WIRTSCHAFTSWUNDER DAY, an excerpt...

 

The President practiced his speech one last time, while
watching his reflection in the double doors that would soon
open for him to proceed onto the steps of the Sunshine Circus.
Peeping through a gap in the drapes, President Ongresowa saw
that the citizens of Luckycola were gathered expectantly in the
square. Pulling his stomach in and tightening his belt, he stepped
out through the double doors, followed by the Parliamentarians
and the upper echelons of the military. He lifted his right arm to
quell a wave of murmuring and whispering that suddenly rushed
through the crowd.

‘People of the country of Incognita,’ he began. High above
the square, Berisha Begari looked down from his perch two
hundred metres above the cupola of the Sunshine Circus.
‘People of Incognita,’ the President repeated, suddenly made
uneasy by the eerie stillness that now emanated from the 

enormous crowd.
‘I am your father,’ the President proceeded, suddenly unable
to remember his prepared speech. ‘You are my children, and,
like a good father, it is my sacred duty to protect my family
from the Outsiders.’
The President stopped and waited. Usually, the word ‘Outsiders’ 

was a trigger for uproarious cheering and applause. This

year, the President found himself gulping and running a finger
around inside his collar, which suddenly felt too tight. The
President cleared his throat.
‘ . . . from the Outsiders,’ he repeated.
At last, someone in the front of the crowd raised an arm, and
the President prepared himself for a cry of patriotism and
nationalistic punching of the air. However, the cry that issued
from the citizen was not Hurray for the President!, but a timid
Boo! that echoed from one side of the square to the other, and
was accompanied by the unexpected landing of an ovoid missile
at the President’s feet.
Before the Riot Police could intervene, an avalanche of offensive 

missiles had been launched from the sleeves and the pockets
of the people of Incognita. The crowd surged forward as one,
and the Riot Police ordered their Border Monkeys to disperse
the yelling and enraged crowd. However, the Border Monkeys
would not move, transfixed, as they were, by a white gorilla that
had waddled to the steps of the Sunshine Circus and shoved the
President out of centre stage.
No one knew what language it was that Snowflake the White
Gorilla spoke to the Border Monkeys. Some said, later, that he
had spoken to them of the dignity and pride in being a wild
monkey, and the shame and despair of being man’s servant.
Whatever it was that the white gorilla said, it was enough to
persuade the Border Monkeys to restrain their partners from
intervening in the mêlée. Just when the President thought that
the situation could not get worse, two or three hundred Outsiders 

marched on the square, followed by thousands of limping
ranks of geese, ducks, hens and turkeys. 

 

Feedback from Pete Hay in response to my poem, Drum...

 I think this is beautiful. It captures the 'love it and hate it' confusion even we fiercest of island patriots possess. And as for the power in the closing stanzas - absolutely unforgettable.

DRUM

These are my familiars:

a white gum veiled in a weaving of shadow,

stringy trunks leaning, one hip pushed to the side

as though an infant might be perched on each bulge.

*

I have lived here, in another lifetime.

Anorexic gums line the road,

reminding me of strangers’ funerals

when I was young.

*

Wattles have cropped up like weeds, as they always do.

A young pine forest, three power lines, arsenic posts.

Someone has written DRUM on the Pass Cyclists Safely sign,

and a No Trespassing addendum warns of 24 hour surveillance-

*

it is like a post-modern Lord’s Prayer.

I once camped in bush like this, but can’t imagine,

these days, setting up a tent amongst the trees.

I was twenty. Such things were possible- though,

*

even then, a murderer lurked behind every tree.

I wonder if newcomers sense it? the murderous intent?

the psycho-pathology of barbed wire fences?

the inanity of graffiti’d messages that mean nothing?

*

Clouds trundle overhead,

closing in the afternoon.

There is something sinister in this island.

We don’t belong.

Note: Pete Hay: These days, [though], Hay prefers to write in more creative modes. He has published six volumes of poetry; one of these as editor, and one, Last Days of the Mill, in collaboration with a visual artist (this book won the People’s Choice Award at the 2013 Tasmanian Book Prize). His most recent books of poetry are Girl Reading Lorca (Picaro, 2015) and Physick (Shoestring, 3016). He also writes personal essays (collected in 2002 as Vandiemonian Essays, with a second volume planned for 2017), commentary (including a stint as a newspaper columnist), and history.

Shrovetide Carnival

Shrovetide Carnival is one of the oldest folk traditions originating from the time before Christianity. In Slovenia, Shrovetide Carnival was first mentioned in the 17th century. Our ancestors believed that the ritual would chase evil spirits from the land.

The best-known Shrovetide figures include kurenti, laufarija, škoromati, otepovci, orači and zeleni Jurij or Green George...

Kurenti

On Shrovetide, hopping kurent carnival figures chase winter from the land.

Laurfarija

They wear wooden masks and run through the streets of Cerkno.

škoromati

Otepovci

Orači (Ploughmen)

Zeleni Jurij (Green Man)

The Cerknica Carnival is also reigned by Ursula the Witch alongside Jezerko the Lake Man, the Giant Pike Fish, the Dragon, Liza the Witch and Butalci. 

Ursula the Witch

Jezerko the Lake Man

Butale

A leap of faith...

