life observed

Aspirations

2021-06-13T18:36:00.002+10:00

June - by Ellen Day Hale (1893)

You ponder over what life provides, and in hazy days

you are left with only the lint of all of one’s initial wonder

There is all that was promised, all that was held up within

one’s dreamscape and in the distance,

every hope and end gleaming far, far away

scuttling like dry leaves in the winds -

clear, precise in the warm exposure of sunlight

There were songs that hovered in the air, youthful visions that

embraced one’s body, tight as one’s ageing clothes that shrink;

much allure of gifts and fruition, generous space and expanse

that burned the naked body

in an adventurous lover’s embrace…

Then the reckoning comes around,

walks about, inspects what its fragile ward has as alms

what ash-aspirations remain at the end of the day;

while one is confined within cloistered space

one’s field of vision no farther than one’s fingers,

all activity subdued, within defined and precise space

And the expanse fades into mist and haze, and all that was

and all potential, all that was possible

sewn into the invisibility of the past

Uncertainty

2021-06-08T17:27:00.005+10:00

Portrait of a Woman by Mary Stevenson Cassatt

There inside, in the salons, the artists are gathered

and they speak of cherry blossoms - sakuras? -

in distant Japan, that come to life and wilt within two weeks

People gather to observe, admire, comment and perhaps, sigh…

Like we might regard a painting, a work of art on a wall…

But I tire of talk. Looking and observing – that’s fine –

but talk tires and exchange is tedious…sitting on a bench in the quiet

and looking, observing is restful, calming – perhaps that’s

the same the people feel as they come to see the sakuras…

It is autumn here

and it will be winter soon;

there’s not much to see

in the decline that the season brings

and there will be much less in winter

For now

autumn is decline

and winter is death -

and no flowers one gathers last

Merry company: sky, sea and land

2021-06-05T21:40:00.004+10:00

Sky, sea and land

I drink to you three

before there’s a puritan ban

Sky, I see you stretch

but sea thinks it can beat you

as it stretches into ocean

Sea, you think I’d come

naked to your cold caress –

oh no, but you can kiss my feet

Land, you see the sky overreach;

land, you see the waters tease -

yes, I’d rather a dry death in time

Seagulls six

just stay away from

over my head

Now for noisier company I think I see

approaching haphazardly, swiftly

Trinculo, Caliban and Stephano

Sky, sea and land

I drink to you three

before there’s a puritan ban

At the Seashore

2021-06-04T21:40:00.005+10:00

At the Seashore, 1886, by Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowiczowa National Museum in Warsaw

Sometimes we can have company,

oftentimes we’ll be alone

In all moments though

we each have the other

so we can always sing of hope

There will a ship come near

and the good men come ashore

There will be one who knows us

and gather us in his caring arms

...though today, you can see, you can feel - the water is not blue and the clouds but sketchy, and the air dank and dreary, just so to match our clothes.

There can be treachery and abandonment

and people can tease, like waves that pretend

to come near but recede

There can be discomfort in the quiet of night

and in fingertips scraping the bottom of the pot

There will a ship come near

and the good men come ashore

There will be one who knows us

and gather us in his caring arms

There are visions for you, of the years to come

how you will grow, and how there will be plenty

You will come to your own and have your plot

There is hope as firm and sure as the shore you sit on

and you can look to the distant light in the horizon

There will a ship come near

and the good men come ashore

There will be one who knows us

and gather us in his caring arms

...though today, you can see, you can feel - the water is not blue and the clouds but sketchy, and the air dank and dreary, just so to match our clothes.

HOW TO BE HAPPY

2021-06-04T13:35:00.000+10:00

Credit: Jose Luis Pelaez – Getty Images – Scientific American

1. Abandon all reason

2. Believe in the system

3. Ne’er Question what you are told

4. Follow All Instructions, complete all tasks set

and ask with fervour: Have I done well?

What should I do next?

5. Hand over all your money

6. You will always have enough

to continue to give:

Give us your body; give us your mind

7. Renew your belief in the system

every time the darkness leads you into doubt

8. Abandon your reason;

dig deep again, and hand over your money

9. Always be alert

and bring in more suckers

Behold one’s dreams

2021-06-02T21:06:00.003+10:00

Portrait of Estelle Musson Degas by Edgar Degas

I had vision – once; but it has faded,

and the crisp sunlight blessing leaves

reaching to the white and blue of the skies

is now only shattered memory,

as are the red and violet and orange of flowers.

