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

source

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?

source

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7,6

5,4

3

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2

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