Monday, 26 November 2012
Bread of the Lost
My new poetry collection, published by Walleah Press, Tasmania. Launched 29/11/12 at Hobart Bookshop...
Tuesday, 20 November 2012
Tuesday, 10 July 2012
Saturday, 16 June 2012
The days grow long, the mountains beautiful...
...The south wind blows
Over blossoming meadows.
Newly arrived swallows dart
Over the streaming marshes.
Ducks in pairs drowse on the warm sand.
- Tu Fu, 713-770
Over blossoming meadows.
Newly arrived swallows dart
Over the streaming marshes.
Ducks in pairs drowse on the warm sand.
- Tu Fu, 713-770
Friday, 15 June 2012
Sunday, 10 June 2012
...How will it be to lie in the sky...
...without roof or door
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
- May Swenson
Wind sound
and wind for an eye
With cloud for shift
how will I hide?
- May Swenson
Friday, 8 June 2012
In this dark I rest, unready for the light which dawns day after day...
...eager to be shared.
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.
- Denise Levertov
Black silk, shelter me.
I need
more of the night before I open
eyes and heart
to illumination. I must still
grow in the dark like a root
not ready, not ready at all.
- Denise Levertov
Thursday, 7 June 2012
Think how it is to have a conversation with an embryo...
You might say, "The world outside is vast and intricate.
There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no "other world."
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.
- Jelaluddin Rumi 1207- 1273
Hibernation
There are wheatfields and mountain passes, and orchards in bloom.
At night there are millions of galaxies, and in sunlight
the beauty of friends dancing at a wedding."
You ask the embryo why he, or she, stays cooped up
in the dark with eyes closed.
Listen to the answer.
There is no "other world."
I only know what I've experienced.
You must be hallucinating.
- Jelaluddin Rumi 1207- 1273
Hibernation
Stella Maris...
| A Mhaighdeann as gile | Oh purest of creatures |
| A Mhoire mhìn mhà thair | Sweet Mother, sweet Maid |
| Nad chomsa na aonar | The one spotless womb |
| Bha 'n Slà nair a' tamh | Wherein Jesus was laid |
| Tha 'n oidhche, a Mhoire | Dark night, mother |
| Air tuiteam mun cuairt | Hath come down on us |
| Nach nochd thu do shoillse | And we look out for thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain? | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Nach nochd thu do shoillse | And we look out for thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain? | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Tha 'n oidhche le neulaibh | Deep night hath come down |
| A' còmhdach an t-saoghail | On this rough-spoken world |
| Tha bratach an dorchadais | And the banners of darkness |
| Sgaoilt' anns a' ghaoith | Are boldly unfurled |
| Tha 'n Eaglais ga buaireadh | And the tempest-tossed Church |
| 'S tha sùil coimhead suas | All her eyes are on thee |
| Nach nochd thu do shoillse | They look to thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain? | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Nach nochd thu do shoillse | They look to thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain? | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Bu lèir do Mhac Dè d'anam | He gazed on thy soul |
| Geal 's e gun bheud | It was spotless and fair |
| 'S nach tà inig am peacadh | For the empire of sin |
| Na chòir ghabhail seilbh | It had never been there |
| Cha d' bhuin e bho thùs | None had e'er owned thee |
| Ach don Tighearna 's uaisl' | Dear Mother, but He |
| Is choisrig e d' shoillse | And He blessed thy clear shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Is choisrig e d' shoillse | And He blessed thy clear shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| An talamh cha tug | Earth gave Him one lodging |
| Ach aon fhasgadh do Dhia | 'Twas deep in thy breast |
| Am fasgadh sin crìdh' | And God found a home |
| Na h-Ã’igh' beannaichte, fial | Where the sinner finds rest |
| Bha fà rdach Mhic Dhè | His home and His hiding place |
| Agus fasgadh nan truagh | Both were in thee |
| An soillse do chrìdh'sa | He was won by thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| Nach nochd thu do shoillse | And we look out for thy shining |
| Reul à lainn a' Chuain? | Sweet Star of the Sea |
| (2x) | (2x) |
Saturday, 2 June 2012
Ohoho- the father of laughter...
...His eye is full of joy.
He rests in the sky like a swarm of bees.
Obatala- who turns blood into children.
- Yoruba tribe
Yoruba
He rests in the sky like a swarm of bees.
Obatala- who turns blood into children.
- Yoruba tribe
Yoruba
Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing....
...there is a field. I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
- Jelaluddin Rumi, 1207-1273
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase each other
doesn't make any sense.
- Jelaluddin Rumi, 1207-1273
The Day We Die
The day we die
the wind comes down
to take away
our footprints.
The wind makes dust
to cover up
the marks we left
while walking.
For otherwise
the thing would seem
as if we were
still living.
Therefore the wind
is he who comes
to blow away
our footprints.
- Southern Bushmen
the wind comes down
to take away
our footprints.
The wind makes dust
to cover up
the marks we left
while walking.
For otherwise
the thing would seem
as if we were
still living.
