Tag Archives: love

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 16 — missing fish + a trilogy of fish fun facts

There’s lots of research concerning the devastation caused by BP’s 2010 Deepwater Horizon 3 month long oil leak around the Gulf of Mexico. This poem, explores one of the least reported/appreciated consequences. One which didn’t make the news cycle because the effects weren’t felt for three, four, five years — but the experts, the fishermen of the gulf knew what was happening. [3 longish verses aren’t being published.]

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missing fish

missing fish don’t make 
the news ; there’s no dramatic footage

no bodies wash onto beaches
just thousands of bubbles of nothing

following BP’s deepwater disaster
fish embryos didn’t grow

…

missing fish don’t make 
the news … but they should

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Day 16 – TIL a lot of fish related fun facts. (Ironically, at this point last year I wrote my flamingo triptych which was one of the highlight poems of last season. Today I find myself with lots & lots of fish facts, so I decided to replicate the idea.)

fish triptych

i. 
something odd (& gross) is happening 
in the waters of Britain
— a third of all male fish are changing 
sex due to human sewage pollution

ii. 
Atlantic hagfish produce enough slime 
in a minute to fill a bucket — no, no
i don’t care about the size of the bucket
that’s all the information i need, cheers

iii.
fish “speak” using a variety 
of low-pitched sounds 

they grunt : moan : & boom ; hiss : 
& whistle ; croak : creak : shriek : & wail

they rattle bones : gnash teeth
noisemake by jiggling muscles : 

against : their swim bladder
— ahhh : kindred spirits : who knew?

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 13 — omnibus: bills + books

Foray into politics & legislation-passing. 

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Big Uglies

While I understand the need 
for bundling pieces of like-legislation
into the same bill so Parliament 
doesn’t get bogged down passing 
thousands of unique, highly specific laws;

too often omnibus bills: bury 
controversial provisions; complex &/or 
controversial material (not all of which 
might have been adequately 
debated in either of the houses);
or hide pork barrel clauses
amid the thousands of pages.

Furthermore, their sheer massiveness 
& often quick adoption timetable
prevents parliamentarians from informing 
themselves concerning all relevant issues.

To me — these Big Ugly bills ring Big Loud 
alarm bells every time they’re proposed …

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Day 13 – TI  disagree with Professor Tolkien

*Not 
One book to bring them all
   and in the omnibus bind them

conversely & perhaps unsurprisingly 
i’m also not a huge fan of omnibus 
editions when it comes to books

books previously published separately
should under no circumstances 
be brought together as one volume

& not just because the paper’s cheaper
to lower costs — or that they weigh as much
as two household bricks off their diet

but because they lose both elegance 
& individuality when crammed together
between the same two mass-market covers

& this even applies to The Lord of The Rings
(Tolkien only grudgingly allowed it published
as three volumes considering it one big book)

— to me three is the absolute perfect number
even if Book IV The Ring Goes East drags till Faramir
& The Return of the King does kinda give it all away

Day 12 — denial + heart is a muscle

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These guys have been in my poetic sights ever since I first read This Changes Everything. I regularly cite the key tenet of this poem in discussion with CC deniers.

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Heartlessland

i.
one of the most strident 
climate change deniers
is american conservative 

think tank — & i use
those words advisedly — 
the heartland institute 

by rabidly rejecting 
the scientific consensus 
on climate change it has done

perhaps more damage than
even the trillion dollar 
fossil fuel corporations

that put us here

ii.
to the surprise of no one
this organisation took the coin 
of tobacco giant philip morris

spent the 90s discrediting 
smoking’s health impacts, the risk 
of secondhand smoke & fighting smoking bans

i guess that says it all

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Day 12 – TI Wrote some heart poems as easy as shooting fish in a barrel 

miles & litres

supposedly my heart pumps 
almost 7 litres of blood around 

the over 60, 000 miles 
of blood vessels in my body

every. single. minute.

& i’ve driven each. & every 
one of them
                      twice. 
          looking for the slightest
   signpost
that you still love me

BONUS #1 — above average 

the average heart
beat of a woman 
is (on average) 
8 beats a minute faster 
than a man’s
— assuming it beats
at all

(i always said 
you weren’t average)

BONUS #2 — all I want for Xmas

each year more heart attacks occur
on Christmas Day than any other

Monday, likewise, has more cardiac assaults
than any other day of the week

Lookout 2028 emergency rooms
when Christmas falls on a Monday!

Day 4 – trees & forests

It’s strange how often the poem you set out to write, morphs into something unexpected. I began the evening playing with climate “cliches” — things deniers say to disprove/discredit the science — & trying to tweak them into new forms. Which lead to a poem I’m pretty pleased with using a quote from Ronald Reagan (implementor of the neo-liberal “experiment” in America). Because I like its potential, I’m only going to share a few lines: the opening ones & ones near the very end to give a taste of it. 

Today’s Poetic Factoid practically wrote itself as the idea/awareness has been in my mind ever since I read Peter Wohlleben’s The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate: Discoveries from a Secret World several years ago. There are so many cool tree facts I could write dozens of factoids & one day just might … one fact I couldn’t fit in this time, is that trees can recognise their own kin!

