Happy New Year

from the

Tasmanian

Europa Poets

 

Old Man Sitting On The Beach

Old man sitting on the beach;

Old man sitting on the beach,

Not thinking of his decrepit form

But of the physique of his youth.

 

Hearing the laughter of coupling youth,

he closes his eyes to see

his Venus and himself frolicking in the sea.

He then sees her sedate smile

and innocent, seductive eyes,

as they rush in haste to the valley of the sand dunes

onto a soft carpet of pigface flowers,

soft like their youthful flesh

as they unite in rhythmic harmony and become one.

 

It was on this day that the seed

of their first-born son was sown

and for four decades, he and his Venus returned

to the site to re-enact their first moments of ecstasy;

Even though she is now deceased,

he is glad of those memories

as he wipes the tears from his eyes.

He opens them and thinks how lucky he was,

unlike his comrades in the war,

to live and to have such cherished memories.

 

Even though to many,

he is just a decrepit old man sitting on a beach.

 

 

© Judy Brumby Lake

 

 

 

 

So Again, We Comment

 

I don’t need a template to animate my heart

to be nothing discreet. There’s no underneath.

I do not beseech - their own, to each.

          But this is not what we teach.

Society, a production line

Some face

For that you’ve misplaced.

You order online an identity.

You call me but what is this? Model 2013.

She’s a kit including charms of illusion.

Flaws? She can prune them - all…

          Cut and paste in monochrome

You forge yourself...undone...a clone...a clown:

You mime, perform this act...a tragedy.

         

And hearts compact

like retreating dendrite

stalagmites in the cold dark,

in the cave behind your eyes where you hold

yourself prisoner, where you hide behind a mask

of your hypocrisy and fear…that maybe, in your

quest to be your own, these are but words society

has stitched onto your tongue, branded;

Like a newborn with a tattoo.

 

And so, you land once again with that impossible

Question in this dizzying, disorientating loop…

          “Who are you?”

 

© Dripping Ink (Lauren Hay)

 

 

 

ThIs Is Your Life

 

On the stage an object,

And it was a subject,

Applause, applause!

“This is your life!”

In the forest once was my wife,

A carver smiled,

In his hand a photo of

a tall stately cedar tree,

“Couldn’t make it today,”

written on the bark,

“Remember me,”

A neat pile of

beautiful perfumed wood,

Glue in a jar,

Beside the little jar,

Latches, locks, keys and screws,

The crowd applauds

the huge perfumed box

so proudly and even thought

it smiled,

On the stage...

 

© Yvonne Matheson

Life

 

Life is an adventure,

Full of many twists and turns;

So you need to be a good dancer!

Life is full of surprises both pleasant

and unpleasant. If you have an

unpleasant experience you need strength

to get you through to a better place.

Be grateful for the pleasant experiences

you have. You can cherish those

memories.

Try to banish the unpleasant ones and

not dwell upon them. If life is a dance,

then it’s important to stay on your feet!

 

© Cathy Weaver

 

 

Paper Love

 

The day we met, you told me you were born in Iran

And you described your childhood there -

I was utterly charmed by you and that very night

I dreamt you were my prince and I your princess,

And for me you built the Hanging Gardens of Babylon,

As I so missed the hills and valleys of my beloved Persia.

There were fig, quince, walnut, date, pear,

And all manner of trees and aromatic plants

Growing in ascending terraces, among great overhanging rocks

And deep, watered crevices -

But no archaeological evidence has ever been found of our

          gardens,

So was it real - were you real?

Or did my dream surpass reality?

 

The modern-day you found me in an Australian café and we “talked”

For many months after you returned to your distant home -

I didn’t expect anything from you,

But when you began to sign your messages with love and many kisses,

I wondered what was in your heart.

I thought finally I should respond and sent you one lone kiss

At the end of my reply -

And then you disappeared!

Did I contravene the rules of your culture, your strict religion?

Was I too forward?

Where are you, my Persian prince?

You and my dream have vanished,

So was this only ever -

“Paper Love”?

 

© June Maureen Hitchcock Dec. 5, 2013

 

We blow hot and cold – with our jobs, with relationships and most especially with the weather. That’s right, the weather!

 

Here we are in glorious summer – sunshine, cool breezes, picnics, barbecues, slipping into Elastine bathers for a dip in the sea or the pool. Holidays at the shack or in the campervan (and the caravan) or gone fishing on a placid lake, or simply boating for pleasure.

 

Just relaxing, wonderful holidays! Great life – great Aussie life!

 

But God is it hot! Slip, slop, slap and wear a hat. The earth is baked dry, livestock is suffering, veges are shrivelling up. How we need some rain, some blessed rain! In other words, we blow cold in summer. It’s all too much – sweat and sunburn.

 

So when the last of the summer wine has been drunk, we think about rekindling fires for winter. God, it’s so cold and wet! And rain, rain, rain! If only there was some warmth in the sun! We blow hot in winter because we’ve forgotten how great it was in summer.

 

Are we ever satisfied? Answer: No, we’re not. It’s never just right!

 

Long summer evenings become ho-hum – will it ever get dark? Short winter nights too terrible to cope with – if only we could sit outside right now but it’s premature night!

