Verse Portraits

Revamp

2011-03-30T13:38:00.000+11:00

Yes, I've renamed it! (From 68+ x 365.) This can go on indefinitely, at my own pace — as indeed it has been doing since number 44, when the posts stopped being daily. I'm reflecting what is so, and giving myself new freedom. The number of words will continue to match my number of years, but you don't need to keep track of that; it's my private game/discipline.

Excelsior!

89. The Lady from Lombok

2010-12-05T23:12:00.003+11:00

‘My husband beats me,’ she murmured,
eyes downcast, to Bill in reply to his praise
of her gentle beauty. Perhaps she thought
to reject an advance? I never saw a mark
on her delicate face, nor a bruise
on her dainty arm, and she didn’t move
like one with hidden injuries; she was lithe.

Nor did she, later, reject his advances.
I wasn’t with him on that trip. But I knew.

This one is now doing double duty as the first part of a longer poem.

Another year, another word

2010-12-05T23:11:00.000+11:00

I am 71 now, which gives me another word to play with — if anyone except me is counting.

This blog has been languishing many months (again!) while I've been busy with other projects. But, however slowly, it shall continue.

I resume at this particular time because, whilst I always intended to write a poem on my next subject, it happens that I need it now to complete a series on Bali which has just appeared at my Passionate Crone blog.

88. Launceston Girls

2010-09-22T20:33:00.001+10:00

My Mum saw her sobbing backstage
after the elocution competitions —
second to my first. We were eight.

Grew up in the same suburb,
came to each other’s birthday parties,
attended High School together.

Thirty years later, surprise:
reunion onstage in another city,
reciting our own works.

Awhile inhabited the same
publications, venues, academies.
Supported each other, allies.

Went different ways again:
fiction her love, poetry mine —
rivalry, like childhood, past.

87. Her Name Was ...

2010-07-07T11:56:00.006+10:00

She was on MySpace
friend of friends.
We wanted to be
real friends not just listed;
but....

The poem she wrote at 10
thrilled me —
its rhythms,
its message,
its everything: perfect.
I praised, she dismissed.

The adult work
I couldn’t like.
All intellectual
wordplay, I thought,
clever for the sake.
Others admired, enthused;
the fault, no doubt, was mine.

Suddenly she’s gone.
Don’t even
remember her last name.
(Sad.)

86. The Man in Malang

2010-03-06T12:47:00.012+11:00

(central Java)

He stepped
from a shop doorway,
stood.

Our eyes held.
Then I was past
in the taxi.

A fair woman,
considered beautiful
there.

And he
lean, dark,
piratical.

Not Indonesian.
Too tall, curly-haired ...
a mystery.

That was all
until, back home,
headline:

These men missing,
believed dead.
He, centre photo.

Portuguese engineers,
East Timor take-over
(1979).

Already escaped
that day?
Or

visiting
and went
back ... ?

85. Festival Poet

2010-02-10T20:44:00.003+11:00

Hurtled downstairs
into my arms.
‘Where are you reading next?’

Three old fellows
fawning around her
shrivelled. She
was oblivious. (Fools
hadn’t seen her with beautiful
young man earlier,
dark to her ash-blonde.)

First night I heard her,
advised quietly:
‘Don’t apologise.
Your words are good.’
She nodded wide-eyed.

I was celebrity guest,
she was starting.
Four years later
she enchants children
(poetry as magick)

is Festival Director.

84. His Ex-Wife

2010-01-31T01:05:00.007+11:00

At first meeting, I was glad
to see she looked old.
I was wearing my red jacket
and I wasn’t fat then.

Hearing her talk, I liked
her forthright politics,
thought of being friends.

Disappointed, how
could she like me?
And I warmed
to one she despised.

That was 18 years ago.
Her youngest tells me now
she’s near her end.

My stepchildren’s mother.
My love’s first love.
This stranger.

83. Passing Stranger

2009-11-22T22:33:00.000+11:00

‘Frankie don’t dance’
his T-shirt says
and I’m sorry
for anyone who so restricts
his own joy,
so afraid of release
he fends it off
before it starts to begin.

‘If I can’t dance
at the revolution,’
Emma Goldman is said
to have said to Lenin,
‘I won’t come.’
Now that I like!

Me, I ain’t got
rhythm, trip over
my feet, and yet
I love to swirl and tap.

82. The Girl from Brazil (Market Client)

2009-10-06T17:57:00.001+11:00

Soft, young,
excited by life.
I feel, empathic,
the suppressed fluttering
of breath wanting to surge.

A dentist in Brazil,
here she must study
again another year;
doesn’t complain, enjoys.

She longs for love.
I’m glad to see it coming
though not just yet.
First she will visit home.
In March, she agrees.

I see the large, warm family,
her brother’s new baby.
Smiling, she’s love
waiting to happen.

81. Old Colleague

2009-10-06T11:25:00.005+11:00

“I need a new photo,” she says,
“To replace that one you took
nearly twenty years ago.”

On her website the new one
shows her whiter-haired,
still smooth-faced and lovely.

Upper Yarra Valley
Neighbourhood Centre.
Educators, enablers.

Our shared philosophies
expanded each other’s
gifts: teaching, writing.

Life moved us;
we never forgot. Now
her best friend turns up here.

Rapturous reunion
via email. We swap
news, our latest books.

I can go public with this one!

80. Spirit Sister

2009-10-01T14:37:00.004+10:00

“Younger than you,” the seer said.
“Dark-haired. A Celtic cross
around her neck. She will be
important.” Years later, visiting
the Caldera, strangers
we embraced at her door.
I read her cards. “You must
return here.”

