One word in salutation
you say love
and I know that is a word I cannot use
Forgiven
I am silent
or hide benign babbling
a doorway of white flags
fluttering a language I have not learned
I know the language of baubles
and the language of stones
I play reckless
with what is known
Image: http://worldsenz.blogspot.com/2011_03_01_archive.html
There is a dance i have seen
never in this life
an ancient dervish of the sun
and moon and planets and stars
spun by men in swirling skirts
an astronomical moving map
circling towards and away towards
and away towards and away effortless
with graceful steps and unchanging face
sometimes there is an idiot
twitching blind eyes begging
between them sometimes there is just
Images:
http://coosacreek.org/amputated/wp-content/uploads/whirling-dervishx.jpg
http://tripideas.org/whirling-dervishes/
For the Love of Flying
(Gary Ticehurst, 18 August 2011)
The first time I flew with Gary was after joining the Beat Box crew at ABC-TV. We circled round and round the red roofs of Sydney. I started to feel very ill, but it was a new production team and I wanted to appear cool, so I kept swallowing the vomit back. Eventually nothing could stop it exploding out my nose :-0… Far from being pissed off that I stunk up his brand new chopper Gary was a perfect gentleman about it. Privately he even confessed that he used to get airsick when learning to fly planes, but it disappeared when he moved on to choppers.
Later when I was working as a camera operator for the news team, hanging out the door to shoot with a gale force wind blowing in my face, I learnt to love flying.
Gary, thank you for your care and courtesy – you taught me exhilaration in the face of fear.
The News
In the morning a phone call
Have you heard?
his voice tight and raw
brutal with truth
ABC chopper down
three dead
Gary, Paul Lockyer, John Bean
Reels like a broken blade
worlds plummet
Gary, the safest pilot I ever knew
if it could happen to him
it could happen to anyone
We are long past conversation
he hangs up
God bless their souls
God bless their souls
a prayer from nowhere
rises up
Our son, attuned, emerges from his room
Who was that? I listen
it is when I speak tears break
I am surprised to realize
I care as much for anyone
after a thousand stories this is human in the face of death
It could have been me, I think
I was never safe
It could have been dad, I watch
that slow troubling thought
as he hugs me better
a moment wise before school
Online there is little to report
early evening
something odd about the take-off
minutes later
a silent glow in the desert
They had come to shoot the flowers
on an island in an inland sea
The next day an aerial shot
black smudge smeared across the sand
I make out one tiny living figure
three bright-blue tarpaulins small and clean
one fore, two aft
That’s Gary, I feel
the chill of what they mean
(First visit)
The woman behind me wants to open a restaurant
or get her truck licence and travel Australia
or become an astronaut and live on the moon
that would be cool – live on the moon
not forever just for a while
Waxheads check out babes
getting a sugar hit in the corner
grannies and greenies gabber sipping vegan coffee
I wonder if I want to move to Woy Woy
a pelican walks past
the sun slouches in for the afternoon
my blue walls
bounce sun dizzy sky
particles gold dropped air
the taste of me quietly
empty room morning
waiting first step up stair
blue hope morning sun’s lair
A man not old as you expect
carefully alights from the red mobility scooter
struggles to free a black-notched walking stick
and inches into Ruby’s on death-camp legs
he peruses the racks and chooses
a fat paperback curled at the edges
I notice a swollen red ball on his elbow
the pervasive thinness of him
two perfect out-turned ears
the contained tilt of his head
2010 December 31
What is the point of a life without moments of intensity?
New Year’s Eve – seven pages to fill before backyard crackers and blaring horns. The time is 9.04.
What if you were not before then? What if you were really? What if this was the day this was?
Morning doves throoting. Yin yang dogs asleep on the bed. Sunshine:) making hay.
A poem, a shower, a cafe, another poem on the way.
Who are you?
Who are you really?
Yes, but not that.
Who are you?
Who are you not?
Who were you then that you are now?
Who were you when?
When are you now?
When are you not?
Who can you?
Who be can be
Who cannot be?
Not be
Who is?
Is
AquaVita
Cold sparkling spring on a mountain
sun spilling crushed rock of ice
pure and sweet a star has fallen
condensing clarity
blue drop of life
A flaw in the glass of my seeing
I sense the callous
tough leathered hide-
out I know it has a purpose
but it grows over every now
therefore in the world I see out
through a callous bllurred by age
the flaw is in the glass
The Clearing
For me
the person I grew up
formed from blood by events
this day to contemplate
the black-and-white proofs
of a child in plaits with her head-
tilted smile little hands
clasped finger-tip-to-finger-tip
to contemplate a future
by my own hand
signed
Turquoise clapboard and white windows
clear against a blue sky
with stairs leading down to the street
mine
Btw lesson today was spinning words
and what I liked was not the words
and not their meanings
not even the sounds
is was the happiness of spinning arms open mind
Firewords
two to twenty one one
to me give me be not who what when begin again live be
In March you will find me
on Highway 101
in Marin County
just up from the Golden Gate
at the Corte Madera
in a room with a balcony
overlooking a gem
and there you will find me
delighting in blue northern gold sun
In spring you will find me
green among the vines
climbing excursions to the hills
and a day at Monteray
yo Sausalito at night
dancing on a houseboat in San Francisco Bay
If you say it it might come true
and if you say it
it might come true
if you say it
shh they are sleeping along the bay
the shiny fish are still
drifting in dark water
fins of ink floating
awaiting the day
Who will be there?
Me? I? Us?
Don’t you love question marks?
How they express something
forward? FunnY?