I have a memory too of the world, the way the world is

I have that inner vision still,

pictures and protean shapes in my mind:

Physical, of rooms and windows and mountains and cities;

Of life and destiny, what is meant to be

bound and reflected in objects, our words, our touch and feeling

So with memory I arrange the flowers and leaves

(what is brought to me, what is given to me)

according to a translucent mind-inscribed template

to create apprehended reality, close to it

Something kind companions might remark on

(Kind words, meant to be:

“Lovely…”

“Astounding…”

“A perfect display…”

“I could not have done it better…”

“One would never know…”)

I can stand back and behold it all

in the fields of the interior…

with memory of

the world I desired,

the domesticity and motherhood,

the future desired;

the vision one reaches to

even as the reality recedes

Butterfly Man

2021-06-01T22:50:00.006+10:00

Caricature of Jules Didier by Claude Monet

Butterfly Man, I see you

there in gardens in the street

head-rolling from one flower

to the other, rarely still

Butterfly Man

have you used the skills

a butterfly has

to be free of every weight stuck

on either side of the human?

Butterfly Man

you must be wary

of the bee that stings

and the pollen that will fill

the airways of your

protuberance of a nose

Butterfly Man -

you’d do right to have care -

the butterfly instalment of you

may not bear the weight

of your intense head

And the street urchins -

Butterfly man, Butterfly Man -

might nip your head off the body

and rip the wings for no purpose

but petty mischief

Butterfly Man

you might want -

like Frankenstein did -

before it’s too late,

to ask for a missus

(and hope to live

with no regret)

Butterfly Man, I see you

there in gardens in the street

head-rolling from one flower

to the other, rarely still

Breton Woman Standing on a Doorstep, 1889

2021-05-28T22:25:00.002+10:00

Breton Woman Standing on a Doorstep, 1889 - Anna Bilińska-Bohdanowicz

Yes, I am the Breton girl

you have been expecting since yesterday

The coach broke down

and by the time we reached the inn

it was late at night, and I have come

as soon as I could...pardon me..

I am short of breath, I walked all the way

Yes, I will work; I did all the chores

at home, and my mother who trained me

was ever as good as any

in keeping a clean and Godly home

My faith and my simplicity

are what I bring…my obedience too…

Just an hour or two in the week for church

lodging and food

are all my simple needs

and yes, always,

all my body and heart will be here at work

Old Man With a Book

2021-05-27T22:43:00.001+10:00

Old Man With a Book, by Anna Bilinska

Next to silence

my other blessing is reading

The incessant chatter and worries

cease often in silence, and the cluttered mind

is light and unburdened;

next to that is when I am with my book

and the insistent world about and around recedes

and the mind of the writer and mine flow

like the fluent water in a stream…

still, I tire of reading now and then

for that too becomes like chatter

There is greater clarity, no doubt,

but there is still that clamour…

I vacillate in my days

between the two, silence and its kindred,

until perhaps that lasting, the abiding silence

GRIM DARKNESS of HEARTS

2021-05-27T14:09:00.000+10:00

King Lear, III, 2. Johann Heinrich Ramberg. 19th century. Folger Shakespeare Library.

I shall write poems of laughter tomorrow

but today, dear pleading strangers,

it's the time for sorrow

The Fool, the Jester and the Clown

shall run riot, in all colours

in full force

at the break of dawn

Now it is Lear who trundles on stage

raging against the thorns and the storm

Tomorrow we shall laugh like

Blakes's children in the open fields

But today, let us remember,

it is time to tremble in high fever

and to embrace the grim darkness of hearts

Pittsoporum in the cold

2021-05-26T21:53:00.003+10:00

standing at the back

not seen often, and screening

the ugliness of the fence

like a naughty child

banished to its corner

the pittsoporum

(not Blake's Tyger, but shaped in the same dread grasp)

is gentle, soft to the touch and leans to you in the wind

like a child to the carer adult

trembles, quivers like a feeding chick

shakes its tiny fingers

numerous

in the air

gestures to the sky

rooted to the ground

shaken left and right

but smiles unruffled

(you can't take away its own joy

never mind the cold)

reaches to you

like your hands are the same

that shaped the Tyger Tyger

created the gentle, swaying disorder

it's ok that

2019-08-25T22:13:00.002+10:00

It’s ok that you did not send
for me
that no one came, no cart or horse
no car,
no sign, not a secret word

it’s ok, there was no one
at the door at the expected hour
it’s ok the time never was
it’s ok I waited like a trusting child
with silence in my hands and pockets