NB These poems were written yesterday, but when I startled myself awake at the keyboard at 12.22am I realised I needed to go to bed & upload them later. Hence, this…

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barking up

The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago.
       The second best is today.

neo-liberals have long believed a tree is just a tree
how many must you look at to know a forest?

no doubt Reagan & his ilk never planted a tree
under whose shade — they never expected to sit

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http://www.tree.org

trees are connected : by their toetips
via : an underground fungal internet
the wood wide web : a mycorrhizal 
symbiosis of mutual benefit : root-clinging 
fungi aids tree absorb extra water & nutrients 
from soil : tree reciprocates by sharing :
tasty photosynthesised sugars

trees even text : messaging : when insects 
attack : the victim warns : trigger defences : 
networks have hubs : older : larger : “mothers”
connected to : hundreds of younger ones 
who send : excess carbon through the system
to understory seedlings : quadrupling
their chance of surviving

more evidence : of collective strength : over separatism 

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 27 — euphoria + % H2O

Today was back-the-front because the Poetic Factoid pome came first, which then gave me time to stop & think what I should write for the Big O sequence. It was an easy choice. Somewhere along the way, I started (perhaps subconsciously) pairing the two thematically or otherwise; now it’s become intentional.

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euphoria


it should ache / hurt more / than it does / this wrenching / these many hands / hot hands / wet slippery hands / angry hands / clawing / scratching / screeching / hooting / as they pull me / a / part / like a cloud / i can / only / feel one thing / the buzz / of a billion bees / as my soul / is systemically / set free / as the notes i was / float high / & begin / piece/meal / the long journey / back down below / down / that cold clay / path / i know backwards / but have not / trod / in many years / at last / now / a home / coming / a / re/union / with / she / who was lost / to me / twice before / but soon / no more

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Day 27 — TIL a bit about biology

% H2O

i’ve long known
the human body 
is largely water
(60% on average)
however TIL 
the percentage
changes slightly 
with age, sex, & hydration 
ranging from 45 to 75%

i’d like to posit it
also varies depending
on the time of night
because at 3am
doonasnuggled 
nearing zero
outside then i feel 
close to 98-99% aqua
before the suddenly 
urgent dunnydash 
— yet strangely 
only about 12 or 13%
upon my safe if 
shivering return
to 4-poster perfection 

some folks argue
sex with your true 
love is about 
as wonderful 
a sensation this 
gourd offers 
but the zen of empty
bladder after holding on
too long surely comes 
                           close 

Day 24 — Another Big O study + a not so big Apple

Another poem just trying to get into the zone/the arc of whatever I’m trying to tell about this story. Still feels like straw-clutching sadly

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Orpheus: study #6


don’t speak for weeks
sit on stones by the river
beneath the mountain rocks
it’s dark water like tearsalt
autumns pass, winters pass, never a spring
no warming nights, no thawing snow

remember walking 
beneath a fragment of moon
sneaking amongst young spruce
laughing, light from the heavens starshine upon your skin
giving you my hands, giving you a ring 
guarding us against love

we must meet again

asking strangers who slide past
are you the one i seek
have sought everywhere
since the earliest days
the strangers always answer 
      no
(if they answer at all)

i have forgotten what i know
let my life begin as it ends

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Day 24 — TIL about Another Apple

Worm in the Apple

i.
there was 
a third Apple 
founder

Ronald Wayne 
sold his 10% stake 
for $800 in 1976

Ronald
Who?

Exactly!

ii.
In the early 1990s
Wayne sold the original 
Apple partnership contract paper

signed in 1976 by 
Jobs, Wozniak, 
& himself for US$500

In 2011 the contract sold 
at auction for $1.6 million

— Seriously Ron! Have you learnt nothing!

Ron has stated he regrets the sale
Well, duh!

Day 23 — a sonnet, sort of + big birthday cakes

Today’s poem is a homage to Bill by way of Henry VIII. It’s a Golden Shovel of “Orpheus with his lute” a 12 line poem/song in Henry VIII. Many/Mosyt scholars believe this play was a collaborative effort between Bill & John Fletcher, & I’m inclined to agree with them because it’s never felt like “Shakespeare” to me.

I’ve chosen it because: well Orpheus … & I have Golden Shoveled the last words of each line, juggled them & turned it into a sonnet. Not a great sonnet, mind you, but one with a passing resemblance to a snout. Unlike the ones from the 19th which were all AI generated That was the big guessing game thing that all two of you played haha). It had been my intention to reinterpret one of those to try & punch it into shape but I just found it too hard/the lines too banal. This definitely needs more work, but time being what it is means you get what you see …

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Luteless, Orpheus
(with Golden Shovelment to William Shakespeare/John Fletcher)


Forlorn Orpheus longed once more to see 
for himself; the unbelievable greenness of trees,
Rather than be buried neckdeep in melancholy
surrounded by deep dirt, soul ready to freeze

He had long since forgotten how to sing
had no desire to take up lute & play,
Forgotten there was a thing called spring.
had no desire to complete his latest lay.

He longed for the cheerful sway of flowers
wished somehow to re-kickstart his sad heart
Longed for the gentlest summer showers
wished sadly to care once more about petty art:

If only he hadn’t glimpsed her in his corner eye
Then neither of them would have needed to re-die.

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Day 23 — TIL about Bill’s birthday

old man Bill

If Bill
were alive today 
he’d be 459
which although 
pretty rootin’ tootin’ 
ancient — is still
less than half
as long as Noah 
or Adam.

However, 
he splashes all 
the post-flood crew
out of the water
— over double 
Abraham & Isaac;
almost quadruple 
poor young Moses.

Which is easier to believe:
Methuselah made it to 969
— or the Stratford man
wrote the damn plays!