End of a Dream
C-sharp minor
plays through the eaves
of this house
wind-cold emptiness, the ambient noise
of destruction
where laughter once lived.
Shoji, last opened
to plum-blossom whispers
now lachrymose with silent
half-life
a bird singing
for no-one.
xxx
3/11 – The Japan Times
Red Bishop – Kwazulu – Natal, South Africa
Microcosmos
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.
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For more entries to last week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
What is one thing nobody knows about you?
This question is posed for the 27th January by my 3-year sentence-a-day diary, a gift from a dear friend. Since I started the diary 5 months ago, it’s the only page that remains blank.
And it’s not because the answer is something I wish not to put on paper so that no-one can ever find out; it’s because I don’t have an answer! What a strange thing to realize. Perhaps I need to get a secret life. 😀
Would you have an answer?
Morning moon over Miyajima Island
See how the earth tips to the left?
This is my heart: a summer solstice
of all the love I’ve been given.
What I noticed
were the birds:
the heron high
hunched
against a silent sky
so many pigeons, too,
symbols of peace, in view
the scavenging crow
safe to peck ground zero.
What do they know?
For more entries to this week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
Often
in the crowd
a ghost flies by
in a smile, in a walk
in the twinkle of an eye.
A Wild Night in Tokyo
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post. (Although, when I last looked, their pingbacks weren’t working.)
..the name of the river on the banks of which this photo was taken?
My maternal grandfather had many interests and hobbies: he studied the stars (astronomically, as opposed to astrologically), played the violin and loved photography, carrying his camera wherever he went.
I don’t know if he kept a journal, but if he did, it’s long lost; however, his insatiable curiosity about so many things–from people to architecture, to history, to nature–is well documented through the many photos (in slide form) that he took over his lifetime.
He worked as a mosaic tradesman and sometimes travelled from his hometown, Durban, South Africa, by ship up the east coast of Africa to do mosaic work on buildings in exotic places, such as Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and Beira.
On one of these trips, he took my mum and brother along, documenting the journey with his lens.
I particularly love this photo that he took on the ship of my mum making bubbles for my brother. And I love my mum’s reaction to it: “Oh, what a silly young thing I was then.”
Photo by RIP © beeblu
For more entries to this week’s photo challenge, see The Daily Post.
For this week’s photo challenge, guest host Frédéric Biver suggests, “…for this week’s challenge, bring together two of your photos into dialogue. What do they say to each other?“
What story do these two photos tell you?
Given the grammar and punctuation transgressions on this blog, you’ll probably find it hard to believe that I qualified as a book editor over a decade ago. *Sharp intakes of breath around the Blogosphere* Yes, you know who you are. 😀 Breathe easy; I’ve yet to give up my day job.
What I do know is that editing is critical to the writing process and essential for, at the very least, published works and professional documents. And what I did learn in studying for my editing qualification is the need for tact when dealing with authors and their work, no matter how awful either.
At work, I edit my own writing before and after I get someone else to edit it. Even so, when I do the final edit, I’m often bemused to find a number of errors remaining. When it comes to prose, I know my weak areas: omission of functions words, homonym misuse and comma confusion, to name but a few, so I know what to look for. But, poetry? I really have no idea.
So it is with heartfelt gratitude, appreciation and admiration that I thank Linda Cosgriff (a.k.a. The Laughing Housewife) for the gift of her editing expertise on my first poetry collection.
Linda is what the publishing industry (if she were to put herself out there) would consider an exceptional editor: she knows her stuff, and she is unafraid to say what needs to be said on both form and style but does so in an encouraging, tactful and respectful manner. And she sends gifts. 😀
I’ve taken most of her advice…
..OK, I admit I’ve granted clemency to some of my poor darlings.
Any errors remaining in the book are purely mine.
You have done me an immense favour, Linda dear. Thank you for the gift of your friendship, your valued input and the Olympic Games bookmark with the inspiring quote. ♥♥♥
There was a time, when I was much younger, when I was afraid to fly.
No more.
I’m not sure why the change, but since a few decades ago, no longer do I sit white-knuckled in the belly of those big mechanical birds as they defy gravity. Perhaps it’s something to do with my attitude to death. I’m no nihilist, but I don’t necessarily view death in a negative light. My death, that is. The death of others is quite another matter.
The morning after MH17 was shot down, I flew long-haul. I thought not of plane crashes but of the shocking consequences of war, its terrible futility and the immense trauma and devastation that it invariably causes to human lives; of those people left behind, forever suffering the reality of the obliteration of their loved ones. And how this suffering so often leads to an ongoing cycle of violence.