Anyway, I looked in the alley
and there was company:
many an abandoned child
eyeless sockets in angular heads

yes, I’ve considered every which way

till there was none left
every exit, every way out
and opened each only to shut it

but it’s ok
as I found something
within
same place where pain is
some contentment, some solace

I won’t die now
I won’t take my life
if that worries you
if at all

for one can still find
the strength to take a step, to plod on
in the wilderness where there
is no other footstep

I heard later you enquired,
you wondered
(kind people think, I know)
but it’s all fine
when disappointments
help one find comfort

it’s ok, you know,
it’s well that ends well
even for one
crouched against the wall

Photo by Elias Schupmann on Unsplash

that way

2019-08-13T22:14:00.001+10:00

One can choose, you can

that way, that path

Take that distance, those miles

Journey through

in the dark

in the day

and those who creep out

the other side

seen coming as in a rage,

over-written, gaunt and daemonic

and to those who walk past

in their villages of dilly-dallies

who see these limp out

all meaningless, incoherent

insipid as themselves

unremarkable as every other way

not a spark of inspiration any way

you can choose any which way;

one can tread on one or other ways

Photo by Rachel Clark on Unsplash

Fire for the Cave Child

2019-08-12T13:12:00.001+10:00

the Cave Child

(abandoned and everyone dead;

hardly understanding yet

the collapsed bodies of ma and dad)

unknowingly, not knowing

let the fire die

the lanky figure stood at the cave mouth

fire in its hair, fire in its mouth

flames on its shoulders, flames on its cover;

and the child stared in the dark

You cannot let the fire die;

You must know how, keep it alive

It showed the child to make the fire

to keep the glimmer, to keep the warmth;

and in the morning

the child knew it was not a dream

for the skill was still at hand

Picture by Paul Bulai

Kindness of strangers

2018-05-19T20:48:00.000+10:00

On my eighty-fifth birthday

(which was ages ago)
my various children came to visit me
And soon they wanted to talk
about Alzheimer’s

So I asked each to recite
his or her name, place of work
one another’s favourite food
and other such questions of memory
and then I declared, triumphantly:
“None of you seems to suffer of Alzheimer’s”

They smiled and one said:

“It’s you
we are concerned about”

Oh, I was certainly moved,

certainly touched, though I found it strange
that such perfect strangers should show

such intimate concern for me

The world is certainly much better
than what I remember of it

Hieronymus Holzschuher by Albrecht Dürer

The world is what it is

2018-04-07T21:45:00.000+10:00

It’s not a clean world

nor dirty

The world is what it is

Then you come along

with your perspectives, your angles

and you say:

Let’s look at this from this set of beliefs

So you twist and turn everything

to see the world

from what you think must be

from the heavy book in your hand

And you turn dirty what you see

You say it’s not a clean world, it’s an evil world

and you see what you were taught to see

You see what is not there

It’s not a clean world

nor dirty

The world is what it is

but with your set of adages

you dirtify everything

image from sott.net

My messy local post office

2018-02-25T21:03:00.002+11:00

I was at the post office

and I went to the machine

to buy a local mail stamp and I paid

and the machine dispensed not stamps

but a receipt and instructions

to go to the staff to collect my stamp

I asked the staff why the machine

did not give me my stamp

and the quick and sharp reply was:

“It’s a machine, that’s why.”

They still need a human to provide the stamp

But why do these humans design machines

that take money and dispense instructions
but will not offer what you paid for?

