Tag Archives: grief

Day 20 — personal readings + brief verses

A second Festival of Grief poem although far from the worst day I’ve endured in these past 35 years. Playing round with the meaning of the word “reading” based around verses pertinent to today. I love how a theme can forge a type of poem you’d never consider otherwise. Factoid is short sharp & shiny.

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Three Readings

Halfwit 15:4 – And, behold, there was a great downpour upon the holy day: and the stone was rolled back, and all the waters swirled in fury down the hole; and the angel cried out in pain, and called his name; and lo, he ran in, but nothing could he do except embrace her for the messenger of the Lord had already decided, what was to be, and had descended from heaven, and sat upon their hopes. 

Fishtail 15:6 – And when they looked, they saw that another had come in, swiftly, sudden and unexpected, like a guest in the night filling that room from whence the stone had previously been rolled away: but lo, though she was quiet and calm and oh so gentle, she likewise could not stay; for her need elsewhere was very great; and so she departed causing a second great pain to the angels. 

Hijinks 21:7 – And so in this way, many moons passed and the dark cave was almost but not entirely forgotten, until much perplexed thereabouts, they found the old stone rolled across and the angels hearts’ at once gladdened and grew afraid lest the sadness be returned; and so it indeed came to pass that before the season’s end, two messengers stood by them in shining garments; took their hands and lead them away from the sepulchre to whence they were never to return. 

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Day 20 Factoid – shortest bible verse (is very short)

John 11:35

the short
est verse
in the Bi
ble is also
my favo
urite …

Jesus wept. 

Day 15 —  unread books + coral 

The Festival of Grief hasn’t really hit this year which I’m certainly not sad to miss. Slowly coming to peace? Perhaps. The Poetic Factoid riffs off of traditional marriage gifts for 35 years together (apart).

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books unread

of all the endless wonderful things
i never experienced with you
sports  school  starring in a play

reading to you   sharing books
is of course the one i miss most

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Day 15 Factoid – coral 

35 years

successful marriages
would be celebrating
with gifts of coral

however as always 
my gifts are merely : memory
dreams of  : longing for

wonder:loss:remorse
& : words i regularly reread
reminding me : a balm

Day 19 — Reef + 10,000

Love a good pun. & irony. So ironical puns. Brilliant. Even if the topic is depressing as hell & makes me want to drink bleach.

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Great Barrier Grief

Australians are experts in irony
(& coaly, but that’s a different topic) 
hence why we’ve built a mega-massive 
coal transport terminal on the coast
bordering the Great Barrier Reef 
the only living structure visible from space

hey! we gotta get these coal-filled 
show boats to China & Indonesia somehow

— it’s not our fault there’s a few bits of coral in the way 

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Day 19 – TIL about reefs

10,000 years 

by midcentury, pretty much every reef 
in the world will be crumbling ruins

— gone after enduring 250 million years

in a blink of geological time, they’ll return
but it’ll be 10,000 years before we see a reef again

— assuming “we” even survive ourselves 

Day 15 —  FOGhead + radar 

The Festival of Grief feels somewhat lessened this time around. Perhaps partly because I. of the publication of my poetry books last year. And II. Because only one date falls into Na/GloPoWriMo timeframe. And just for today I’m ignoring the Poetic Factoid component to write a second free form poetical sketch.

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FOGhead

My foggy head has ached all morning
& I cannot understand why
Grateful outside is a slow still day
The only anniversary this year
As Easter Sunday was the last 
Mad day of a manic March

I sit underneath the sunshine
& hear the multiplicity of birds 
Who share my trees carry on
Countless continuous conversations
Always moving through air urgent
To be some where they are not

Whereas it is my everlasting wish
To be wherever you are when you went

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Day 15 – TI Ignored the Poetic Factoid assignment 

interdimensional radar

as much as i want 
to take pain relief
to less the graine

i also don’t in case
it’s caused by you 
trying to get through

Day 20 — Frankenpoem + poetry derived from academic papers

This poem was created using a technique I call Frankenpoeming. It’s where I take a few lines or a phrases or an image from the poems I’ve been reading each day & then crunch them all together — reconfiguring metaphors, smashing words against each other, juxtaposing ideas I wouldn’t have necessary considered, & just generally using them as jumping off points into something of my own. 

Then I leave it for a few hours, before going over it again & editing tweaking polishing, extending weird things into things that more (or less) sense. Sometime extracting the really crazy stuff altogether — or just leaving it.

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darkness treks

for fifteen months 
been unsuccessfully
screaming you home

daily flinging myself 
at the feral ferryman’s feet
heart full of terrorlove

every note forlorn forever
can no longer tell 
bat from man, from moth

seven forgotten stars
stare straight in my eye 
singing swift desolation

endless walks deep down 
permanently passing
leading from nowhere 

to somewhere worse

Day 20 – TIL that in 1974, the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis published a paper titled “The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block.” It contained a total of zero words.

