Tag Archives: dirt

Day 10 – superstitions + myths

Another poem that (the concept of which) has been bubbling around my brain for a few days. Again it might’ve been a better “introductory” pome but we get what get when we gets it.

The Factoid is actually an assembly of 5 Mushroom Myths, to which I could easily have added another 5 more. But five seemed the right number so I picked the funnest ones.

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superstitions abound because

i. popular
they alarm : in (as archaic storytellers would say) : ye olden days : simply : by suddenly appearing : & equally so : disappearing : into nothingness : more often than not : as if out of nowhere : oftener in odd : unusual : otherworldly : or magical forms : some humanoid in shape : some suggestive : complete with earthy intoxicating smells : foul unpleasant smells : gaudy colours : extravagant colours : glorious colours : colours which change when touched : or cut : bawdy designs : gorgeous  designs : even some which light up the dark : bioluminescence : being almost the last straw : of our ancestor’s sanity

they appear : in fairy rings : aka : dimensional portals ; midnight transportation to realms of the Fae : time travel ; where one night’s revelry inside : equates with a hundred years back home : & the deaths of all your family & friends : crushing one causes ; the curse of bad luck : predicting lifespans : or amphitheatres ; where only the pure-hearted ; can enjoy ; ethereal music & exotic dancing : scorch marks ; created by overheated dragon tails ; or worse ; wild witches dance in them ; & in their swivels summon devils : as architects of immortality

they grew : where lightning had struck earth ; or fallen stars lodged : they were made of : the blood of dragons : seeded by the Devil : or any one ; of a number of gods ; some benevolent ; others more perverse  

they were : the work of witches : portals for fairies : gifts & curses from the divine : reflections of our desires ; our doubts : some even translocate us : within our own minds

ii. personal
whereas i believe : the ongoing obsession : love/hate : philia/phobia : fondness/fear : fixation : infatuation : call it what you will : between fungi : & us : is because we recognise : at a sub liminal level : we realise : in the sub strate : of our souls : we acknowledge : at our deepest sub conscious core : we would not be here : without that first ancient collaboration : between fungi & plant : five hundred million years ago

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Day 10 Factoid – There’s A Lot Of Mushroom Misconceptions Around

5 False Myths About Mushrooms

1. If Animals Eat Them…
Animals eat many things I would not put 
near my mouth. (My dog’s diet is a perfect 
case in point.) Learning to identify mushrooms 
is far more reliable than trusting a moose.

2. Cooking Makes Mushrooms Safe
Try if you like but no matter how thoroughly 
you cook various poisonous mushrooms
many/most toxins do not break down 
with heat/any type of cooking. So no go, Joe.

3. Color Indicates Toxicity …
Not all brightly coloured mushrooms are toxic 
& plenty of dull coloured ones are safe to eat.

3i. Any White Mushrooms Are Safe To Eat Myth
No, white is not alright. Think this & it 
might be your last thought. Some of the most 
toxic mushrooms around are pure white 
& would love to kill you if they could.

4. All Toxic Mushrooms Taste Bad
That all poisonous mushrooms taste bad, bitter, 
or sour is baloney. Reportedly the death cap tastes
excellent. How do we know? It doesn’t always kill 
immediately — liver failure & other organ damage is also possible.

5. Cooking With A Silver Spoon Identifies Toxic Mushrooms.
Supposed sulphur-containing toxic mushrooms 
will not cause silver spoons to blacken or tarnish. 
All it means is if you survive your meal, 
you might have to polish your silver again.

Day 09 – circles + lawns

Final memory poem? Who knows. This one ties in with last year’s topic Reading owing to the Pookie connection.

Some might claim today’s Poetic Factoid is harsh. Perhaps it is. But it needs to be said. I stand by its honest efficacy.

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fairy rings 

funny how childish things
blend & become glorified 
conflated with dreams
mangled into memory

part of me half believes
i’ve really seen fairy rings
lifted straight from bucolic
English cottage gardens

Beatrix Potter & Pookie
with woodland creatures
& wild fae spirits
dancing the night away

by the mystic light of
glowworms’ tails

*****

Day 09 – Sometimes fairy rings grow in lawns 

How to remove a fairy ring from your lawn

sometimes 
                   fairy rings grow in lawns
some people
                   want to remove said rings from their lawn

these people
                   are idiots

Day 08 – field + 3-in-1

Seems like there’s a few mushroom memory poems in me trying to make their way out. So we’d best let them. It is an interesting corollary of creative activity that once you start down a certain pathway of thinking/exploration, more & more bubbles to the surface, including things you may not have thought about in decades or even remember you remembered.

WARNING: The Factoid is a pretty shocking and revelatory reveal that will quite possibly BLOW your mind.