Image from auspost

the norm

2018-02-11T21:49:00.002+11:00

I’ve been so used to the

unfriendly

I’m overly cautious

when I meet ones with goodwill

so used to the dishonest

and crooked

one becomes cynical
in the presence of innocence

Companion visual: Little Red Riding Hood – illustration by Les Contes de Perrault, dessins par Gustave Doré. Paris: J. Hetzel, 1867. – image from SurLaLune

detritus

2018-02-04T20:54:00.002+11:00

we tried this

we tried that

and all we gained

was much

of unnecessary

in-the-way memories

we bought this

and we bought that

and we had plenty of

useless and unwanted things
that we could not give away

the cook and the Great One

2018-01-21T21:43:00.002+11:00

the great man is celebrated

the genius, the wise, the mighty ones

the nonpareil, the philosophers, conquerors

persons of such dignity and stature

those of immeasurable divine nature

but they would not have been able to think,

to be inspired, to command

to create and to offer such magnificence

to the invariably un-understanding masses;

they would have been mashed early into the ground

if not for the one who prepared the meals

if not for the ones who cooked

who put the ingredients together

and scattered pepper everywhere

the cook is as important as the Great One

there is no one more than another

Youth Making a Face, oil on panel

Companion illustration from wikiedia: The Duchess with her family, Illustration by John Tenniel, published in 1865 in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

Youth Making A Face

2018-01-11T21:33:00.000+11:00

I have seen so many men and persons

of gravity

of such words and pomposity

Men of such authority

persons of such visions and quotes

and the ability to relate

every present to something past

to connect any thought or word

to the texts they hold Holy

I have heard at the next table and on the roads

such men so weighty and mighty and bloaty

I can by force and fear only nod

and revere in public

But in the toilet before the mirror

I imagine all of them there

I pull a face at them

and whisper the words:

Go jump in the filth of pigs,

every one of you

I may only have youth and inexperience

still I know there is something corrupt

in their words and hearts

But no, they have such power

I can only say this in fear and private

But if they let me be honest and safe

my face would tell them all

Poem based on: Youth Making A Face, oil on panel by Adriaen Brouwer (image from brittanica.com)

still life

2018-01-08T22:11:00.000+11:00

I don’t know if

you can see me

but I’m the worm

having bored myself

into the fruit

(I was the only thing

that could not stay still)

I wonder if the artist

saw me

and painted me miniscule

my head pointing outward

I don’t know if

the artist put me in

or left me out of his painting

thinking me insignificant

or unsuitable in a grand theme such as fruit;
and so tell me, if you see me trapped in still life

companion art: The Basket of Apples by Paul Cézanne

Ghost introducing itself

2018-01-07T22:21:00.001+11:00

You don’t know me

but often I lie down beside you

I hover above when you walk

I breathe down your neck when it’s cold

(Yes, you might say, I’m creepy)

I sit beside you

when you are in the train

I am the uninvited passenger in your car

and you throw your things on my lap

I am the one, sometimes in a spirit of mischief,

who moves your keys and you search about

and say, “I’m sure I placed them in the drawer”

Then you find them under the table

(and you wonder if you need more memory tablets)

I hug you sometimes

(you might feel some desire arise in you then,

and you wonder why)

and I run my finger down your spine

I don’t show myself

because you may not take me seriously enough -

or you just might take me too seriously

In the ghost world, we don’t think

you beings in your world know enough moderation
but we love your living skin

companion art: The Ghost of Oyuki by Maruyama Ōkyo (1733–1795)

free verse

2018-01-06T21:13:00.000+11:00

Free verse does not mean

all the verse I spit out

(no matter how good, or how like cat poop)

is free for use

by every website owner

looking for any rubbish content

or by any plagiarist who might come by

determined to leave all blemish to my name

and ascribe all accidental good to their own

Free verse simply means

I don’t know how to

write iambic pentameter

how to turn out a trochee

or write in hexameter or heptameter

or to create a divine sonnet

or a quatrain, an ode or even a haiku

and so like a jackal

I just laugh-write wild and free

so that’s called free verse
as I can't even turn out a metre of poetry

image from wordsalad (derekberry.wordpress)

consumed

2018-01-04T21:05:00.005+11:00

I’m thinking of writing

an inspirational book

since I’m constantly being winked at

by the ads that appear on the side

of the webpage I frequent

But I don’t have the inspiration

to write the inspirational book

and so apt ads start appearing on the side:

“Read Inspirational Books”

So I buy all the inspirational books

(spend a fortune really, which surely

must inspire those writers

to write more inspirational books)

and I read all of them

but at the end I am so exhausted

(emotionally and financially)

I cannot find inspiration

to write my inspirational books

for the ages, for all time

But I hear an inspirational voice

from up the skies say:

All is never lost

If you can’t write,

keep reading

If you can’t create,

keep consuming

If you can’t make money

keep spending

image from Healthista