With this in mind, I’d like to write a poem based on the paper.

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The Unsuccessful Self-Treatment of a Case of Writer’s Block
(a poetic interpretation)




Day 09 — underground again + birdiewatching

A simple poem for Day 1 of the Festival of Grief; the second day of my annual wallowversary not till next weekend. Trying to combine my usual subject matter for this day with The Big O. It works okay. My Poetic Factoid has the potential to include words from other languages but I don’t really have the motivation to make it bigger today.

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underground again 
spent the day underground again as i do every day since losing you shouting across the river till my voice is hoarse but no one ever comes its against the rules been broken for me once already they cant be broken again no matter how great the agony how much i plead for mercy from the gods for once no creature listens to me the losing is worse than never having had you at all torture to have been so close to sunlight only to see you swirling dissolving disappearing down the sewer i will never sing again






Day 9 – TIL about taking photographs of Victorians















birdiewatching





where we say “cheese”
as a prompt to make us grin 

Victorians said “prunes”
despite preferring to keep things in





i think that explains
just about                  everything

			

	
	



			
				

	

				
Day 17 — Day 2 of the Festival of Grief
	


		

		

Today really is symbolic of more than just one loss: it’s a conglomeration of three anniversaries in one. The other two (one in June, one in July) grieve me too — but as they do not fall within Glo/NaPoWriMo they don’t usually get poems written about them. (Though the days of the FoG aren’t the only times poems get written or thoughts get thought about this topic). 





Given this month’s theme is love I’ve decided to deliberately include all three griefs in one poem. On the plus side, there are a multiplicity of loves on display within the poem, so it works on many levels.





Today’s poem is paired with one I wrote 28 years ago. It is included as bonus: an Easter egg if you like, not that you have to look too hard to find it.




















advice from a fish





although today
commemorates
the first loss





you’re in countless 
poems, plays, story ideas
all three of you





for endless sorrowfilled years 
i wore your rings
round my neck





till they got 
too heavy to endure
& i was told 





by the fish 
for my own sanity 
take them off 





you knew too well
without the self-flagellation
of my despair










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BONUS POEM:





3 silver rings





around her neck
she wears three silver rings
on a gold chain
   & crucifix
one, a rose
one, a gallic cross
& one, all stars & moons





one each
for every child
which never was

			

	
	



			
				

	

				
Day 15 —  Day 1 of the Festival of Grief
	


		

		

My two wallowversaries are quite close together this year — Good Friday & Easter Sunday. GF being Day 1 of the Festival of Grief, ES Day 2. Each year I don’t know whether I’ll write about my grief on the date it happened or the day. Some years it’s both. The interesting thing about choosing a theme for the month is it makes me approach topics I’ve written about countless times with fresh eyes. Such as this …















to pin a wish





my only-ever astral child 
my first star girl
my free spirit
my whispered wish





only briefly tethered 
postmarked but never delivered 
addressed but never sent
never faded 
never dimmed
always present
in my heart 





would’ve loved you 
with my whole soul
every ether of being
guided you from child 
to woman as best i





cradled you
comforted you
held eggshell close
gifted free range
love love loved 

walked you down 
any aisle — assuming 
i could see given 
my eyes are waterfalls 
simply imagining 
such moments





the first wish i’d make
if any benevolent genie
ever give me a chance





my beautiful wondrous 
astral-only child 
my heart was torn away 
the day you ran red
down your mother’s legs

			

	
	



			
				

	

				
Day 20 — solastalgia
	


		

		






Playing with a word I learnt last year and thought might make a good poem title (& hopefully poem).





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solastalgia 





The homesickness you have when you are still at home.





word & definition coined by Glenn Albrecht
Australian philosopher & Professor of Sustainability





that peculiar 
form of distress 
that envelopes us 
in a misty kind 
of claustrophobic 
cling wrap
when we see our 
homelands both 
lived & idealised
lands which bring 
peace simply by being
give us tranquility
remind us to breath
to hope  to sit 
quietly   & still   & just





when we feel those lands
callously destroyed 
paddocks ploughed under
for another subdivision
megahardware store
or discount supermarket 
or cut open for coal
or fracked  set on fire  covered in oil  torn up by trucks





then
there is no solace

			

	
	



			
				

	

				
Day 15 — conceivably
	


		

		

Day 2 of the festival of grief.




















conceivably 





in an ideal alternate universe : at least one of my unborn bairns
might by now have brought : their own bubbling babes 





into that mystic parallelium — so conceivably in that
painfully imagined utopia : i might even have grandkids





perhaps on that earth they started : acting decisively on climate change 
around the time my first born was : instead of stupidly kicking the can/





/i’m sorry : even in a dreamscape theoretical existence
i cannot conceive a humanity — which would have acted