In my hotel room, on the BBC News channel, night after night, images of the crash site alternated with sickening images of Gaza. How to make sense of the human that strolls casually amongst the mutilated dead, picking through aircraft wreckage and strewn personal belongings as if he were evaluating fruit at the local market. And of the human that bombs sleeping children as if crop-spraying pests. How do we get to this?
A week later, on my way to Tân Sơn Nhất International Airport for my flight home, my hosts, who insisted on accompanying me in the taxi to the airport, chatted with the taxi-driver in Vietnamese. I heard the word “Malaysia” and asked if they were talking about plane crashes. They were. And they expressed their alarm that there had been three in one week. I thanked them for their tact, and we all laughed.
Once boarded, I started reading The Sorrow of War by Bao Ninh, and thoughts of the taxi conversation were forgotten as the book caused me to reflect on how human memory and the subconscious mind work both for and against us in life: the need for revenge versus the need for peace; how we dehumanize “the other side” to make ourselves feel better about what we do and about humanity as a whole; and how memories play a role in our undoing.
Eventually I slept but was bedeviled by catastrophic dreams – we ditched in the South China Sea, a flotilla of boats waiting to rescue us; we made an emergency landing in a busy city street, the fuel-laden left wing barely missing an advertising bollard; I rescued long-dead loved ones from a burning wreckage in a field of sunflowers..
.. the subconscious mind doing its best to exert control over that over which we have little.
Despite our best efforts, accidents happen; death happens.
But war does not just happen; it is made by humans, the likes of you and me.
Dear blog-amie Gabrielle Bryden has tagged me in the Writing Process Blog Tour, which involves me answering the following questions and tagging a few other writing bloggers:
What am I working on?
How does my work differ from others of its genre?
It’s never accepted for publication.
Why do I write what I do?
I once read somewhere that Stephen King said something along the lines of that if he hadn’t become a writer, he would’ve become a small town sniper. My reasons aren’t quite as extreme (and, in case you hadn’t noticed, neither is my level of success), but writing—poetry, in particular—is a good outlet for stress and the things that fire my imagination.
How does my writing process work?
It’s a bit like vomiting, really – atrocious analogy, I know. But it is; it just happens of its own accord. One Saturday morning, I sat down with the intention of writing a non-fiction post about the notion that cheese before bed causes nightmares and within an hour, I had written this, something altogether different from what I’d intended.
Next on the Writing Process Blog Tour (tagged writers, feel free to ignore)
Thanks, Gabe 😀
After the response I got to my Search Engine Poetry challenge last year, I thought it would be fun to do it again this year. But, sadly, due to the reasons reported by Timethief over at
Google has gone and torpedoed all that – Pfffft!
(Christine, can you please have a mother-to-son chat about this! 🙂 )
What to do? What to do?
A Blog Title Poetry Challenge, perhaps?
Hmmm, doesn’t quite have the same ring to it…
..but it could be fun, and who knows what blogging gems we might discover along the way.
So, here’s my BTP challenge:
- Write a poem from WordPress blog titles (use the Explore Topics Tags in the WordPress Reader to help you).
- Be sure to hyperlink to the blog titles in your poem.
- Post the poem on your blog and leave a comment on this post linking to it.
- Read and comment on at least one post on the blogs whose titles you’ve used.
- Have fun!
I’ll go first:
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And whether or not you feel like participating in the BTP challenge, do yourself a huge favour and subscribe to one cool site; Timethief knows her blogging stuff and can help you with yours. One of her many really useful posts for bloggers can be found here. Thank you, Timethief.
‘Look Both Ways’ is one of my favourite Australian movies. The worst-case-scenario imaginings of its main character, Meryl, are depicted in ghoulish animations, which are juxtaposed with the realistic elements of the unfolding storyline. It’s a wonderfully quirky and inspired way of bringing Meryl’s inner life to the audience and providing light relief to a film that has death at its heart: the director—the late Sarah Watt—was diagnosed with breast cancer during its making.
The film’s black humour resonates with me because, despite my scientific rationalist leanings, I think in much the same way as Meryl: worst-case-scenario is my oldest imaginary friend defensive tactic.