Life paths almost identical, even
same-named healing centre
in different cities. 12 weeks
we rented her property. She returned,
we stayed close, worked magic,
wrote. Never needed any
explanations. She is
important.

79. "Marijuana in the Mail"

2009-07-27T19:38:00.002+10:00

Hates the press for this headline
and publishing her name:
“BASTARDS!”
Always felt above the law.
Stoned at the time, or drunk?

Pleaded guilty anyway
for trying to post it –
to Edinburgh.
“Don’t they have dope
in Scotland?” someone said.

She can’t stay free
by pleading the need
of her brain-damaged son.
He’s 18 now, and smart enough.
She does a runner,
leaving him home alone.

Oh, stay away!

78. Abused and Neglected

2009-07-02T12:49:00.009+10:00

He is afraid. Always.
I don’t know if he knows
the always. He knows
the sometimes,
the worst, the most
immediate. He knows
he has no-one but himself
to bring himself up. Not me –
not often enough, no blood
connection, and old
like grandmother, though I try
mothering, in my blunt
and sometimes cranky
way (when I’m most alarmed).
19 already and nowhere
to go, still nowhere
for escape.

77. Schemer

2009-06-14T13:57:00.004+10:00

She greets me in the shop
as we stand at the counter.
Startled, I respond too warmly.

She makes the cow eyes at me.
Pale, dishevelled, she’s lost
her sleekness along with her game.

Some are still fooled, most stand
with her intended victim.
I look away and place my order.

Later her man whom I’ve never met
sends me drunken emails. I feel
intense rage – his or mine?

Stocktaking

2009-06-12T19:09:00.002+10:00

I began this blog on the 29th of June last year. I've posted 76 poems to date, from a still growing list of 326 subjects so far. Obviously I'm not going to finish by June 29th this year. There have been many interruptions. Nevertheless I enjoy doing it, and have found it a valuable tool for self-understanding, so I'll continue on – not for 365 consecutive days, but certainly for 365 of these pieces. And perhaps I'll just keep on forever ... or indefinitely, anyway. :)

76. Expatriate Blogger

2009-05-27T00:15:00.004+10:00

I “met” her in her adopted city
turning the pain of her broken heart
into prose-poems that seared mine.
I thought them beautiful fictions,
then realised only truth
was that raw, that passionate.

She needed to leave the man,
his country and his family, all loved.
She needed her old home.
Returned, she lives in my adopted city
(I’m elsewhere now; we’ve never met)
begins writing new, beautiful ... fictions?

75. The Grandson

2009-05-25T09:42:00.002+10:00

“Everyone says
leave him with his father,
can’t take a child to live
in a country like that.”

“What!” we said.
“You’ve been
the one constant
in his life.

“In South-East Asia
they’ll love
you beautiful blondes.”
She took him.

Too admired,
they couldn’t go out,
got mobbed.
Came back here.

Now he’s teenaged
tall and lean, big-eyed.
She’s given him
stepfather, step-brothers.

The other day
he hit her.

74. The Girl Next Door

2009-05-18T01:03:00.005+10:00

A pretty three-syllable name
I never heard before.
Wasn’t sure at first
if she was girl or boy
despite long hair –
breasts just beginning.

She spoke softly, looking down;
liked playing with our cats,
asked their names.
I’d meet her walking
on the beach like me;
we’d smile briefly.

The older sisters
and little brothers
were noisy, laughing.
She: big-eyed, serious.
We began having
conversations, then they left.

73. Best Be Nameless!

2009-04-21T20:01:00.002+10:00

She’s an offence
looking to be taken,
a deprivation
eager to be felt.

He puts his foot in it
innocently again,
is surprised again
by the sudden
sobbing reproaches.

Petite, shapely,
curly blonde
girl-next-door,
she looks happy
and as pretty
as a Christmas angel.

She looks sweet,
uncomplicated.
All she wants, she says,
all she longs for,
is her father’s love.
She stabs him repeatedly
and twists the knife.

72. "Grandpa Daddy"

2009-04-15T22:58:00.001+10:00

The distant Grandpa,
the one I never met,
who lived across the water
like the rest of my Daddy’s
fabled, extensive family,
all those unknown
aunts, uncles, cousins.

I was grown
before I was told
of his love of the glass,
which took him so far
from Grandma.
A popular, dancing man,
charmer and flirt.

I still have the delicate
poem he wrote for me
when I was born.

71. Charming Billy

2009-04-15T15:38:00.000+10:00

always looks joyous,
fixes my back quickly,
admires my vibrant shirt,
tells me that if I Google his name
– I already know, I’ll find
a noted American poet –
asks after the progress
of my own writing,
adjusts my neck adeptly,
says, “That’s great,
get outa here!”
(American himself)
with a big grin,
adjusts the payments
to suit our budget,
treats every patient
as a treasured pal,
charms me.

70. The Cardinal

2009-04-10T22:41:00.002+10:00

Took him in dislike
the first / only time we met:
the Church’s rising star
chairing the prison inquiry;
attentive, serious, seeming to care.
(I represented reform.)

Nothing of course happened.
I saw his report: contrary
to his reassurances on the day,
leaning hard to conservative.

Since, paedophile scandals
he failed to act on;
banning gay worship.

“Pompous, arrogant…” says my husband,
watching him pontificate on TV.

Too right.

69. The Witch

2009-04-10T11:56:00.001+10:00

Slender.
Long, dark hair.
Softly flowing clothes.
She came to my market stall
requesting an aura drawing.

