Tasmanianeuropapoetsgazetteno181

 Tasmanian Europa Poets Gazette No 181 May 2019 

Joe Lake's Models, acrylic on canvas, 90/40

Six Of The Best

Amnesty International

Beyond Blue

Dying With Dignity

Fred Hollows Foundation

Médecins Sans Frontières

Mouth And Foot Painting Artists

               This is my list,

Six of the best.

Organisations worthy of and needful of our support

Both financial and moral.

               Perhaps you have or will make a similar list.

Just a little bit of help from everyone of us

Will make a difference.

Philip Harper

Oh no! Not You Again

There’s a song that’s going around in my head.

It’s not one of my favourites

But a strange one instead.

I don’t know the lyrics, so I can’t sing along

“Oh no! Not you again”, strong, strong, strong, strong

Are the only words I know.

After all, it came out 30-odd years ago.

Maybe it is on You Tube, a song by Australian Crawl.

“Oh no! Not you again”. Yes! It’s there after all!

I am quite fond of this song. It’s catchy

I will play it again.

But who is that young man singing?

It is not James Reyne.

I’ll look it up on Google. Oh! It’s Guy McDonough.

It says he died 36 years ago.

Now I am feeling sorrow.

Robbie Taylor

Shang Wu

Earth Rise

Go stand waiting in the dark

In the dark of the universe

I make you a star of mine

Go stand there pretending I am not the sky

Do we orbit or gravitate

When we see earthrise

It is delicate and more novel than rainbows and starry sky

I make you a star of mine

Shang Wu

I’m Glad That I Was An Inattentive Child

I’m glad that I wasn’t an attentive child

For if I’d paid attention to

what was taught at school

I’d have regurgitated that

there were no more Aborigines left in Tasmania,

That atheists were evil for they were communists;

I would have believed

That the White Australia Policy was right

And only whites should vote.

And like those in our mother country.

We were superior to all dark-pigmented people.

I would have learnt

That there was only one true religion, Christianity

And that all other people would go to Hell.

               Yes, I’m glad I wasn’t an attentive child,

For today,

If I regurgitated what I would have

               been taught, I would be breaking the law.

Judy Brumby-Lake

Judy Brumby-Lake

Painted Cliffs

The man who personifies Puck plays

               with our perceptions;

each wind-flutter fosters a further transience,

as the magician, once again, ensnares us all.

               A blur of people, mostly women, embrace him,

some too embarrassed or some brash enough

to comment on his mortality

               But there are no shades of the prison house

around this venerable man;

his true intent is all for our delight,

like Shakespeare’s crude mechanicals who played

upon a numinous midsummer night,

and conjured up a wall that wasn’t there.

               But here’s another wall of painted cliffs

that wafts and winnows, weaving its 20m way,

vermilion, ochre, carmine, crimson lake,

sienna, saffron, umber, turmeric and chrome,

evoking sandstone weathered by the wind and waves,

moulded over millennia.

               How can Triassic rock, etched into silk,

become ephemeral?

               I remember my mother unwrapping a parcel of silk,

white, sinuous, shining, diaphanous,

sent by my father from France during the war.

(Did the man with the parachute die,

an easy target on a moonlit night?)

               But she made it into a nightdress for her lover’s

long-postponed return, when, after D-Day,

some of the men came home. And I, a child,

attempted to roll a piece of parachute myself

but lacked the skill in handling the waxed thread

or to prevent the fraying of the edge.

               And here this magic fabric floats around the         

               lissome limbs

of adolescent girls who mingle with the crowd

(newly aware of the power-gaze of men),

the girls who walk in beauty, fragile, transient,

unlike the Painted Cliffs which will endure.

               The jazz piano-man plays for the one alone

who has created something rich and rare,

and asks us all to recognise and share

the treasures that we have, as in the song

you never know what you have got

until it’s gone.

Mary Kille

The Drummer Boy

I have a nephew called David Jones

and ever since he was little,

he played the drums. His sister played

the piano. As David got older,

his drumming was music to the ear.

One day, my son said to me,

“Look at this, I saw a picture of David Jones,

my nephew, on the front cover,

top drummer of Australia. Just think,

10 pages of David.”

From a little acorn, he grew into a big tree.

Now he teaches the drumming,

there will be more little acorns

growing into big trees and giving

people music for happiness.

