night, a lone ant slakes
his thirst from fresh dewdrops bright
reflecting snails in love’s delight

airfields of apian craft at ready
take flight from rouged poppies, heady
with blue jewels sparkling far and wide
on backs of bees on buzzing ride

a mighty dung beetle battles
sticks arresting rolling chattels
from onward journey, this daily testing
to construct his place of resting

inkblot-eyes of springtails watch
(in somersault) nymphs slowly hatch
themselves from deep and watery vault
and caterpillars as they moult

A miniverse that’s quite astounding,
with creatures, strange and weird, abounding

Weekly Photo Challenge: Mountains

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These are pics from Mt Kosciuszko – Australia’s highest mountain – taken last Christmas, would you believe, in the middle of our summer.

Mt Kosciuszko walk

We do get snow in this wide brown land, sometimes even in summer

Snow's a bit of a novelty for me

The stats - at 2228m, not quite Everest

A view from the summit

Homewards - and 6km to a chilled glass of champers

PS – I’m tired of all the gloom and doom in the world right now and having exorcised, over the last year, a few ghosts that had been hanging around for far too long, I’ll be posting alternative perspectives (if only, on occasion ;-)) via the weekly photo challenge.

Death Cap

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iniquity, depravity
crimes against humanity

conflagration, radiation,
man made this abomination

enormity, deformity,
war’s enduring legacy

experimentation, humiliation
who needs victim’s approbation?

cessation, condemnation?
war has no such aspiration

obliteration, extermination,
then,
our final destination

Rounds in resilience

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It’s her little joke –
every round is stroke –
the way she hits that ball
you wouldn’t know she’s had two

bionic man, quadruple
by-passed, defibrillated, has me
in stitches

at 80, his game’s
got more heart
than mine

then, on the 13th,

seasoned traveller
confides myeloma’s no
handicap to chipping
away at the children’s
inheritance

golf’s putting
this stupid game
in perspective

but it ain’t no Sunday
drive

A slice of a Sydney weekend

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Breakfast at Via Del Corso?

mmm, not quite breakfast

that’ll do the Man

fruit fit for bees

it’s a beautiful day for a boat show

to play tourist and reflect on the harbour

and the city

do some shopping

don’t forget to buy The Big Issue

(step away from the cupcakes!)

have lunch

spicy chicken laksa

and head off to friends to watch the rugby

What if?

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What if
you were gifted
a second life?

Would you,

having sifted
time’s hindsight,

re-map the course
thus far taken,
and without remorse
sail dreams forsaken,

hoist new masts
on life’s oceans blue,
endeavouring to chart
a different you,

to brave life’s wild
and raging seas,
or float with mild
and soothing breeze?

What if
you were given
a second
life?

Posted for SidevieW’s Weekend Theme

(one-sided) conversations with Sir Richard

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I concur that you are a brilliant man
(not some selfish gene flash-in-the-pan)
so I’d like a rational discussion with you
re your rationale I find somewhat askew

While I’m fundamentally with your position on God
I find your fundamentalism disturbingly odd
Yes, I was importunately sermonised in my youth
but would never label it child abuse

There are many true victims of that aberration
which has little to do with attempted ‘salvation’

Rogue

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Once,

on a shimmering day,

I saw the sea fly up

Llandudno Beach

and swallow our sunwashed

detritus –

faded towels, Hang Ten slops, trashy

novels, footprints

ingested,

as we scramble-watched

it from the boulders,

churning back out to the horizon

with the indigestion

of our lives,

not looking back

to wave

Surface Tension

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Dying –
it’s a little like that back there
“Get a tan, man!” – the beastie boys jeer,
white-raged, she’s facing off fear

Out here, the limits are none
her swirling strands of red-yellow-gold, spun
into halos burning bright as the sun,

jewelled auras for silent incantation,
reposed in peaceful contemplation
of fancies, unbound by vituperation

underwater, she is as fish,
swims human stark antithesis,
becomes her Aphrodite wish

———-

Updated for Sideview’s weekend theme of Beauty

Migrations In Memoriam

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Autumn, we lay lines,
unfurling across alpine waters,
to flycatch a trout’s eye

Spring,
we are copper lizards
on rocks trailing
the flowered creases
of Crackenback

Autumns and summers,
we zigzag
to the summit,
always a marking of sorts –
birthdays, deaths, waiting out
open-heart surgery –
from afar

A lifetime of seasons
ago – before I left –
you said
the mountain came down
and swallowed lives,
wanted me to know
that bad things happen elsewhere
too

as if somehow that would make
me see,
stay…

Now, it’s winter –
we’re making virgin
tracks
in snow
when the eye
of a raven catches
mine,
a gelid reminder
of these invisible scars –

the ley lines
that connect this place
to your passing

Silent Witness

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In hands made
to heal, did the shaking
of a child’s delight become
monstrous crystal ball

Stalin
Hitler
Akazu

revealed
as snow settled

into blood
stains seeping
across continents,

and out
through your
fingers?

Did you
catch the shadows
in a father’s benevolent eyes?

Is that why,

Ana,

you lie cold
beneath the snow,

silenced by your
own hand?

He could not hide
in plain sight
from you