Afterwards, on impulse,
I asked her telephone number.
When she wrote her name, I said,
“You’re X’s Tarot student!”
“And you must be
the mentor she talks about.”

I invited her into the coven.
She’d been a Solitary.
Years later, coven scattered,
we two still meet for coffee,
swap books and DVDs.

68. A MySpace Friend

2009-04-09T18:36:00.001+10:00

I first fell in love
with her mysterious photos:
flowers, landscapes, self-portraits
washed with unearthly colours;
still think her blue period
most beautiful of all.

Then I started reading
her words, at once mystical
and confessional – a journey
through alcohol, recovery,
depression, regeneration …

and permanent paths:
the friendships, the art,
while holding fast the hand of God.
Full lips, long hair, soft heart –
yet a warrior!

67. Peggotty: Impressions

2009-04-07T15:46:00.007+10:00

Forty years all but one day
older than me.

Soft fat woman,
voice like honey.

Lying gowned in flowing purple
one liqueur chocolate
in smooth fingertips.

Musk and lavender wafting
from a cushiony bosom.
A yielding cheek for kisses.

Her garden had swings
and winding paths,
nooks for hide-and-seek
among rhododendrons.

Gave me 18 Poems
by Dylan Thomas
one shared birthday –
1962, my 23rd. I have it still.

66. The Man at the Next Table

2009-04-07T10:14:00.003+10:00

Hardly noticed at first
absorbed in coffee and book
then the phlegmy cough intruded
loud, recurrent, unscreened by hand.
I raised my book higher between us.

Elderly. Weathered.
Baseball cap, t-shirt, work shorts.

Laughter. Interjections.
Was he communicating
with wife or friend at the counter?
Followed his gaze. No-one. But …
ah! someone invisible in the other chair.

Met him walking later.
Not so old after all. Maybe 50.

This also does duty as my 2009 April Challenge 6.

65. Enemy Alien.

2009-04-05T19:15:00.001+10:00

I was fifteen.
My posh new stepmother
drawled with rounded vowels.
Stank.

Scent heavy, sickly.
Eventually I understood
it overlay
the reek of spirits.

Stout stomach;
fluttery, floral
afternoon-tea-party frocks.

She stole the dress
Mum bought me,
sold it for charity.
(Someone saw.)

Hid my most treasured books
under the hedge
to rot in the rain.
Blamed my little brother.

Yes,
she was mad.
I’m alive, she’s dead.

64. The Marine Biologist's Mother

2009-03-26T19:49:00.002+11:00

News: a suicide
far across the world.
I didn’t know him.
But I remember
his mother’s words:
‘O golden child
the world will kill and eat.’

It ate her first.
She never saw him grow
so like his father.

Didn’t know her either –
but through her poems
we think we know.

‘Famous because of scandal’
the know-alls say.
Perhaps.
But loved for her words,
beauty and passion
living on.

Editorial aside: Back in business!

2009-03-26T18:03:00.001+11:00

Oh dear, I'm listed as stalled. And no wonder.

On New Year's Eve we received notice, as our landlord wanted to move back into his house. We found another, moved on January 21st - and due to stuff-ups by telecommunications people we were offline for 6 weeks. Hideously frustrating! I'm only just starting to catch up with many things including this blog. The whole thing was a big interruption to writing, too.

Whether I can actually finish my 365 pieces within the year (by June 29th) seems somewhat problematical. But we'll see. I aim to finish them in any case. I've loved this exercise!

63. Occupation: Poet

2008-11-13T10:10:00.005+11:00

Disappeared three days
after high-grade grass,

just wandered off
into the dark.

But mostly drunk and rude.
Forgiven for talent.

‘Soul of an accountant,’ remarked
the portraitist, painting that.

Mistook me once
for acquiescent. Disabused.

Poetry was blood and breath.
His words could sing or kill.

Moved, seeking the son
abandoned years earlier.

I came across his elegy
for the young man's drug-death,

telling their whole story
honestly ... wept.

Editorial aside: number change

2008-11-12T10:27:00.003+11:00

On 12 November my age changed to 69 – giving me one more word to play with in these pieces. *Smile.*

62. Mary, Queen of Scots

2008-11-03T01:27:00.003+11:00

I wasn’t seduced by you
in my youth, despite
glamour, romance and tragedy.
Elizabeth was my hero,
that brave, intelligent Queen
who wrote poems, loved pirates.

But in Edinburgh,
seeing that grim black rock
overshadowing your palace,
I thought of a 17-year-old
fresh from the court of France
with its dancing and dressing up.

Myself, I thrilled to Edinburgh
and the great rock –
yet I almost understood.

61. Twice Bitten

2008-10-31T22:49:00.004+11:00

You have gone
into the dreams of night.
On Halloween I read
your message of goodbye.

Last time you left
no message.
My silly heart broke.

This time, scrupulous,
you kept your promise:
no more unexplained
vanishing tricks.

You told me my fault
and only then
cut all contact.

This time it hurts less.
Although I forgave
I never went so deep again.
What you had done once….

60. Arrival

2008-10-26T22:49:00.003+11:00

Her face in trance
gravely serene, eyes closed,
caught in this photo
is the same I saw in vision –
the woman my friend would meet
within the year. Spiritual,
I told him, also dynamic.

A year to the day he writes,
'We fell in love quickly.'
Black hair, I said; brown skin.
And here she is
kneeling in ritual –
scientist and shaman, I learn;
mischievous, compassionate ...
prophecy fulfilled.