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field mushrooms
Agaricus multitudinous 

one of my favourite memories 
as a child was wandering 
the wet grassed dew paddocks
                  in my wellies 

& finding huge white beauties 
with chocolate brown gills 
smelling of earth & muddy fertility 
                  some the size of plates

talking with my parents
several days ago we agreed
don’t see as many as we used to 
                  anecdotally at least 

back then the adventure 
was the finding not the eating 
some things stay the same
                  but others change drastically 

*****

Day 08 Factoid – Not all mushrooms taste the same

the unusual instance of 3 mushrooms in 1
Agaricus bisporus

1. Button
entirely white
baby blobs of bland
reason for near universal popularity
             unknown

2. Cremini 
brown capped 
no visible gills
firmer texture  
             difficult to source in Oz

3. Portobello
large rugged roofed
flat brown caps 
& visible gills
             at last looking like a proper mushy

4. Revelation
all these mushrooms are the same
the minor difference is age
the major difference is taste
             (you’re welcome)

Day 07 – foraging + edibility

Lovely walks past & present. [Note: photo is one of mine, taken on just such a walk.]

The Factoid Poem addresses the very real & pressing question: what mushrooms can you eat?

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foraging seasons

i.
some substantial rain & 
the passing of the March equinox 
heralds the coming season

magic is starting among the trees
but we’re all waiting
on a little more water first

to engage in our adult version
of an Easter egg hunt — the long 
range forecast delivered news

no one wanted — a dry winter
followed by another dry summer 
La Niña’s kaput  El Niño’s back baby

ii.
Chester & i enjoyed wandering 
among the pines on dank damp 
drizzling delightful delicious days 

he loved smelling every new spore
before dashing off to the next adventure 
leaving me to identify (if i could)

& artfully photograph the most alluring 
sometimes wished i could have trained 
him to seek out truffles (or similar)

but he found his enjoyment 
in his own way & that was enough 
(more than enough)            for me

*****

Day 07 Factoid – All mushrooms are edible

Edible

don’t listen to what
the naysayers neigh

you can eat any 
mushroom you like

whether you wish to keep
living is another matter

altogether

Day 06 — impressions + interstellars

This one has been building for many days. In an ideal world, perhaps it should have been the first poem of the month. But it’s not. What ya gonna do about it? It’s here now. & it’s okay.

The Poetic Factoid has the potential to be revisited in a bigger poem later on as there’s lots of interesting things about that particular topic.

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first impressions

when i think of mushrooms : it’s almost always something primal : something primitivistic : something pagan : something archetypal : something out of the dim distant past : something older than dinosaurs : something ancient & eternal : more chthonic than Cthulhu : yet still something otherworldly : something Lovecraftian : something neverending : something overpowering : something from Ovid’s Metamorphosis : constantly transforming

primordial : growing among the decay : the rot : the hummus holes of homes : the wet humble detritus of life : in a forest : in a cave : somewhere dark : somewhere dank : somewhere quiet : somewhere eternal : somewhere enchanted intertwined entangled beguiled 

yet for all this : passionate : active : evocative : working hard to make the world better : to restore : to regenerate : to rejuvenate 

to con : tinue on

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Day 06 Factoid — Space fungi are badassess

star spores

7 years ago a number of unoffending fungi were deliberately 
attached to the hull of the ISS by malicious scientists

exposing them to a year of space’s malevolent triple threat
cosmic radiation  complete vacuum  & Kelvin-level temps

despite the deep freeze many both survived the ordeal 
& were capable of reproducing themselves afterwards

hinting at the possibility fungi
                             could well be excellent interstellar explorers

Day 05 – the tomb shroom + maybe manna

FOG Day 1 of 2. Nothing like getting it out of the way early on. Another Case Study poem, with a slight difference to yesterday’s & probably all that conceivably will follow it. Note: I’m pretty pleased with today’s poem also which means heavy redaction. 

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Case Study: Aboriri gravis
#2: Tomb Dweller

[please click to enlarge image]

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Factoid Day 05 – TIL I learnt about potential biblical fungi

manna mania

that the bible does not 
mention mushrooms once 
says everything i need to know

yet some cheeky scholars suggest 
the small round things that appear after morning 
dew — are psilocybin mushrooms

Day 17 — fallow + souls

The Climate Change book I finished today concludes with several chapters on fertility — both the earth’s & the author’s. In so doing she mentions a beautiful word I have long loved & long wanted to use in a poem. That word is fallow. The poem isn’t quite there, though the verse I’m gonna share, is close. It also prompted a parallel poem instead of a Poetic Factoid.