Yvonne Matheson

The Promise

A promise made is a promise kept

               To you loathsome knave whose

wicked chicanery

Took all dear things, including my life,

most painfully

A vow of vengeance that I shall witness

The day of your reckoning I shall look

on with grimness

               To Death I told of my fervent desire

Lo, he informed me of your imminent arrival

And permitted me to stalk my sincerest rival

With sword you fought foe on cliff top high

When I appeared with sound-grating

whisper of sigh

A ghastly sight hailing a crumbling face

of hoar to greet

Death’s frayed cloak of darkness

whipping about my feet

Me you see and oh rejoice to cause

your fatal error

Your misstep sending you over cliff edge

in terror

               Now in this grave demesne

In the shadows Death is nodding,

and I crow with glee

But when the words do come I utter

them solemnly

               A promise made is binding

Catherine Burton

Clamour

Missed in the clamour,

Nowhere to run to,

No hiding place,

No toss of words,

No confiding,

No peace in that quiet place,

No sanctuary,

No solace in the two,

The one of two,

The whole in this confusion,

Where trains rumble,

Dog barks, close,

Cat demands, underfoot,

Half smile,

Laugh stifled in the pain

and the interminable sameness;

He misses you, dear lady,

Where is she now in this

sun-drenched gold of autumn?

Is she there?

Will he see you at the window?

Will he hear you at the silent bell of lunch?

Will he see you by the weeping tree?

Michael Garrad April 2019

Joker

The Joker dances upon a dream,

Tricks real time in lively slumber,

Connects in mischief,

An imagined moment,

In unconscious relief,

Vision impaired through

needy double lens,

This beautiful surreal,

In waking hour, believed,

Banished in early sun

to memory’s confusion,

The possible lost in shadows,

Joker plays this night game,

When curtain smothers,

And wishes are twisted.

Michael Garrad April 2019

Trees

When I think of trees I know I can travel the world -

Any time I choose.

I close my eyes and I’m in England.

Breathing in old-world charm of the ash, oak and elm.

Now I’m in Canada, standing under a beloved maple -

Next I’m in California, in awe of those

               ethereal redwoods,

And now I’m in Spain and Greece, where olive trees

Yield such luscious delicacies - oh yes, more please!

On to the Pacific Islands, where swaying palms

Speak of sunny sojourns and romantic indulgence -

Mine I hope! Then - back home on a breeze to Australia

I’ve been everywhere and now my only desire

Is to find that famous billabong and stretch out to rest -

‘Under the shade of a coolibah tree.’

June Maureen Hitchcock

Another Planet

I dreamed that I visited another planet.

I was welcomed and made to feel at home.

Everyone there lived in peace.

There were no weapons; there was no violence.

The people treated each other with respect and kindness.

Their diet was vegetarian and they made

lab-produced meat for animals that required it.

Food was produced and distributed in such a way

that no one went hungry.

They grew more trees than they cut down,

They spent lots of time outdoors, walking

and playing outdoor sports.

Clean energy sources were used to run

their power plants and vehicles.

School hours were only four hours a day

and work only six hours.

This gave people more time to spend with family and friends.

Creative pursuits such as music and writing and art

were encouraged.

There was some religious belief but there

was no concept of Hell.

They had discovered a cure for cancer

and eliminated most other diseases.

Average life expectancy was around 100 years.

I was so happy on this other world

that I wanted to stay there forever.

Cathy Weaver

Not In Control

I am the captain of my ship’s demise

To guide it on before its fuel runs out.

I steer it to an island’s paradise

Where I will know what life is all about.

               My ship was battered in some angry storms;

It has seen beaches white as wedding gowns;

It has seen city skylines as stark forms

Created by parading, chanting clowns.

               With fuel all spent it’s forced me onto land

Where young pretenders beat their culture’s scream.

I’ve dug my grave to wait for it to end.

The ship sinks to its locker, there to dream.

               I may have seen of this and so much more

               And yet I am as clueless as before.

Joe Lake

World Peace

It is not difficult to get

World peace

               All  you need

               Is everyone

               To stop fighting

Worldwide peace

Is that simple.

Philip Harper

Days

I’ve done nothing today

That is just my way.

It is my ego I obey

A lady of leisure so they say.

Not at all

For I don’t wish to fall

Broken bones

Are not my style.

I would like to peacefully

Ambulate for a further while

And enjoy green leafy trees

The sigh from the sea

Screeching black cockatoos

The bumbling bee

Hear sirens from schools

be enrapt by stillness

Beside a deep river pool

Admire painted skies at sunset

Bright stars before dawn

And catch the cry

of a startled plover

At early morn

That is my way

Of enjoying my days.

Kathleen O’Donnell

Echeverias

Chenilles, Peacocks

And Painted Ladies

Abound

Elegant and comfortable

In desert-like

Surrounds.

Slate-grey, blue-hued,

Pink-tipped, bright green,

Admitting light,

Preserving moisture

Little reservoirs

On pathways seen.

Kathleen O’Donnell

lakej5263@gmail.com