Tag Archives: loss

Day 14 — Papilio ulysses, the Ulysses butterfly

Lucky enough to see a dozen of these over the past couple of days. Even somehow managed to secure some photos which is pretty cool given how flitterfast they are.


bright blue symbolism

bursts of bright blue : electric flashes : which seem to steal : all light : from the surrounding air : just as it sucks : all air : from my lungs

wingspan as wide : as my hand : intense iridescence : for a moment : then gone

if love : was a colour : it would be this blue : this azurite brilliance : distillate of endless Australian sky : emperor of blue

the males : aren’t all that bright : being strongly attracted : to anything blue : mistaking mere colour : for females 

despite my best : intentions : i see symbols : in everything

Day 13 – my favourite myth about love

During NaPoWriMo there are a plethora of sites & groups publishing writing prompts to help poets overcome the terrifying prospect of the blank screen or page day after day for 30 straight days. I rarely have a problem finding a topic but I usually check out what the prompts are in the groups I’m part of, just to see if there’s anything that interests me. 

An Australian-run group called The Dirty Thirty’s chosen topic today was myth. The number 13 is lucky and scary and shrouded in myth. So today, let’s talk myths. In your poem, find creative ways to include the actual story your myth was based on. 

This is manna from heaven for me & I immediately thought of one of my go to topics: the myth of Orpheus & Eurydice. I love this topic so much that I have several books devoted to the subject & I’ve written at least a dozen poems around the theme; the best of which I one day hope to publish as a chapbook or suite of poems (as part of a bigger volume) called songs of under earth. 

The Death of Orpheus

after many years : wandering : ever-mourning : his lost Eurydice : Orpheus worshipped : only the Apollo-sun

one morning : at the Dionysian oracle : on Mount Pangaion : while greeting dawn’s rosy fingers : with his peerless lyre-playing : as part of his : daily sun god salute : the Maenads : resenting Orpheus’ refusal : to honour : his previous patron : sought to harm him : threw sticks & stones : yet the lilt : of his music : was so sublime : & so strong : the rocks & branches : refused to strike 

enraged : they threw themselves : instead : in a furioso frenzy : ripping : rending : wrenching : his mortal body : to shreds : blood lust madness : engulfing them all

when the women : who tore him apart : tried to cleanse : their gore-covered hands : the river sank : below ground 

as did : Orpheus’ shade : finally : to be reunited

Day 11 — some : days

There’s probably more things I could add to the list, but this is a reasonable start.

… are worse than others 

some days : i feel further 
from you : than others
so : i try harder
to bridge : the gap
with jokes : that fail
to do : their job 
create : moments
contrary to : what’s wanted
which is : to add joy
gift : happiness 
share : proper peace

with : you

Day 10 – Acrostics & Golden Shovels

Sunday fun & games again … today’s task involves the use of acrostics & pseudo-golden shovels; forms I haven’t played with much. I tried complicating this (with mixed results) in the middle stanza, but overall, it holds up okay. The melancholy mood seems apt given the songs I’m playing with.

for the love of Murray 2
Acrostics & Golden Shovels

unfinished 

waiting forlornly
for you to realise
this is a one time
love offer

if you decide again
we are meant to dance
never not ever no never
dance together we
again end with if

so i must let 
my soul release you 
& gently watch love go

Day 08 – poem written in the post-midnight hours

After working 8 hours, plus a 2 hour drive to town then 3 & 1/2 hours of playreading, I was feeling somewhat frazzled yet curiously sleepless. My flight north was early morning. This is what escaped in those solitary hours.

killing time

shadows slide : behind me : into walls & dumpsters : as i drive the desert : that is : the city : cbd at night : killing empty hours : before my pre : dawn flight 

an angry : drunk : couple stagger : a younger couple : trundle home in tandem : on one of those insidious scooters : left lying : like litter : all round : the barren streets : he in what appears : at a glance : to be a tux : she’s kilt-wrapped : in a large tartan : cape? : a single woman : walks : the traffic island : like a tight wire : rather than brave : the footpaths 

past old homes : the few that still : remain : ones that haven’t : been converted : into doctor’s waiting rooms : or knocked down : so a big super : market chain : has an entrance : to its under : ground : car : park 

nip : down to the sea : smell the beach : salt : the dog & i : once walked : every day : happy

this quick trip : rips through : high : lights : of past lives : before i fly off : to an : im : possible future 

Day 02 – lessons from Constellations 

My housemate & I saw the play Constellations tonight. It was his choice because as the program states: Payne’s script presents a series of vignettes centring on two characters across various parallel universes — the same setting & conversation, but different outcomes each time. This unconventional love story set in the quantum multiverse has us asking: What if there are infinite versions of you & I?  And what if there are multiple universes pulling our lives in a myriad of different directions? — & he has been toying with similar themes in a play he said he wants to call the final last night of our lives. (I think it’s a great title & might even pinch it if he doesn’t produce something soon. Fair warning given!)