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fallow

by growing single crops super-intensively
the brutal industrial-agricultural industry
has abandoned an ancient methodology
for keeping the earth fertile — they forget fallow

so desperate are they for continuous every increasing
crop yields they dump on (usually chemical) fertiliser, irrigate heavily 
& dump more chemicals on to kill the weeds, insects & other pests 
that thrive on monoculture

more traditional agricultural societies 
use natural methods to maintain soil fertility 
including allowing fields to lie fallow 
rest, regenerate and re-submit energy into the soil
often by planting nitrogen-fixing legumes 
like beans into a variety of crops grown side by side. 

but even if the moderns can’t do this
they can allow fields to rest fallow
let the dirt grow dormant, 
go quiet, move more slow
rest recuperate recharge

fallow also works in humans

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Day 17 A special +1 poem

A love poem with a difference. 100 years.

fallowsoul

Souls, like farm fields,
need to lie fallow for a time
before returning richer than before
so rest now in that far off fallow gold sea
— & may we meet again in the years that follow

Day 22 — The Lord of the Fools + LOTR

Over the course of a month lots of ideas get tested & abandoned. Several lines in this poem were previously homeless yet coagulated into this one. As for the Poetic Factoid Poem — Warning. There’s a big *BIG* TRIGGER WARNING on this one for people who don’t feel/think they’re as old as they really are.

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Lord of the Fools


dirt beneath my nails
clawing the claybanks
for your return


dream of trees


a lifetime to learn
the dead do not
dance back to life
on the whim 
of a lonely man

a mere heart beat
to make it proof

can’t craft the words
the way my brain feels them


impossible imposter


need to learn another language
to remember how to speak my own


lost days 


try drowning myself 
in every river


but even there i’m evicted

*****

Day 22 — TIL something deeply disturbing about the Lord of the Rings films

the Lord of the Wrinkles

i. meme
read a brutal meme 
today which said
Viggo Mortensen 
is the same age 
Ian McKellen was
when he played 
Gandalf.

NO, I AM NOT OKAY
I CANNOT POET
ANY MORE TODAY
SORRY! GOODBYE!!

ii. data
naturally, being a fool
i had to check 
the veracity 
of cursed meme
— turns out 
it’s even worse
Aragorn’s older 
than Gandalf
was at the end
of Return of the King! 

time for a cuppa & a lie down

Principal photography 11 October 1999 — 22 December 2000
with pick-up shots done from 2001 to 27 June 2003.

Viggo born October 20, 1958 (current age 64)
45 when started filming, 49 when finished 

Ian born 25 May 1939 (current age 83)
60 when started filming, 64 when finished 

Day 12 — geology & non-standard measuring system

Trying to capture the claustrophobia of going underground.

gē


resting


i don’t know how far i’ve come
no idea how far to go
only know
the path seems to be thinner
the path narrower
the way darker
the stones heavier above me


try not to think
of the weight
of all that earth 
& rock
& mud & shale & clay
& gravel & scree & boulder & slate
& soil, sod, clod, loam, silt, dirt, turf & dust


point

Day 12 – TIL about pandas & dairy

buttergrams & buttermetres

A newborn giant panda 
is about the size 
of a stick of        butter.

Since when did butter
become a socially approved
measurement unit?

In which case (for context):

I weighed 31.23 sticks of butter
& was 10.23 buttersticks long
at my birth!

Day 24 – glory (& well, more glory)

24 climate-and-seasons-bgwa.jpg

Thoughts which have been broiling round in my brain while driving round the Barossa these past few weeks as Vintage wraps up, have finally coalesced into a reasonable poem. (After a bit of a biological brush up on the process of leaf colour changing.)

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senescence

i
with the arrival of mechanical harvesters
the Valley lost much of its vivid autumnal charm.
over violent shaking of the vines strips a quarter
or more of the leaf cover & startles the remainder
into a state of shock. though improved technology
has recently reduced the trauma & restored slightly
the brilliant explosions, breathtaking feast-your-eyes
yellow-golds, gorgeous scarlets, cheekblushing-crimsons,
redhued-rubies, winedark-purples, outrageous-oranges.
but still, slowly, the old ways die.

ii
a smilier malaise is affecting the less prevalent,
but still present, deciduous population. normally
as daylight declines & the nights grow long & cold,
chlorophyll production slows as plants recycle
& ship to storage those molecules ready for next season.
the domineering chlorophyll, no longer in the ascendancy
allows the always-present but lushly masked
complex chemistry compounds called carotenoids,
yellows & oranges, to have their moment in the sun
(as it were); before the red, pink, & purple pigments
responsible for sunscreen, light protection & pest prevention
kick in to complete the slow motion fireworks display.

iii
but this year’s long dry summer means unhealthy
water-stressed trees seem to be cutting their losses
carte blanche by snap-drying then rapidly dumping
instabrown dry paperwisps; terraforming the sky
to the same dusty brown as the droughtbaked dirt
                                                                                          it mirrors

 

BONUS POEM: April 24, 2018

A place Mum & I had to visit. & somewhere I think I’d love to live.

2019 EDIT: minor tweaks to improve flow, rejambed enjambment, & various images given extra bite. All in all, at least a 50% better poem than previous incarnation.

*****

sitting on the Doc’s step

after driftwalking
half in the world
the rest in my own head ;
limbo rambling in
artfully framed narrative ;
& the much messier
more inconveniently laid
out reality ; I sit on
his fake slate step —
wanting ; wishing ; hoping
to someday leave
such a through
looking-glass legacy
for other daytrip
dreamers

24b doc martin's house.jpg