59. Brief Encounter

2008-10-26T22:41:00.003+11:00

In the waiting-room
a baby wailed,
held to his mother’s shoulder
as she stood at the counter
her back to the rest of us.

He was bald and pale,
swathed in white.
The huge sound of his distress
shattered the air.

I sent him a beam of love
across the space.
Immediately his cry stopped.
He raised his head,
looked straight at me,
held my gaze and smiled.

58. My Extra-Terrestrial Friend

2008-10-19T16:38:00.003+11:00

Did you find a physicist?
Not many scientists here
do telepathy!

Our meditation group
reached out,
found you orbiting;
couldn’t begin to grasp
what you had to impart.

No ‘little green man’,
your projected image
was long, columnar,
non-humanoid …
and yes, green: bright
as if lit from within.

I guess you went home
when your two years were up.

You were friendly and fun.
I liked you.

57. Ursula Le Guin

2008-10-19T15:43:00.002+11:00

A Wizard of Earthsea
was my first fantasy novel
(Alice more classic than genre;
and, not raised on Narnia,
that still unread).
Ursula, it was you
who gave me this way
of entering dream and dimensions,
writing with grace and wit:
imparting the ways of magick,
moral dilemmas, growth.
I was very young,
though not so young as your hero.
He – you – taught me
how to develop character.

56. Karuna Mayi

2008-10-10T00:36:00.004+11:00

At Healers’ Day
I cleared your past life:
Herman, tortured for witchcraft;
healer then too (herbs, alchemy)
I your acolyte.
This life, your Reiki Master.

Millennium meditation
you stood: angel,
arms outspread
holding the energy.

The last time I ever saw you
I wanted to say, ‘Love you forever.’
The words rose in me
but seemed too final, so I said,
‘I’ll see you again.’
I expect so.

55. Canadian Poet

2008-09-26T08:57:00.003+10:00

Pearly girlie plays with words,
sounds, meanings, structures
and arrives at intriguing
revelations or conundrums
that always go deeper
than you might first expect.

Work different from mine,
which is plainer.

I don’t have to be the same
to appreciate the juicy flesh
of a poem bitten into and tasted,
thrilling to its savour, inhaling
the lingering memory,
running my tongue again and again
over satisfying texture.

25/9/08

54. Prisoner Poet 3: The Suicide

2008-09-20T23:18:00.002+10:00

After 26 years and more,
more years than your life,

I can remember you
with joy exceeding sorrow –
though, as the Prophet suggested,
they’re sides of one coin:

always some tears,
a swift pang.

When your death was recent,
it was anguish to notice young fun –
pinball machines, amusement parks –
you might have enjoyed

if not for a youth in prison,
if not for your final escape.

53. Milk Baba

2008-09-16T23:13:00.007+10:00

I remember Milk Baba.
I saw his face tonight on TV,
but I recall the encounter in Nepal
at his small room opposite the Shiva temple
with the children surrounding him, peeping out.

A simple life. Then we find
he is learned, an acclaimed scholar
of that great scripture the Ramayana,
corresponding with people all over the world.
Thirty years of only milk, he says, made him pure.

16/9/08

Editorial Aside

2008-09-05T01:34:00.001+10:00

Posting here less often just now, while doing the 30 Poems in 30 Days challenge at Writer's Resource Center.

52. Patron

2008-08-28T11:06:00.002+10:00

You watched over me.
Adults were trustworthy then.

I liked our conversation, still do;
realised only slowly
others didn’t see you.

When I was 43, a magician friend
introduced me to his mentor.
You! So I learned
your name and identity.

Giver of writing, patron of poets,
great magician yourself;
and my friend, somewhat fatherly.

I’m told you are most correctly
named Tehuti, but I call you Thoth.

51. At the Book Fair

2008-08-27T21:47:00.000+10:00

At the book fair
for self-published authors

my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?

We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.

She’d written her own
spiritual adventure

prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.

She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears

a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.

Age, she understood,
had made her whole.

We were sisters at once,
magickal.

50. Dancing Partner

2008-08-26T01:04:00.001+10:00

Looking back I see
a thin, slightly nervous boy.
Then he was tall, dark, handsome
and sophisticated. I was 17.

My friend’s party.
He, new in that crowd
me, home on holiday:
each to each
a glamorous stranger.

They had Buddy Holly’s
latest record, Rave On,
played it over and over.
We danced. The night was warm.

But Buddy died and I
flew away, back over the sea.

49. The Dreaded X (Former Friend)

2008-08-23T15:25:00.011+10:00

She latched on,
I observed, to several
instant best friends.

I accepted.
So few could share
my "spooky stuff".

And there was her daughter,
who came this time, we knew,
to learn from me too.

Later she offered
to share a house;
it seemed kind.

By then she’d suffered,
which made her cruel
I learned.

She under-estimated.
I am soft,
not weak.

I don’t revisit
nightmares.
The end.

48. A Student, Years Ago

2008-08-23T13:17:00.005+10:00

“Please,” she begged.
“Let me take it and make a copy.
I’ll bring it back soon, promise.”

I was reluctant, but
she loved it so much. Who was I
to refuse her respectful request?

Never saw her again
nor the big card from my wall
depicting the Green Lady:

Mother Gaia, crinkled old face
wise and cheery under her hood,
her smile knowing

I can still see her.

47. She Read Her Poem

2008-08-22T00:31:00.001+10:00

I was lost in the beautiful words,
drifting away on them;
did wonder vaguely at a subject
with resemblances to me –
but only when others
asked, “Did you like that?”
I emerged from reverie.
“It’s about you,” they said.