I hurt my back a few weeks ago, cleaning (yes, it’s bad for one’s health). I’ve never had back problems, and when my condition hadn’t improved after a week of intermittent resting, the bone-cancer-metastasized-from-the-bowel-cancer-I’ve-yet-to-be-tested-for-serves-me-right-for making-jokes-about-it thought crept into my head . A lot of magical thinking for someone who doesn’t believe in fairies and ghosts.
The benign reality—that sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day and in a car for close on 2.5 hours a day has turned me into a blob (note the passive construction of that last sentence), and my core strength just isn’t what it used to be—finally popped into my blobby brain, and off I went to the gym swimming pool, where I spent some time running through water, shocking neglected muscles back to life. And my back is suddenly better. Magical, isn’t it?!
Snow Poles in Summer – Falls Creek, Victoria, Australia
For more entries to this week’s WPC, see The Daily Post.
Five favourites out of the entries so far.
Exploratorius (who can resist a good mystery?!)
Colder Weather (an ant’s perspective)
happyface313 (look up!)
autopict (things catch the eye)
Lucid Gypsy (horseying around)
First came the warning letter…
..and then the package.
Sending poo in the mail: there are few things more deviant, surely?
No, it’s not what you’re thinking: I didn’t receive poo in the mail from some demented troll, but have been requested by my Government to send mine. I kid you not. In Australia, you know you’re 50 when you receive…
..your very own Government-sponsored DIY bowel cancer screening kit. With instructions in 18 languages, an information & FAQ booklet, sample sticks, test tubes, labels, return envelopes, the lot.
FAQ: Can I place my samples in the fridge?
The mind boggles, and the imagination runs riot (the unsuspecting child, home from school, thinking mum’s left them some sort of treat, a la Heston Blumenthal).
Mine would be more along the lines of: Can they tell I drank a whole bottle of champers within 15 minutes of stepping through the front door last night? (Or that I have gag reflex to shots of our PM is his red budgie smugglers?)
So, Australia, not only is Big Brother watching you, but your poo, too.
Secretly, I’m impressed.
There is a shopping bag behind the laundry door. It has a special purpose: the answer to that eternal, infernal question: Where do unmatched socks go?
I once read that they end up sunning themselves on the beaches of Tanzania. Why not? We now know that flip-flops of the world escape to Kenya’s Kiwaiyu island. So it’s not difficult to imagine a soggy sock, in the despairing depths of a dreary sock marriage (and a job that’s more than a little on the nose), slipping down the washing-machine outlet pipe, away from its unsuspecting laundry dance partner, and out into the wide wonderful ocean. And then, finding itself on some idyllic distant shore, being swept off its feet foot, so to speak, by a sock mismatch made in heaven – ‘Shirley Valentine for Socks’. Sigh…
But the truth, I fear, is as dull as wash-water – missing socks, it appears, lie so near, yet so far from their perfect match somewhere in the bowels of the dark sock-drawers of their myopic owners. In our household, these sad singles end up in the bag behind the laundry door, invariably, not far from their original sock suitors.
Time for me to go and match-make.
For other hated household chores, see The Daily Post.
Wild Conspiracies (a re-post)
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…
😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯 😯
For more entries to the WPC Unexpected theme, see The Daily Post.
I’m trying to get my first poetry book completed and self-published on Blurb. One of the elements I’m still missing is a short blurb/biography about me in relation to poetry – I don’t want to write this myself, and if I asked anyone in my family or non-blogging circle of friends, I’d get something along the lines of:
“‘x‘ is my ‘insert relation type here‘ – she writes poetry, but I’ve got no idea what she’s on about.“
So I’m looking for some help from you—the esteemed Blogging community (how’m I doing on the sycophantic flattery front?) for something short, and not necessarily serious, and thus am holding a one-sentence biography competition:
Post your entries in the comments section of this post.
I will include the kindest best ones on the front flap and may include any snide irreverent blooper blurbs on the back, all attributed of course.
Payment?!
Don’t be silly! We all know poetry books don’t sell!
The winner will, however, receive a mystery prize. 😉
Image via http://www.sxc.hu
The upside of the downside is creativity,
downside of the downside – survivability,
upside of the upside,
anxiety-free,
downside of the upside…
..dearth of poetry.
‘In a dark time, the eye begins to see’
Theodore Roethke
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Someone who’s definitely not suffering from a dearth of inspiration at the moment is artist (and hidden poet) Bénédicte Delachanal.
Check out her wonderfully humorous marriage of art and words as she tackles this month’s NaPoWriMo challenge. C’est une joie. 😀
beeblu blog 
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