gazetteno178

Tasmanian Europa Poets Gazette No 178

February 2019

Madonna, Judy Brumby-Lake, oil on canvas

Judy Brumby-Lake, Le Smack, oil on canvas

A Letter

I've waited and waited to hear from you -

Your silence is so strange, so deafening.

I know Shenyang is far away,

But even at the tap of your keyboard

You could have wished me a merry Christmas,

Or wished me well for New Year -

After all, we have been friends for thirty years

And once - much more.

I fear that your Christmas was not merry,

I even fear that for you there will be no more Christmases -

Or new years - ever.

Yes, I know what China has achieved

And the world is astounded by its technology.

Though you are not of their heritage,

Your heart and home is Chinese - and your pride!

We are of the same age and I always believed that,

With your brilliant mind and inexhaustible vitality,

You would outlive me -

Or has your mind clouded now, so that I'm a ghost,

Whereas I thought you might be?

Where are you, my friend, my inveterate traveller?

Perhaps you really are not of this Earth now,

Perhaps you are exploring a new world

On "The Dark Side of the Moon"?

I will wait for your call from up there!

Joe Lake, Estuary, acrylic on canvas, 30/40

 

 Words

Lush green whispers in gentle breeze,

Birds sing in discordant harmony,

Animals play at night games,

Insects fight survival’s eternal battle,

All that lives above must die;

It is in the order of things.

Lower, in the everlasting sleep,

a body rests, disintegrating,

Words are their living gift,

Words defy the final breath,

Words are never forgotten,

Even as that lush green withers,

As flowers pale to naked,

As winter bites cruelly,

Words are joy in dark grief,

Echoing over grave’s silence,

At beginning and end,

Words are the song above intense quiet.

Michael Garrad January 2019

Mindful

I wish -

The time of the day

Could stay

And not stray away

With memories of past times

And delve into the future

Of rhythms and rhymes

As yet unloosed

From cells of grey matter

Like children’s chatter

All now encased in this skull

Much tattered and old

But remaining forthright,

Mindful and bold

Cocooning

Cocooned in mother’s warmth

An oasis from the reality of life

Living in the shelter

Of mother’s embrace.

No knowledge and tribulations

Or joys of what tomorrow may bring

Just living for the moment

Cocooned in mother’s womb.

              

Sun

I won’t forget sun’s death,

I will remember sun’s birth,

Life slips by with every breath,

And with each breath is beautiful memory,

I live the memory and who you are,

I try to reach you as it was,

As I wish it were, seeing, hearing,

I am trapped in a replay moment,

In the instant you were here and gone,

I search in familiar places,

I know you are there even though you lie beneath,

I cannot lay beside you now,

And I didn’t then, in dark hours,

I didn’t hear your call in veil of despair,

Perhaps I didn’t listen.

I savoured interludes that were fleeting afternoons,

But it wasn’t long enough,

I remember conversations that brushed gossamer curtains,

I recall them over and over,

Images now, regrets now, until I am not,

Sunset, sunrise, always and ever.

The grass is growing wonderfully now.

Michael Garrad December 2018

Charade

We are a charade in the game that is us,

Actors on this stage, audience adoring,

Projection of an image, expected,

Genuine as a tight smile,

Keeper of secrets behind open, false eyes,

We are the other in fertile imagination.

They believe this image, without seeing,

Lives concealed by the veil of pretence,

We, who bathe in accolades,

Armageddon a breath away,

Behind shutters we scream freedom,

The charade is exquisite in perfection.

Michael Garrad January 2019

Upon A Rhyme

Upon a mood, I drifted, so sublime,

Rode the back of imagination,

Defied the brotherhood of time.

Earth’s crusted remains,

Memorialised,

Spacious flight of soul,

Splendid motion,

Eyes in perpetual dark,

Eternal,

Exultant scream of birth,

Weeping span of joy,

Recollections in the cold of spent ashes,

Scattered in false hope,

Vacant blue, the Entity’s treasure,

Part of and all of domain’s riches,

Surrender to agony’s freedom.

Upon a mood, I drifted, so sublime,

Reached beyond existence,

And found symmetry in rhyme.

Michael Garrad January 2019

Sonnet

The dawn of time when love grew from within

To build the structure of the human race

To flex and let the dreaming love begin

To hold us with a singular embrace.

To dare to float above the stony throng

To download all that is continuous life

And though the time this takes seems long

It will be worthier when we arrive.

But many who are weak will not survive.

The forces of lives’ twists and turns are cruel

But those who see it through may yet arrive

Especially when they have played the fool.

Downloaded software drives us from within

Determined, categorical, to win.

Joe Lake

Henry Hellyer's Dream, acrylic on canvas, 30/40

My Daughter, Elza

Small, delicate but very strong, our Elza.

So very independent -

Mum worries of what may happen.

Receive a card saying she’s going to Germany,

No more.

Thinking she arrives on December 21.

Phone call - she’s coming on December 19 at 4.45 pm

Waiting at Devonport.

The largest smile on her face to see her family,

Nice to go abroad but better

To be in Australia,

Her home.

 Yvonne Matheson

Joe Lake, Jerusalem, acrylic on canvas, 30/40

lakej5263@gmail.com