Lean, vigorous, white-haired,
she rode motorbikes in Thailand;
makes poems that experiment
with sounds, images, meanings:
witty, metaphorical, deep poems;
sometimes poems so lovely
I lose myself, carried away.

Editorial Aside

2008-08-18T17:57:00.004+10:00

I get behind with this sometimes! They're not just dashed off; a poem needs some crafting (even if I'm not always sure whether these work as poems, as I'm so close to the material). Also life intervenes from time to time.

At first I altered the posting dates if necessary, so as to keep an unbroken sequence, but this has become unwieldy. Some poems are allied to the particular dates of writing, and it would be senseless to change them, e.g. to be (ostensibly) writing of someone before actually meeting them!

So from now on they can be dated as written, and perhaps I'll end up with 365 poems spread over a few more than 365 days. Or I might catch up. :)

46. Returned Traveller

2008-08-18T01:42:00.003+10:00

Hates Australia
land of his birth and growth.
hates Holland
land of his father's ancestry;
holds dual citizenship.
Travels as much as he can
on all continents, preferably
far from his first country.

Now he's back, in limbo,
waiting a call from elsewhere.
I wonder if he'll find himself
strangely at home
as time passes,
or will he confirm
that he's still at odds
with his own people?

45. My Student's Wife

2008-08-16T21:04:00.001+10:00

Her dress is bright yellow
the colour of joy.
The metallic insets
around its neck
sparkle, and her smile
lights her whole face.

When she tells
of their new home,
what it means to them,
I see a shyness
but she speaks anyway
slowly, finding and sharing
the truth of her heart.

I think this kind, clever man
has chosen well:
a true jewel, shining
and very valuable.

44. Best Friend Not For Long

2008-08-12T11:41:00.000+10:00

Big loud girl,
you took shy me
under your confident wing,
taught me things
my parents never did.

Walking home from school
you yelled at a group
in different uniform:
“Catholic dogs
sitting on logs”
then suddenly stopped
before the shouting back
and the stone-throwing could begin.

“Oh, it’s my little cousin Bevvie”
and threw your arms around her.
Even then I saw
the irony
and your oblivion.

43. Aunty Amy

2008-08-11T20:42:00.000+10:00

Ugliest woman
I ever saw: stout
with mottled skin,
plain-faced even when young
in those severe photographs.
Sometimes I looked away
not to puke.

She was still the favourite
we all begged to visit;
Grandma’s spinster sister.
Grandma had seven kids,
21 grandchildren. Aunty Amy
belonged to us all.

Now my sensible shoes like hers
make me smile. Past eighty
she read everything,
loved gardening
and us all.

42. The Demon Benefactor

2008-08-10T00:20:00.001+10:00

Sent an introductory
photo: himself glaring
all in black. Was he
threatening or fondling
the naked woman pinioned
by the weight of his arm?

“Bizarre,” I thought, but he
was a man of the world.
I acted cool. Then
he was charming.

Seduced by promises –
wealth, glory –
I took the bribe;
wanted it badly.
He delivered …
something. But the price!

I’d have paid evermore
boot-licking,
chastised.
No thanks.

41. Shelton

2008-08-09T23:20:00.001+10:00

I like that photo
on the front of your book, mate:
head up, inhaling pleasure,
against sky and steeple.

Not a book you wrote, this time;
one we wrote for you
to attest your undying value,
returning for your life-giving words
our own, which you always encouraged.

I wasn’t there for your death
nor your wake; won’t see
this book-launch ... I’m glad
I was there in your life.

All Travellers We: Poems for Shelton Lea (Eaglemont Press) will be launched in Melbourne on August 21st.

40. The Elder

2008-08-08T23:36:00.002+10:00

I gave him something
and I’m glad I did:
some happy memories,
a love of cats and poetry.

I remember talking
in his teens and since:
quiet conversations
about ideas,
and sometimes
of turbulent feelings.

My snowy-haired
clear-eyed child,
fearless climber and diver,
grew to make poems, stories,
computer programs
and lasting friendships.

I rely on him now
for sense, honesty
and understanding;
the most fair-minded of men.

39. Cousin-Sister

2008-08-07T17:23:00.002+10:00

Soon after you died, you came
to visit in my mind.
We sat together, children again,
talking as we used to
among tall ferns and grasses
and bells of pink heath
in that secret dell under the pines.

We always called it Paradise.
I wonder now if that in itself
was your message.
Otherwise we said little,
tied up a few loose ends,
agreed we were quits, grinned.

38. Faithful Wife

2008-08-06T12:38:00.001+10:00

Good husband,
successful children,
comfortable home
in a posh part of town,
and still youthfully pretty.

Why that sadness
glimpsed far back in her eyes?

At last she told her story:
the first husband killed young,
no time to grieve
working to support their child.

She has no complaints.
She’s not ungrateful.
Love has lasted long this time.
It’s just, she never quite
adored him like the first.

37. Younger Stepson

2008-08-05T10:36:00.004+10:00

We met at Christmas.
I guess you’d heard
there was someone new
in your father’s life.

You kissed me shyly on the cheek
and included me
in the present for your Dad:

scented bath salts.
“You might enjoy them
together,” you said.

16 years later, you’re not
slim youth but solid,
handsome man.

In one forgotten family drama
we exchanged fierce words.
Now we talk deeply,
good friends.

Submitted 25 December 2011 (a Christmas 19 years later!) for dVerse Christmas. We no longer live near each other, but Younger Stepson is staying with his father and me this xmas, and the last line of the poem is truer than ever.

