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Cityscape. Photo by Robert Rath from over here at Robert’s website.

It’s day 14 and I’m running dry. Today’s poem came from snippets of conversations and sad news reports.

Sad news days

We drain the dregs of imagination
from the base of a glass
our desperation rests in a stranger’s arms
our tears are laced with traces of hope
but fear remains;
the ocean guards its secrets
while twinkling cities
tell tales of the vulnerable:
the elderly, forgotten, in nursing homes;
a young boy, starved for 14 days;
six babies, buried in cardboard boxes.

Starfishskin. Photo by Robert Rath from over here at Robert’s website.

For today’s poem I decided to revisit the site Bibliomancy Oracle for inspiration. I clicked the button and got this quote:

Tell me your desire
and I’ll rush to fulfill that wish:
a star from the sky
or do you want a starfish?

from Caiçara Song by Flávio de Araújo (translated by Rachel Morgenstern-Clarren)

I decided to use the star/starfish question as a starting point and see where compound words would take me. I also changed the rules after the fourth line (see if you can spot the change).

Star/afterlife

Do you want a star from the sky,
or a starfish?
Do you want a sun from the heavens,
or a sunflower?
Do you want a bone from the yard,
or a backbone?
Do you want a heart from the butcher,
or a sweetheart?
Do you want a line from a song,
or a lifeline?
Do you want a man from a film,
or a human?
Do you want a ship from the harbour,
or friendship?
Do you want to get on,
or forget?
Do you want life from a game,
or an afterlife?

Today’s poem is made up of titles of poetry books that I grabbed at random from my shelves. I didn’t pay too much attention to the titles when I was choosing. I reordered the titles for the poem and added a few words.

What a small stack of books says

On a moon-spiced night
The shadow owner’s companion meets a
Goddess on the Mervue bus and insists on
The colour of saying
Where’s Katie?
North she answers, then
Smoke encrypted whispers murmur
The circle game all
Along the line of our
Public dream
Thick and thin lines shape
Stepping stones through
Dark bright doors to
The simple truth:
The poem’s heartbeat

Disconnection

I saw a young woman walk into a pole this morning,
head down, eyes to phone;
she lurched back and regarded the obstruction,
(seemed somewhat surprised at the interruption),
glanced over at her companion
(who shrugged),
she smirked, then continued walking
eyes back to phone

and I couldn’t help picturing
a cartoon bubble of exclamations
above her head

and what else did she miss
as she liked and lol’d
trolled and scrolled:
a funny t-shirt slogan? a hip haircut?
an admiring glance? a chance meeting?

Sometimes it seems the more connected we are
the more detached we become
as our online ties sever our offline bonds,
virtual the new reality.

And I wonder did she update her Facebook status:
‘I walked into a pole this morning lol’.

In May 2013 the University of Adelaide launched its new brand positioning tagline ‘Seek light’, ‘…drawing on the theme of light and the search for new knowledge…’. It ties in with the University’s motto Sub Cruce Lumen (Light under the [Southern] Cross).

Today’s poem combines this idea with a story about two young girls who suffer from a condition called Xeroderma pigmentosum (XP) – an extreme sensitivity to UV rays from sunlight.

On the use of abstract concepts in brand taglines

The tagline is curt, direct; instructs us to ‘Seek light’
clipped words tip their type to the Southern Cross
concept fits well in the agency brief.

As I head to the Hub for a coffee
I see all the eager light-seekers
and I wonder how the nocturnal feel
in the glare of this dazzling metaphor:
does it throw their circadian rhythms?

And the directive would be fatal
for the two sisters who must hide from light
because UV rays damage their DNA
and their systems cannot repair it,
so by day they stay in their darkened, candle-lit house
and at night they play and picnic under the stars.

I return and buckle down in my tunnel
watching, hoping, for light at the end.

Today’s poem was inspired by this photo, ‘A fleeting glimpse’, shot by Robert Rath.

A fleeting glimpse

I have felt shifting moods of an old miner’s cottage. Fascinated.
I have heard muffled shuffling in a hotel hallway. Curious.
I have smelt sharp odours coming and going in a house where a child died. Intrigued.
I have sensed I’m unwelcome in parts of this land. Subdued.
It’s the occasional fleeting glimpse of late loved ones
that rattles me most.

Cemetery

I like the gravity of a cemetery
sentinel heads protect the secrets of skeletons
from cool closet to sun-baked earth
and I imagine and mourn their stories
returned to dust:
the illicit affair
the stillborn child
intimacies with a trusted priest
(him safely dead too)
and I worry about how names and years disappear
as stone markers crumble over time
and yet red gum salvaged
from the bed of the Murray
has yielded perfectly formed
one-thousand-year-old fossilised tales.

Last year Australian author Gail Jones gave a talk called ‘Discovering time’ which was in the context of her beautiful book Five Bells. One of the statements she made was: ‘a poem is a kind of room; we rest there’, which inspired today’s poem.

Siesta

It’s half past three in the afternoon
time to make a cup of tea and go to my room

lie on my bed
sink into my head

hear the ticking of my father’s red clock
wear my mother’s cream wool shawl

and I sense how a poem is this kind of room,
that here, within its irregular walls

I can examine the dents in the wardrobe
trace and follow the lines on the floorboards
breathe the memories in shifting spaces

and when I open the blinds it is inside out:
the room contains more than everything outside it.

The small birds scatter

murmuration shattered
in a cold sky
above the indifferent lake

and I watch them take their songs
and I wish that I belonged

to the air
to the space
to the stars

in another, separate curl
in this world’s fabric

so that I could see
what caused these small birds
to scatter so.

Road trip

In dim hallways
there’s always a chance
to unmute the hush.

It’s the shifting shades
of impossible light
on the long straight road
that give you no choice
but to open
your windows.