Susan Hawthorne #3 Conference of birds

birds are squabbling

you heard what I said    you heard what I said

a small voice pipes    but what about

you heard what I said    you heard what I said

The friar birds in the trees at the edge of the garden are making a big racket. I recorded them and tried to upload the audio. But without success. So, catching up with this short response to the birdlife around me.

Susan Hawthorne #2 swallows

thrill-seeking swallows
sweep the sky
rain on the horizon 

Mikaela Castledine #3 On the last morning

On the last morning by the sea
it is overcast for the first time
and all the
peeping chirping cheeping cawing
trill and warble
of the birds
of forest garden and shore
reflects
back and forth
in an infinite diminishing progression
as if between
two silver mirrors

red cone-day 3-Bundanon

Bundanon

Wombat holes
Clouds of deep blue
Arthur Boyd knew
Poets artists ramble through
Paddocks of lush dark green
And at dusk the wombat is seen

Sarah St Vincent Welch #3 After

After

my son and I talk of bones
skulls
after looking at Warhol's

I've thought skulls bad luck
to wear for a child
a doubtful dubious fashion
tempting

Andy's memento mori
were truthful
beautiful
as large as they should be

I can see my skeleton
in a moment
I examine it by memory
models, 3D renderings
scans and fingertips
x-rays
searching for this pain
its origin
every errant ridge and crack
this imperfect armature
inflamed
poorly threaded
wearing away

exhuming flesh
puppet body
I felt my bones open in birth
within
I feel them wrenched
shrinking

Anna Couani #3 Masking the stars (after Yao Feng)

learning faux encaustic
I figure out how

to mask the stars
            image transfer

done the non-toxic way
without heat

looking for ways to build up layers
transparent glazes

as they say in the video tutorial,
         “acrylic gel mimics wax

         opens the door
         to endless possibilities”

but I worry
about the previous teacher’s edict

        “every part
        must have equal value”

it’s not just about stars
        the apparent subject

paraphrasing - every inch
counts

Lizz Murphy #3 — Greyhounds Make Great Pets (after Sarah St Vincent Welch)

Greyhounds make great pets

A response to 'Half Moon Bay' by Sarah St Vincent Welch

Legs like risen loaves of bread

our heads lolling at the speeding

landscape not taking in the all brown

The odd tree is a thumb swell of khaki

we yearn for an old man kangaroo

an emu a camel a highway robbery

some re-run of history get another

air-con breakdown Someone else’s

road trip reminds me of this and the

coach line I will never travel with again

I am now thinking of greyhound racing

and the increasing number of greyhounds 

out walking the elegant arc of them

lovingly re-homed instead of you know

what still they have that forlorn mien

A guy on a TV ad confesses to his young 

wife I curse she is not your mother so 

anyway okay they’ve got a quick loan

we don’t have to hear from them again

and the cat will survive at any cost

Boats scour the water surface white 

spectators on open water in their own

race and we on the verge of losing Gonski 

reform of failing our children our children 

failing falling our children wading neck deep

Lies Van Gasse - day 3

Ik vroeg me af of je nog langskwam,

er bleef geen plaats meer in je afdruk

voor iemand die tussen de wanden
mensen kon indammen als water.

Parken stonden vol tenten
die onze gedachten verbonden als een los weefsel.

-

I wondered if you would stop by,

there was no room for someone in your footprints

for one who, between walls,
could embank people like water.

Parks were filled with tents,
our minds loosely woven.

Susan Hawthorne #1 - Pūtanā

Pūtanā  

the world can be lost or made        

in the blinking of an eye

in nangiar koothu                              

a dance

of moments                                       

of moments between moments

in the lift of an eyebrow                  

disaster brews

her hand moves                               

each move tells a story

stories in between

a Russian doll of gestures

Kit Kelen # 2 - Alhambra

Alhambra

light trickles where let

and shade flows

cloud comes where the sun stands

and later in lamplight

everywhere the eye delights

love as through gates gathered

here to be in the garden

ripple of shadow

from a still pool cast

I have coaxed a cloud here

dark moment in the day – that's love too

the red house

has a climate for stars

for stars and for sauntering moonlight

pomegranate overhead and oranges

high vines

art is of no image here

the sierra's end is whittled to this

tears of the desert have conquered so far

we sit on cold stone

a pigeon visits

in the garden

the stairs are water running

it is inscribed on ceilings, walls

each tendril touch a next embrace

everywhere the eye delights

in steam and through lattice

love's countenance

reaching green for a next touch of heaven

a mind here for infinity

that is where love grows

one voice lies under another

love is what's where the sun casts

how the soil says

shade, light etched

each in other

summer behind in the hills

beyond season

art is of no image here

the tiles

carved timber, plaster

nothing but light and lack

each surface is a map

a handmade circuit

each arabesque a journey lost

follow and the eye is mazed

each thought is a garden

and stairs to the night

there need be no way out

all surrender in this place

a bell tolls

in the muezzin's call

so many tears

the ages to come

a clash of swords

surrender here

a language is to air

never gone

these walls were sung into life

among leaves

when leaves have fallen

steady as clouds passing

the sound of water unremarked

night falls to it

black roses for heaven

the nightingale among all fountains

through the gate of pomegranates

in the place of the cistern

under the tower of wine

my love has come with me

and the snow has blossomed beyond

high on the peaks of Sierra Nevada

here most secret of hearts

orange and myrtle, a tangle

of cloud

on earth there is a pool reflecting

azure, rose and sun for yellow

in the court of the lions

gazelles come careless

remember!

damask

time here discomposed

light trickles where let

shade flows

ripples of shadows

cast from a still pool

the elements in heaven's hand

look up

can you pick apart this blue?

here in the garden

I am waiting

we are waiting

we all of us surrender

Yao Feng - #1 - Free Haiku

I opened the door of tonight
but I didn't see any star
all of them are masked

Wild Plums: poem 2/Burke

Picking plums wild by the road

Pips thrown from a car

Blackberries spicy and juicy

Thorns against wild beaks

Limbs scrambled by four winds

 

Joy of a thousand suns

                Snow on Mount Hope

Sarah St Vincent Welch #2 New Year

New Year

dreams slip
receding from day
the seal under our bed
snores gently gently still
the man who yells advice
over our sleep
quite often quite often
swallowed his tongue
at last

memory
has no metaphor
a baby sleeping on my chest
shadow and light at our wall
a cockatoo's eye
my niece plaiting my hair

red cone -day 2- the beach

red cone - day 2- the beach

#2 Kevin Brophy 'Words the poets have abandoned'

When A asked me this morning
how I would like our certified
farm fresh, organic, free range eggs
prepared, I reminded her
how much we once enjoyed
our eggs
bedizened with sidereal dust.

Lizz Murphy #2 - Always Remembered

for Kit Kelen’s bones in ‘imagine me made of mist’

 

Anna Couani #2 the idea of worlds

the idea of worlds

(a response to the idea of worlds in KK, IF, KB & MC)

waking from a dream
maybe a nightmare kind of thing

immersed in
the world of work
in my case, school teacher

the poignancy that
no one can understand
how it feels

the sense of restriction

but vivid and narrative
every comment loaded

step from there
into another world

the virtual world already there
in the peripheral vision

a shimmering white border
enclosing a blue and green world

Mikaela Castledine #2 Flight response (to poems by AB, KK, KB)

it took

nearly twenty five years

for me to realise 

that my first long

overseas flight

early in my second trimester

where I

vomited every twenty minutes

from Dubai to Paris

retching and wretched

was the reason

that my subsequent travelling

was always a mixture 

of fecundity and fear