Therefore the wind
is he who comes
to blow away
our footprints.
- Southern Bushmen
Thursday, 31 May 2012
Sunday, 27 May 2012
Tuesday, 15 May 2012
...I ask my house to exist...
...amazed and icy in the white light,
as one bird halts the silence
and the spent night
stays on in the eyes of the blind.
- J L Borges, Break of Day
as one bird halts the silence
and the spent night
stays on in the eyes of the blind.
- J L Borges, Break of Day
Sunday, 15 April 2012
There is no golden afternoon next to the cliff. When the sun went over it at about two o'clock a whispering shade came to the beach. The sycamores rustled in the afternoon breeze...
...Little water snakes slipped down to the rocks and then gently entered the water and swam along through the pool, their heads held up like little periscopes and a tiny wake spreading behind them. A bog trout jumped in the pool. The gnats and mosquiotoes which avoid the sun came out and buzzed over the water. All of the sun bugs, the flies, the dragonflies, the wasps, the hornets, went home. And as the shadow came to the beach, as the first quail began to call, Mack and the boys awakened...
- John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
- John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
Friday, 13 April 2012
In the winter it becomes a torrent, a mean little fierce river, and in summer it is a place for children to wade in and for fishermen to wander in...
...Frogs blink from its banks and the deep ferns grow beside it. Deer and foxes come to drink from it, secretly in the morning and evening, and now and then a mountain lion crouched flat laps its water...The quail call beside it and the wild doves come whistling in at dusk. Raccoons pace at its edges looking for frogs. It's everything a river should be.
- John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
- John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
The Carmel is a lovely little river. It isn't very long but in its course it has everything a river should have...
...It rises in the mountains, and tumbles down a while, runs through shallows, is dammed to make a lake, spills over the dam, crackles among round boulders, wanders lazily under sycamores, spills into pools where trout live, drops in against banks where crayfish live...
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
John Steinbeck, Cannery Row
Friday, 6 April 2012
"Don't you remember what night it is?" he asked. "No. What is it?" "It is St Andrew's Eve..."
...Then the Portagee knew; for this was the night when every paisano who wasn't in jail wandered restlessly through the forest. This was the night when all buried treasure sent up a faint phosphoresent glow through the ground. There was plenty of treasure in the woods, too...
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
Monday, 2 April 2012
"Our Father is in the evening," he thought. "These birds are flying across the forehead of the Father..."
"...Dear birds, dear seagulls, how I love you all. Your slow wings stroke my heart as the hand of a gentle master strokes the full stomach of a sleeping dog, as the hand of Christ stroked the heads of little children. Dear birds," he thought, "fly to to Our Lady of Sweet Sorrows with my open heart." And then he said the loveliest words he knew: 'Ave Maria, gratia plena-'
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
Sunday, 1 April 2012
Pilon was a lover of beauty and a mystic. He raised his face into the sky and his soul arose out of him into the sun's afterglow...
...That not too perfect Pilon, who plotted and fought, who drank and cursed, trudged slowly on; but a wistful and shining Pilon went up to the seagulls where they bathed on sensitive wings in the evening. That Pilon was beautiful, and his thoughts were unstained with selfishness and lust. And his thoughts are good to know...
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
It was purple dusk, that sweet time when the day's sleeping is over, and the evening of pleasure and conversation has not begun...
...The pine trees were very black against the sky, and all objects on the ground were obscured with dark; but the sky was as mournfully bright as memory. The gulls flew lazily home to the sea rocks after a day's visit to the fish canaries of Monterey...
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
- John Steinbeck, Tortilla Flat
Saturday, 31 March 2012
I poise the pen and it puts forth twigs and leaves, it is covered with blossoms and the scent of that tree is impudent, for there, on the real earth, such trees do not grow...
...and like an insult to suffering humanity is the scent of that tree...
- Czeslaw Milosz, The Poor Poet
- Czeslaw Milosz, The Poor Poet
Friday, 30 March 2012
...What is the earth for them? A lake of darkness. It has been swallowed by the night forever...
- Czeslaw Milosz, The Bird Kingdom
Hope is with you when you believe the earth is not a dream but living flesh...
...That sight, touch, and hearing do not lie,
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate
You cannot enter...
- Czeslaw Milosz, Hope
Ralph Vaughan Williams
That all things you have ever seen here
Are like a garden looked at from a gate
You cannot enter...
- Czeslaw Milosz, Hope
Ralph Vaughan Williams
Friday, 23 March 2012
Saturday, 17 March 2012
Friday, 16 March 2012
Thursday, 15 March 2012
Mud, roots, old cartridges, blood. High overhead, the long silence of the geese...
- Robert Hass, Palo Alto: The Marshes
Wednesday, 14 March 2012
...how brief the time is on a summer afternoon when the sun is warm on your neck and the world might as well be a dog sleeping on a porch, or a child for whom an afternoon is endless, endless...
Time: thick honey, and no one saying goodbye.
- Robert Hass, The Apple Trees of Olema
- Robert Hass, The Apple Trees of Olema
Sunday, 11 March 2012
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