36. Solzhenitsyn

2008-08-04T18:16:00.005+10:00

Goodbye, Aleksandr,
legend of my lifetime.
Who'd have thought you would die
at 89 in your own country?

You yourself helped
to bring that about
with the smuggled book.

It seemed, after that
and your move to safety,
everything started changing.
What you brought to light
could not be re-concealed.

I read you were crusty
(surely you were entitled)
and disliked the West.
Or were you just homesick?

35. Ex-pat

2008-08-04T01:24:00.003+10:00

My friend is home
after years away, years
of sudden phone-calls:
long calls, frequent, filled
with insight and strange
esoteric knowledge.

(Eventually, opinion
catches up with him.
Before that, most people
find him confronting.
But he’s here to love,
and share his wisdom.)

At our first meeting
he enjoyed my candy-striped
sneakers, my socks
with the rainbow swirls.
“That’s so cool,” he said,
laughing, in his rumbling voice.

34. My Best Friend's New Husband

2008-08-02T22:07:00.006+10:00

"...this beautiful white-haired man
who's been sharing my bed."

I was one of the first to know.
Initially it was their sweet secret.
I understood, was the same
when my own lovely white-haired man....

They’d known each other long before
their respective widowhoods,
but this new joy was sudden.

“Do you think he loves me?” she asked.
“Have you seen the way he looks at you?” I said.

[I actually have four best female friends, but only one has a new(ish) husband.]

Editorial Aside

2008-08-02T11:45:00.001+10:00

Re pieces 32 and 33 – and possibly more to come – well, no-one said it had to be people you'd actually met in the flesh, only those who had made an impression. ;)

33. Ariadne

2008-08-01T23:02:00.001+10:00

You met me in the glade,
dressed in pale silk
blue and flowing.
Your hair fell down your back
as golden as the sunlight
that lit you from behind.
You walked towards me
slow and smiling.

Recalling your story later
I thought I understood
why it was you who came
and why you welcomed me.
Weaver with your thread,
you too were betrayed.
Yet you smile, you’re strong.

32. Lightnin' Hopkins

2008-07-31T22:34:00.000+10:00

Just listening again
to you singing and playing,
hootin’ and hollerin’
on “Blowin’ the Fuse”
and you know, I’m darn sick
of all this piety I meet,
everyone so sweet and light.

I’m wishing for a nice dirty boy
like you, Sam; suggestive
without saying one bad word.
Just listening to your quiet laugh
your wicked laugh
and your music, I know
you knew all the right moves.

31. Favourite Uncle

2008-07-30T00:55:00.007+10:00

You walked on your hands
across the floor, up on a chair,
along the dining table
and down at the other end.

And you could whistle
and play a comb and tissue
just like a mouth organ.

You called me Mary Rose,
my Dad’s name for me.
You were his youngest brother.

At 70, grey-bearded,
you rode a motorbike.
90 this year, you requested a party
“small but memorable”.

30. Surrogate Daughter

2008-07-29T00:23:00.002+10:00

Slight, almost waif-like,
you walked past my market stall.
Mid-psychic reading I looked up,
caught your penetrating eye.

Returning when I was free,
you told me you’d seen how true
was my link to the Universe.
“You’ve chosen this work,” you said.
“And deserve your pay.”

Adopting me, you switched off
your own brilliant, burdensome gift.
You’d rather cook for people
or give the homeless a bed.

29. Full Circle

2008-07-28T23:32:00.003+10:00

When you started
on your path of healing
thirteen years ago,
I taught you Reiki I.
A pretty little woman,
you looked nervous, held in.
It was grief you were holding
for the end of your marriage.

This weekend
you taught me Theta Healing
in the comfortable home
of your present love.
(Met him dancing rock'n'roll.)
Every year you look
younger, prettier, lighter,
your real self more revealed.

28. Fellow Student

2008-07-26T22:51:00.007+10:00

The energy of stillness
beams from you,
sitting in the corner,
white-blonde plaits
contrasting with red
pants and shirt and woollen shawl
wound round your waist like a skirt.

Your big eyes gaze
over striped spectacle frames.
Long fingers prop your chin,
the deep crimson polish and silver ring
strangely like an understatement.

Then you speak. It’s definite, fast,
knowing. You ripple with laughter,
your movements are dance.

27. One Lover

2008-07-25T22:46:00.005+10:00

You looked like Jesus
except he probably
wasn’t a red-head.

“So strange,” you said
our first night together,
“I’m in love with you
and not in love with you.”

I was older,
married with kids.

You gave me
Leonard Cohen’s poems
and an album of Ry Cooder.

Encountered decades later,
you were cynical
and resigned.

The young man I remember
was worth all the lies
and the tears.

26. Sister

2008-07-24T22:05:00.008+10:00

When my father married your mother
we were already friends. More,
we became allies – against them.

You taught me to smoke:
puff, cough, sip raspberry cordial,
lie down dizzy on your bed.

We escaped to Melbourne,
you dragged me from studying to parties:
dancing in the dark to Nat King Cole.
Later we hosted children’s parties.

Always talked for hours;
literature, theology and coffee.
Wish you weren’t dead.

25. Dr Mac

2008-07-23T10:07:00.001+10:00

It was the old doctor I liked,
his gentle voice and smile.
I liked his worn brown jacket,
tweed with elbow patches
matching the faded brown eyes
in his worn face.

The way he talked about me
to Mum, I knew he knew
there was a person in here.

I sulked for his replacement,
a loud young man in a navy suit.
At four, I didn’t understand retirement.

