remember emerald grass
and the hot sky zinging
above a field laid out
to the left of a train line
a cloth unfurled
that curls to a valley
steep-walled with bergs
feels like the bluegreen ocean
in that it’s hard to know
whether the strongest desire
is to be in it, or observe
back once again
emotions shot through with
brine-cool air from outside
the world full of birds
and vines across the window
like it’s been a hundred years
The night air is full of the sea
and it pours, thick
through the kitchen flyscreen
as poignant-melancholy music
rises to meet it like a wave
and I contemplate never drinking again
Watch Greta Thunberg on TV
fist-bump Obama and then
make an impassioned plea
her hair grown to Rapunzel length
that means
it’s been at least a year, please let her win
As the rain falls helpless, heavy here
in parched fields beyond
farmers cry drought-tears
and I see broken, unfixed water pipes
beside the train line I’m overwhelmed
by how little we care
Image: Pacifica Australis #3 – Tiger Nautilus Shell by Christopher Diaz (sculptures at Killalea). Photo: Claire Doble
these waves
stacked like trays
in the corner of Vinnes
a mess of levels
all over the place
and whoever said
liquid is flat
a plane of rock
like a jewellery box
glory spots, lots of treasure pools
the smooth grace of sea
draws up her skirt
gathers into a bastion
of Prussian blue and
as wind stipples the topfoam
back in a cockatoo crest
and the rest
tips forward
crashes on and over
those uneven shelves, the
cutlery drawer
of my coastal shore.
elephant-hide stone, I hop
from plane to plane and feel
brave
like the water could
engulf me
at any stage but of course
I’m safe
not near enough the edge
prefer to watch
put my mind
in the boiling blueturquoisewhite
cauldron and thrill
to the thought of
how I’d die, cold and afraid
while a cormorant
slips oilsmooth
quicksilver, alive in the place
that would surely be
my grave
Photo: Claire Doble
Finally recorded one!
Link: https://soundcloud.com/user-808707280/these-waves
If you love the sky and the water so much you almost cannot bear it, that is a door
life flowing cleargreenblue at the bottom of oyster-encrusted steps
clean water, the salt tang, the ripple against stone, how the light strikes
a big sky over a railroad track and the way beer disappears with the sunset
aching sweet, being drunk feels like love
we twist our affections around a glass and tip whiskey in the crevices love has eroded and cut
sluicing the jagged bits, juicing over hurt
the intense blue sky, blue like plastic, a blue dome, a blue tarpaulin from the 80s, blue like sky, a perfect cloudbroken blue over a back lane in Adelaide
ground tinted rust-red from bore water, the world’s blood and corrugated iron in the sun smells like dirt
your eyes like a tannin creek, running smooth and alive with the promise
if I pour myself full of wine from the grapes of the sky, salted from the sea, grown against wire fences in a red-brown earth
if I lie down with you and join our mouths our rivers our waves
will I be granted love
or does it just feel that way
I took the first line of this from Women Who Run With The Wolves by Dr Clarissa Pinkola Estes.
Photo: Claire Doble
There is a heart-place
Of mangroves and oyster rocks
Sei Shonagon, Megan Willcox
Soft, quiet hollows of sand, like the scoops of a hip
A headland, like Scotland
All green and black
Where the sea rushes in
And sucks right back
Is a Beowulf Boudicca
Lurking deep
Below slimy kelp
dry salt smell in the heat
I’m afraid
If I go…
It might…
Disappear
Will it flip, mind twisting, turning, running, burning
Tunnel clear
Back here?
A forest path
Gravel and soft brown
Pineneedles where a
Russian scarf
Drapes, disintegrating down
A secret house
Forest sprites,
Where?
Do they come out at night?
Another heart-place for me
On the other side, through the trees
Today’s prompt/challenge was to write a Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.” What things? Well, that’s for you to decide! I remembered a work colleague and how we were so into Sei Shonagon for a while. Then I thought of faraway places in the heart that make it beat faster. The place I often thought of as a refuge/ happy place is where I’m soon going to be moving to. So I’m wondering if I’ll have to invert that once I get there, and imagine myself back in Switzerland instead!
Photo: Claire Doble
See all those windows
I’ll never look out of
the way the rain stains
concrete like a tidemark
dispersed landocean
of sweetwater
a heartbeat, monitored
spikes and stalactites
mountains in the distance
that won’t be climbed again
if ever they once were
and fat fulsome blossoms
like cheeks stuffed with popcorn
springtime possibility,
impossibly lush
too wonderful to last
Today’s prompt: to write a poem of the possible. A a poem that emphasizes the power of “if,” of the woulds and coulds and shoulds of the world.
Photo by Uriel Soberanes on Unsplash
throw yourself off the
edge and float in the teal sea
we are so tiny
Yesterday’s prompt was too complex for where I’m at, so a short one – it’s still Day 5 in America!