Tonight’s play was interesting without being awe-inspiring. But given it explored themes of love in occasionally unusual ways, there was some useful material that had me both thinking during the play & on the drive home. With that in mind here’s a pome-in-progress; structural inspired by the play — ie, in vignette form & using rhythm, repetition & some images from the play.

lessons from Constellations 
(vignettes about love)

i. 
love is knife edge sharp
love is knife edge hard
love is a knife
i am knifed
Et tu

ii. 
the dangerous act
of loving someone 
leaves you alone
with your fragility 

iib. 
perhaps even frail, guilty
for there is always 
one other who comes 
between us & our egos

iii. 
we remain perpetually 
lost among the great 
mechanical quantumness 
of love forevers

we blithely step through
those ever sliding doors 
some into happy afters
some into miseries unending
some into sunlight
some into death
supernova bright 

we still try

iv. 
night ships
titanic dinghies
missing their chance
thieving time
as they crash 
into everything 
but the ice

v. 
always peeking 
doors of death 
despite the possible multiplicities
& symmetry of circles 

there is no formula for love 
all we have are 
our imperfect hearts
& fireflies brief lives

Day 20 — solastalgia

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

*****

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 5 – in firing range

This is the poem I started writing yesterday till all the might have beens that never were muscled its way out into the world mid-draft. I’ve gone back to it today & finished it off.

in firing range

despite insane frustration with inept governments :
& debilitating rage at arrogant greedybloodhungry
multinational corps’ ruthless relentless unabashed 
pillaging of the planet : part of me knows — i
can’t really complain : for since that so long past :
never forgotten : sunday : i too have failed to meet targets

failed to reduce emissions (though reducing consumption 
would be more benefit) : failed in every known dataset
that supposedly counts : for something : in life : 
marriage : career : kids : success : legacy : wealth 
accumulation : financial security : et cetera : & : ad nauseum

for the longest time : failed to even notice
i’d been trapped in a tomb : since the first 
of those soulharrowing three days : over three
decades ago : the stone rolled back on me :
unaware : unable to escape my darkness

the difference i suppose is my failure :
has destroyed predominantly me :
(with deepest apologies to a handful
of beautiful people who were caught
in the crosshairs of my grief) : whereas
it is currently the world : being crucified 
now : & into the firing range : of the future

NB I'm really hating the new WordPress. It's repeatedly refusing to let me upload photos saying I'm not connected to the internet (even though I am & capable of opening other pages, watching youtube videos, etc. It's highly frustrating & causing the delays in posting.

Day 4 – all the might have beens that never were

This emotionally draining day usually comes along at some point during NaPoWriMo but not often this soon in (although I note I will have respite in 2024 when Easter Sunday falls on March 31). Best to get it over with early I guess. 

It’s not quite tied into the Climate Change theme as, erm, intricately as it perhaps could be. That said it did come out of a poem I was working on which was more intensely linked … & you could argue that there have been a series of dates & deadlines that could have dramatically affected/lessened the potential clout of the coming temperature rise … so thematically there’s a connection … so … I’m gonna allow it! (Whew, I was worried there for a sec I wasn’t going to convince myself.)

04 three-paths

all the might have beens that never were

today : mournday sunday
is one of two : fallow days
in every : whimpering year
i allow myself : to truly : wallow

to weep deep :  for my 
lost three : to wonder
over all the might have beens 
that never          :          were

to let grief’s heat : blister
through : the other mes
other lives : other trajectories
other doors : other : if onlys

all the stars that might : have burned
all the constellations : that others :
might have read : into that sky
all the other pathways : all the other joys

all the other : others : that never were

Day 12 – the hell of easter sundays

12 ole-magnus-schei-sunnevag-untitled-76

30 years ago today, Easter Sunday 1990 (April 15 of that year), my fiancé/soulmate & I experienced the first of three miscarriages of our three and half year relationship. We were kids, both 19. 

Back then there was no internet, we didn’t know where to go get support, no easy way of knowing that we were not unique in this. But it happened twice more during the next two & half years. Each time got harder, harder to come back from. Eventually our relationship ended, in no small part due to the stresses & sadnesses of those three losses; although there were other circumstances complicating things too. 

I have never fully recovered from the loss; almost daily wonder what different paths my life would have taken had I become a father way back then. It damaged me in ways I didn’t understand for decades. It took almost 25 years to “process” the grief (even though I still feel it) but eventually my alter-ego wrote & staged a 1-woman play which got much of the pain out of me … & enabled me to find a fragile kind of peace. Naturally, I’ve written countless poems about it. & every Na/GloWriPoMo the poem on April 15 or Easter Sunday is bound to explore it in some way. That’s another little gift: the fact that it has two “anniversaries” which have only aligned once in the last 30 years.

Also helping is the fact that a once young person I taught drama to writes about her miscarriages so honestly, lovingly, & beautifully on facebook (that often trite medium). I believe her words are profoundly positive & healing for me, herself, her partner, friends & family, & no doubt many others. I also love how someone I once taught is now teaching me. Thanks, Alice, for giving me the courage to write this post so openly & reinforcing the serenity to know it’s okay on those days when coping doesn’t seem possible. 

*****

pandemic for one

this disease : infects & reinfects my mind : repeatedly : over decades : every easter : of course : but christmases too : birthdays : facebook posts : of friends celebrating : first days of school : & 21sts : & weddings : & births of grandkids : & just about anything fucking else : can set it off : a time bomb explosion : of regret : anger : what ifs : why mes : & i wonders :

there is no herd immunity : i am the herd : reinfection is frequent : sometimes more virulent : than ever before : the curve has not flattened : the only cure : a wormhole