Day 3 – energy + Eiffel

Ironically I’m sitting at the puta writing a poem about energy when I am exhausted after a very long day.

Two Notes:
1. Formatting is an issue (the poems don’t look as good as they do properly formatted in a word doc) as is often the way with WordPress.
2. The old maxim, sorry about the long poems, I didn’t have time to write short ones is particularly true tonight.

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Australian Energy                             —                          a call & response poem

Australia is 
the third-largest exporter of coal in the world 

no, it’s the biggest

home to two of the 10 largest coal mines in the world

four of the 10 

Australians believe  {of the total workforce} :
the coal mining industry makes up 11% 

in reality it’s just 0.3% 

oil & gas employment make up 20%

just 0.2% 

Australians believe  {of GDP} :
the economic value of the gas industry is 12.4% 

2.5%

coal mining contributes 13.6%

2.6%

50% of Australians believe  {of what we should be building} :
new gas power stations

only 21% believe we should be building new renewable energy projects

my apologies i was confused

let me try that again

50% of Australians believe:
new renewable energy projects

only 21% believe we should be building new gas power stations

the 2023-2024 Australian Federal Budget has been released 
fossil fuel subsidies (such as the Fuel Tax Credit)
– will cost the Budget over $41 billion 
over the next four years

significantly more than all the funded climate initiatives combined

despite fossil fuel industries being the past

& clean energy initiatives, the future 

(perhaps, assuming

we survive)

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Funfact Day 3 – TIL how to grow iconic French architecture 

Paris’s brutal metal heart
— the Eiffel Tower can be 
as much as fifteen to sixteen
centimetres taller in summer

{ thermal expansion heats the iron up
the particles gain kinetic energy 
& in so doing : take up more space }

think how tall she will get
when The Iron Lady starts 
experiencing month long 40+ degree days

when Ville-Lumière becomes Ville-Chaleur 
& Ville d’Amour becomes Ville d’Sueur

{ City of Light melts into City of Heat 
& City of Love drips into City of Sweat }

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Funfact Day 3 (bonus)  – TIL other Eiffel things

i.
the Tower was initially 
intended for Barcelona
but those pesky Catalans
thought it an awful eyeful (ouch!)
so Gustave pitched her to Paris instead

ii.
initially the French weren’t 
overly impressed either
metal-shaming her as
“useless & monstrous” 
“a stupefying folly”
& “an odious column of bolted metal” 

always something of a prickly loner
writer Guy de Maupassant 
dined every day at the cafe directly below 
— the only spot in Paris he claimed
he couldn’t see the damn thing

but they grew to love her
— as did the whole world
till she became what she now is
(like so many modern landmarks)
little more than Instafodder

Day 16 – fire (& stone)

flames.jpg

Spent a large chunk of my writing time today trying to craft a pome comparing & contrasting the fire at Notre Dame with the fire in our climate. While many parts worked, a few did not & I realised longer would be needed to resolve the kinks.

However, while researching the idea I came across another, far less known story, which led to this …

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holy houses

in less widely covered news, the revered
al-asqa mosque in east jerusalem
was also struck by (a far less dramatic)
blaze at the same time as notre dame’s
inferno in france — damaging solomon’s
stables beneath a corner of temple mount

here’s a thought:
perhaps god is trying to tell us something

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BONUS POEM: April 16, 2018

The theme persists.

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immemorial

stone is worn
moss softens
lichen gathers
chiselled lines
flatten
it rains hard
the sun shines
& pretty soon
everything
is forgotten

14b cornish grave

Day 25 – poem about peace

cow-in-poppy-fieldCROP

Today is always a day of conflicting emotions for me. Been trying to resolve my attitude towards it for 25 years. This is one of the pomes that came out after percolating about it all day. I’m happy enough with it. Hope my googleTranslate French is accurate.

Voix parmi les vaches

All I’ve heard for a long time now
is French farmers calling their cows.
It’s a musical enough language
& everything sounds more beautiful;
but I do miss the Aussie drawl
And the sky over this western front
Is no where near as big as
the west where I was once from.

The sun has gone down.
All my comrades have grown
old, gone beyond. Joined me,
in their way. So let us sleep.
We are grateful for your thoughts
but our graves no longer want
or need your remembrances.
You offer us a minute of silence.

Let’s try it for a century,
see if we can let it all just, settle.

 

NB Very hitech technicalised tech issues meant I was unable to post yesterday’s NaPoWriMo post as intended. About quarter to twelve with the image chosen, the bulk of the text typed into this blog & most of the miscellaneous tags & faff taken care of, I was suddenly unable to type anymore: turns out the rechargeable batteries in my wireless keyboard had gone flat & being the organised soul I am, I had neglected to backup charge any for, oh some weeks…

 

Day 20 – image games

The story of this poem tells itself within the poem. Makes life easier.

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misplaced lake

one of my favourite travel stories
concerns a photograph of holy water

taken after my european sojourn
framed with precise pre-digital care

a vivid purple, a pool of venal blood
the top dam at twilight, my first night back

when showing it, i told my parents it was
a lake in france — for 3 days they believed

until i caught dad looking closely
it’s not really france is it?

no, i admitted, it’s your own country
the heart of everything 

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lake