Last night, I watched a documentary about the landing on the moon in the ‘60’s.  The first two-thirds of the documentary were about the preparation and landing.  It actually brought tears to my eyes, when Neil Armstrong said the famous sentence, as he stepped down off the last rung: One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.  That surprised me, that it should be so emotive.  I’m really not like that…

I recalled sitting in class with what seemed like the whole school packed into one hot room, watching a television set with doors on it that was wheeled out for the weekly educational programmes.  I was at a Catholic girls’ secondary school, and I must have been thirteen years old.  The school was only two years old, when I started there.  It was way out the back of town.  There was a sort of creek running through the school (more gully erosion than creek), with a log across which we teetered to get to the top “ovals” (read paddocks).  We saved all the scraps from lunch-time to give to the pig farmer up the road, and we burned all the burnable rubbish in an incinerator after lunch.  We all had jobs after lunch break.  For quite a while, mine was sorting the scrap-and-rubbish-buckets, putting the scrap buckets under the building, and setting light to the contents of the incinerator.  That was fun, as we (the two of us: a girl called Marguerite and I) were allowed into class a bit late, and we also had an exclusive kind of status.  However, Marguerite’s parents threatened to sue the school when she contracted hepatitis, and thus ended our foray into recycling.  I also recall looking out the window, one day, and seeing a cow meandering through the schoolyard.  Dora Stewart and I ran out to chase the animal out of the school grounds, and a good time was had by all. 

My father did not believe in the Moon Landing, even at the time.  He claimed that the moon did not exist- that it was merely the reflection of the earth in space.  He said that the publicity stunt was merely to take people’s minds off the Vietnam War.  He also said that someone had come and deliberately scraped the paint off our roof, that Mum was a communist, that some of the advertisements on TV were aimed at him, and that he was on a blacklist.  You get my drift…

So, last night, much of this came back to me, watching the ungainly, boxy shape of Neil Armstrong stepping down into the dust.  There was, unfortunately, a vague sense of cynicism in my enjoyment that had never really been there before.  What was it that the conspiracy theorists claimed about the American flag?  Something about a breeze that should not have been there, blowing the cloth.  They also claimed there was some object that didn’t belong, lying on the ground, that you could discern if you magnified the image.  These notions reminded me of the Beatles’ song that was supposed to say “Ringo is dead!” if you played the LP backwards.  Conspiracy theorists are often not cynics, at all, but people who long for mystery.

Anyway, the niggling of vague doubt was completely erased as I watched the third segment of the documentary in which the three astronauts spoke of the many years that followed the moon landing.  They spoke of being changed men; they spoke of the fact that they could never look at life or the universe in the same way.  “The landing on the moon was only one day in my life”, one of them said…”the rest has been devoted to Jesus”.  He explained that, on his return to earth, he had started attending a Bible-reading group, and that his newfound beliefs eclipsed that one day that was a turning-point in his life.  Another said how he remembered looking out of the Apollo and seeing the moon and the stars and thinking: “The earth, and everyone on the earth, and everything that man has made, is made of the stars… We are all one!” He told what a moving experience it was, to come to that realisation. 

I do not remember which old man it was who said which words, but I was struck by the awe with which they spoke, not of the moon, but of the earth.  “Sometimes, I just go out, and go on an escalator”, one of them said, “just to have people around me.  And I think to myself: We really do live in the Garden of Eden!”  All men spoke of the strangeness of being one of only two men standing on a planet uninhabited by any others; of knowing that everyone else was down there on the earth, but that they were so far away, and so alone.  One described the loneliness of this realisation, but another described the feeling as euphoric.

Thinking about the documentary, later, it struck me how ironic it was that three men could travel so far, and under such unnatural circumstances, to achieve these insights.  Listening to the wonder in their voices, seeing the openness on their faces, there was no question, in my mind, that these men had experienced something extraordinary.  The image of the Garden of Eden came up several times, and I remembered the day I came to my own epiphany.  I can’t recall what I was doing- I certainly wasn’t setting foot on any celestial body.  But I recall the sudden understanding that the Book of Genesis is not a story about the past, at all.  It is prophetic.  We are living in it right now. 

First Moon Landing 1969

 

Please scream inside your heart...

The Fuji-Q Highland amusement park near Tokyo has an unorthodox request for its roller coaster riders.
"Please scream inside your heart," and not out loud, the park is asking. The unusual ask is meant to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus.

Please scream inside your heart

Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal.

Thank you so much for sending your stunning poetry to Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal.

I'd be happy and honored to publish your poem "Sky God"

in Issue 4 of Sequoyah Cherokee River Journal.

I would be honored to translate your poem "Sky God".

EDITOR: MYSTI S. MILWEE

SEQUOYAH CHEROKEE RIVER JOURNAL

Ann Martin Wonderful! You're a treasure, Phili! 

1

Anne Morgan Congratulations, Philomena - you're a jewel in the crown of Tasmanian poetry.

Отава Ё - Про Ивана Groove (русское готическое R'N'B) - Otava Yo

Otava Yo (Russian: Отава Ё, ота́ва meaning "aftergrass") is a Russian folk rock band from Saint Petersburg, formed in 2003...

Otava Yo playlist