24. Enemy

2008-07-22T15:31:00.003+10:00

Once friend.

We were a threesome,
kindred poets.
The Three Musketeers
had nothing on us.

Wine and talk
in your flat,
she and I escaping
children, husbands, pets.
Wicked laughter, gossip
and literary theory.

Then you found cause
to sneer at me,
when the Human
Potential Movement
got me too.

Our third Musketeer
I lost; she
found me again.
Your poisoned words
failed to destroy.

But something died.

23. Dinah

2008-07-21T00:51:00.007+10:00

Calm light fills your space.
In the garden you’ve created,
profusions of leaves
pour over fences,
flowers abundant as weeds
mix with the trees to enclose
a sanctuary for creatures.

The cat you rescued
purrs on your knee.
Once he was shy, fierce
from cruel mistreatment.

Your smile is deeply dimpled.
You read us a meditation
channelled from Mary Magdalene.
The air is singing,
the light turns gold.

22. The One I Care For

2008-07-20T14:36:00.002+10:00

Light arrives with the roses.
I’m nourished by such small things
which are in fact large.
What could be more important
than Life manifesting itself
in that form, that fragrance,
those rich yet delicate colours?

“Beautiful,” you agree,
“But those two flowers look sick.”
I explain they are buds
gradually opening; and know again
how life starts to elude you,
little by little the world
unravels, becoming unknown.

21. Joseph

2008-07-19T15:43:00.008+10:00

(Magnetic healer, Philippines)

He told us about the jagged scar
on his neck. Tumour.
Even the Manila doctors
wouldn’t cut near the artery.

He climbed the mountain
behind his village and prayed,
one hand cradling his throat.
The swelling burst and drained.

The people said, “You must be
a healer. Cure this boy.”
He prayed, laid hands; the boy lived.

“I can’t explain,”
said my doctor back home.
“Your cancer’s gone.”

20. Primary School Headmaster

2008-07-18T14:10:00.006+10:00

“Mum!” nudging her,
“It’s Mr. Wilson.”
The vague-eyed man
lifted his hat, but I saw
he no longer knew me:
a soft-faced child
under his silver hair.
And I was grown.

Always silver-haired,
he’d wander into classrooms,
his impromptu English lessons
more enthralling than stories.
He gave me then my grasp
of Latin roots.
Every child in the school
loved him. He knew us all by name.

19. Mistaken Identity?

2008-07-17T09:52:00.003+10:00

I called her name through the crowd.
“It’s me, Rosemary,” I said,
rattling off places and dates.

A soft, uncertain girl
surprisingly steely if pushed

(rebuked my urgent force
after a fit, when I jammed a ruler
hard between her teeth)

she was still plump and pimply
hanging her head.

Finally she lifted her eyes.
“That’s my name, but I don’t know
you or anything you’re talking about.”

18. Prisoner Poet 2: Kindred Spirit

2008-07-16T13:36:00.006+10:00

Swift recognition,
though at first
you were wary
behind your exercise book.

Some years later
published poet, on the way
to an Honours degree.…
Out, you returned
to the thrill of oblivion.

Visiting after I broke my leg
you brought armfuls of food,
your methadone,
your wife and baby son.

I never saw you again;
you just vanished,
our birthday pact
broken that year.
Rumour said you OD’d.

17. Prisoner Poet 1: The Youngest

2008-07-15T10:57:00.017+10:00

You sussed me out a while,
finally sidled up. "I got
these poems here,
they're not very good."
They were very good.

I bought you a handsome pen
engraved with your name —
an illegal act, I found out later;
but no-one told.

After five years, still angry, you emerged.
We got drunk together, mourning
our friend who died.

I think I was the only
Outsider you never betrayed.

16. Indigo Child

2008-07-14T11:58:00.007+10:00

Never saw such huge, round, dark blue eyes
as that baby’s when she gazed at the air
above people’s heads, laughing aloud to watch
their rainbow auras flicker and dance.

I heard the child’s thoughts and she mine;
we talked that way. When Bill died,
she asked me if she could have
"something special of his". I gave her
his quartz crystal. She held it to her heart.

15. Myself

2008-07-13T15:01:00.002+10:00

... the one I met first of all,
who discovered and gave me

the fuzzy feel of a blanket
lightly rubbing my lips

the pattern of whorls
in the straw sides of my cot

intonations of voices
coming and going around me

the sensual pleasures of food,
light coming in a window,

whose thoughts and fancies now
enrich my dreaming hours ...

perhaps she is my best
friend, perhaps not

14. Finally

2008-07-12T01:32:00.001+10:00

How could I not
know it was over,
that day in the local café
for lunch – my idea –
your sour face glued
to the daily newspaper,
your back half-turned away?

In this café today
Andrew reads the paper,
looks over it at me,
laughs, asks a question.
So different!

It wasn't, after all,
the mere fact of reading
that gave me the signs
I ignored,
and remembered later.

13. At the Place of Tall Gums

2008-07-11T10:44:00.003+10:00

You came chasing rumours:
a Reiki Master
out back of Pumpenbil.

Missed the famous one;
wrong house.
Found me.

Your frail friend
was deathly sick. We gave her
another decade, it transpired.

Always allies, we added
Reiki and magick
to your Youth Centre.

I left the hill. You sold
your corner cottage, moved
interstate to your daughter.

Where are you now,
what are you doing?
I miss you.

12. Thanks for the Memory

2008-07-10T09:29:00.003+10:00

It wasn’t the rite before the altar
but the way, next morning
when I fell over that damn rock,
you picked me up and held me.