 

The doors are shut, shut all right, because only some like it hot (that could be a movie title) and some like it cold (no movie title in that!)

 

Run for the shade! Run for the burning log! Run for our lives!

 

 

Re-arranged

 

Proud staff, high,

And there she lie,

Of purple hue,

And she knew,

A dog barked

by the car, parked,

As if in warning,

Beware the morning!

Her world has changed,

This body re-arranged.

 

© Michael Garrad November 2013

 

  

 

Hearing Aids

 

She said, “I’ve noticed lately, dear,

that sometimes your hearing fails.”

He said, “No, I don’t want to go,

I’m sick and tired of clearing sales!”

“Oh dear, that isn’t what I said,

your hearing’s getting worse.”

“It’s just that I don’t want to go

and I am not being perverse!”

“You really do need hearing aids

before you drive me crazy!”

“I told you, I don’t want to go

and I am not being lazy!”

Eventually she managed

to get him to a hearing test

and as she had suspected

his ears weren’t the best.

Yet, fitting up with hearing aids

he was far from being humble;

“Since we went to see that specialist

he’s cured how you used to mumble!”

 

© Pete Stratford

 

 

Joe Lake’s View

 

“It’s coming,” we say, “like Christmas.” We mean the next one; always there is a next one until we die as the world turns and we sit on this decaying star like flies.

          The Europa Poets Anthology 2013 is selling slowly.

I don’t believe that most Tasmanians are bogans with tattoos who wear Ug boots with definitive pride in their ignorance. This is an island of much perspicacity and as long as we sell minerals to China, we’ll all continue to drive our SUVs, watch TV and play footy.

          I believe that the problem with poetry is that education is condescending by throwing away structure and discipline. Why? Well, what all the great poets have brought us are two world wars and the death of millions. Now we don’t walk in step but let our inner animal run free, which may be the way to go, or is it? All religions are poetry: Joseph Smith, the writers of the Bible, Mohammed, the people who believe in dreams. Alexander Pope said that those dance easiest who have learnt to dance; at the moment, we hop up and down and wriggle our arms or bodies to the beats of our hearts.

 

Sonnet

 

We’re sitting on the edge of our demise,

Where one, afraid of heights, should never be.

One stares into the void with frozen eyes

As darkness spreads across, our home, the sea.

 

There, through the curtains of the clouded night,

One wishes for the moon and stars to see

That they may bring and shine a tempting light

For us to wriggle back into the sea.

 

But when one looks towards the stars, there’s calm,

We hold our breaths that they may show the way

We tighten, then relax our will as balm

Where suddenly a focus may take sway.

 

The brain may be a quaint construction’s game:

I sink therefore I aim - is not the same.

 

© Joe Lake

 

 

 

Fear Of Darkness   A serial novel by Joe Lake.

(So far: Julie meets Susan, who is from five hundred years in the future. She gives Julie a ring to travel in different parallel universes. Julie turns the ring and journeys through space and time with John, her husband. Susan appears later as a hologram and threatens them. Julie refuses to listen when their campervan begins to shake violently. John tries to file the ring off Julie’s finger. The campervan begins to rock and objects fly about. Julie is hit by an object and John drags her out of the van.)

 

 

Meanwhile, in another part of Burnie, Tammy, Julie’s daughter, shook her head, and then took out her pocket calendar and counted the days to her next painting exhibition. Julie, her mother, acted as her manager and had filled out the entry form for TASART, the Tasmanian arts prize that Tammy wanted to enter. “Oh, well, people seemed to like my pallet-knife paintings of Tasmanian scenes,” she thought. The wonderful thing with acrylics and the knife was that one could work at a fast rate and needn’t wait until a layer of paint had dried; also, the paintings looked mosaic-like with their swirling applications of impasto paint which made them come alive and much in demand. Normally she would plan each composition but with a number of photographs in front of her, she would construct a passable landscape with a few strokes of the pallet knife to be executed  quickly, if necessary.

          As she looked out of the window at the overcast sky, now that it was late spring and still only 12deg. C., summer would appear suddenly for blossoming trees were splattering their colour and perfume outside in her garden. She sighed and then nodded to herself and said aloud, “At least it’ll be warm soon and then the paints will dry even more quickly. I hope, for mum’s sake that the buyers in Hobart aren’t going to be too fussy.”

          But just before she could make arrangements and work out how many cups of coffee it would take to finish all these paintings, Tammy’s mum rang to tell her that Joe, her adopted brother, had just returned from the mainland where he had travelled in the warmer climes, up north, as a “tattooed nomad” all through the Tasmanian winter and had now come back to spend the summer at their house in Burnie while her mum would be off to Devonport.

 

(To be continued next month)

 

 Happy New Year

from the

Tasmanian

Europa Poets

 

joelake123@hotmail.com

joelake045@gmail.com

 

 

The Tasmanian Europa Poets: Secretary, June Maureen Hitchcock, treasurer, Peter Stratford. Committee: Vi Woodhouse, Mary Kille, Joe Lake (publisher), Judy Brumby-Lake. The editor, Michael Garrad, accepts responsibility for any comment in this issue and reserves the right to edit accordingly. The Tasmanian Europa Poets gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Bryan Green, MHA, in the production of this gazette. This publication may be photocopied for educational purposes as under the Copyright Act.

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