"I’m OK," I kept saying, "I’m not hurt,"
as if I didn’t want to lean
forever against your chest.

You’d slept all night by the fire,
I in your truck. You told
of waking, watching
a red eagle soar from the trees.

11. Ice Demon

2008-07-10T00:14:00.006+10:00

It’s freezing tonight!
When it’s this cold,
my thoughts turn again
to you, Miss Winter.

Grade One teacher,
Grade A sadist, you liked
bringing the bending cane
down briskly, to sting
our six-year-old palms
for any reason.

You taught us all year,
but in my memory
it was always winter.
Your name filled the world.
Even your face
and voice chilled me.
I thought I’d never
be warmed.

10. Screw

2008-07-08T18:04:00.008+10:00

Usually the screws were polite
when I entered the prison
to work with poets. Only
this day I was late.

It was Visiting Day. I lined up
with others just arriving.
Women mostly: wives,
girlfriends, mothers.

The blonde in uniform
barged through us,
shoving contemptuously hard
with her shoulders and hips.

Glaring, we knew
not to protest.
I realised right then
I was one of — not them, us.

9. Images That Come

2008-07-07T11:17:00.027+10:00

Front page: ‘Mother and baby
lead march.’ Slim again
after your third, carried
snug on your chest.

Backyard picnic.
Red wine, hot debate.
The police helicopter passing.
Your bright face raised:
"Wave to ASIO!"

Dinner. Our favourite
food and music; goodbye kisses —
your farewell, we comprehended
when, two nights later,
you jumped into death.

Honey-blonde hair,
open smile, emphatic voice
rippling with quick laughter….
Never saw you cry.

Note: ASIO – Australian Security Intelligence Organisation.
Acronym pronounced AY-zee-oh.

8. Black Sheep

2008-07-06T15:31:00.003+10:00

You were the aunts’ whispers,
the rebel we shouldn’t meet.

One day my brother said,
"I met that cousin. She’s brilliant!

You must meet, you’d love her."
So I did, and you were, and I did.

Actor, dancer, thinker.
Black hair, bangles, throaty laugh.

We adored each other through decades
of marriages, babies, moves interstate.

Then what happened? A sudden
cooling. I still don’t know what I did.

7. Flint

2008-07-05T15:36:00.007+10:00

I kept seeing you
before I even knew
there was a you,
walking with me
down to the road
for the morning paper.
I got colouring, height,
even your approximate age.

When you turned up at my door
thin and rather scruffy,
"You’ve been homeless a while
haven’t you?" I said,
bringing you in for a drink.
Then I looked again.
"Oh, it’s you," I said.
"You’ve arrived."

Disclosure:
I can name this one because
a) he’s dead now, after a good life, and
b) he was my wonderful dog.

6. Mentor

2008-07-04T11:08:00.010+10:00

Years after
you were the bluff neighbour,
I encountered you
in a Geelong café.
I’d just done a prison visit,
a poetry workshop.
You said you could tell
I’d been somewhere very sad.

You were sad yourself —
marriage broken, job lost —
but you’d found
certain compensations:
a singing talent
finally expressed,
and psychic gifts.

You became my friend,
my teacher:
a great magician
I understood after you died.

5. Balinese Waiter

2008-07-03T11:09:00.006+10:00

You came upstairs
with our tray,
tall golden lad
wearing jacket, sarong
and awkward grace.

I was even charmed
by your too-big
feet in floppy thongs.
But you grew into them.

Six years later,
our last visit,
you kissed me
a little too long.

My youngest said, smiling,
"He’s just like another
boy, isn’t he Mum?"

Your voice went husky.
"I think, not boy
any more," you said.

Aside

2008-07-02T10:33:00.008+10:00

Just realised my Word Count tool treats dashes and ellipses as words. (Now I know why the Americans don't put spaces before them!) So I had to go back and fit extra words into some of these, a hard task after paring them down to the essential.

By the time you read this, it shall be done! This is just for those who have read the first few and, if re-reading, may spot alterations and wonder.

4. Mysterious Reader

2008-07-02T01:26:00.015+10:00

You make your impression
by being unknown —

unexpected, unidentified.
Your blog is set to private.

I had a student once
with your first name …

but, a respected poet now,
not likely secret or shy.

And there was a friend.
We shared a son

a long, long story.
His early death

drove us apart, our pain
in each other’s faces

too much to bear.
You will not be her?

3. Old Man Hitching

2008-07-01T16:37:00.003+10:00

Rose from the side of the road
exceptionally tall and thin,
sudden scarecrow in the mirror
only better dressed.

Grey suit in a country summer.
Waving his stick for attention,
smiling like a child,
flopping awkwardly towards
the only car.

Might have waited ages.
(We were a bit off track.)
Going to town to shop
five miles; in eighty years
he’d never been further.
Said it proudly, gladly.

2. First Boyfriend

2008-07-01T10:46:00.004+10:00

We eyed each other off a while
before you made your move.
Or was it I who invited you?
So long ago …

You came to my house.
When I heard the knock I couldn’t
walk straight up the corridor,
stumbled though I wanted to skip.

Our mothers chatted politely.
We ran outside to play.
It ended when you told me
you didn’t believe in fairies.
(We were five.)

1. Mum

2008-06-29T20:59:00.003+10:00

You were always inclined to denial.
How well we all knew that stare
looking coldly a little way past us
or into some internal distance,
that vaguing of eyes and voice.

During the day of your dying, I discovered
I had it too, the same inclination.
An inheritance, perhaps?
I walked and I talked in a sort of trance.
This is not happening, I thought. But it did.