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Poetry Creatrix - Issue 9 June 2010

Selectors/Editors: Peter Jeffery and Sally Clarke

Administration: Sally Clarke

Poets in this issue:

Jan NapierJanet JacksonElio NovelloMeryl ManoyGlen PhillipsRona J. OkelyLaurel LamperdDerek FentonRose van SonMardi MayJacqui Merkenschlager Max and Jacqui Merkenschlager Max MerkenschlagerRon OkelyKevin GillamCoral CarterJoyce ParkesJenny de GarisMaureen SextonJosephine ClarkeGary Colombo De PiazziSue ClennellLiana Joy ChristensenAlistair P D BainColleen O’GradyJohn RyanMarilyn Dorothea KingTatjana Debeljacki

Shotholed With Moonshine... Shotholed with moonshinetatterdemalion thunderheadssqueeze silver to slate.Gulls strafe the cringe of beach.A breeeze smears fishguts and blood.Dark sea hisses and shivers.Shark reef slits meniscus slips beneath.And over all a starveling moon.A witch's moon a hunter's moon.He takes first pressure upon the trigger.

Jan Napier Previously published in The Mozzie

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ half On the first day at the beach I walk east into a howling Holding my black hat on my Then I go back On the second day

of 18Creatrix Issue 9 Poetry

6/4/2010http://www.wapoets.net.au/pages/creatrixissue9poetry.html

it rains I work on my On the third day it's calm I walk east again Flies diving in under my black Trying to get under my sunglasses Feet -- only -- in the sea Hem of my black skirt getting Black shirt a ride for I walk east as far as and I think What if I just kept walking? How far would I Without my purse? Without water? I left my purse in the with my children And the thought of if I just didn't It is a thinkable but not something I would So I go back and on the way I forget half the words I But what's the point of living if you don't somehow even if only touching through wires

Janet Jackson Alone before the plasma screen He handed her a feather a tall black feather pulled from his tail, said take this home with you. Was that all he could spare? One feather? His tail and wings were ragged. Maybe he wandered around leaving a trail of feathers in this place and that place, the flicky ash of his personality, his potential. Some kind of energy seemed stored in the feather. How to release it? Flutter? Tickle? Giggle? Stare, wave? No-no-no. Burn! Burn! Alone before the plasma screen she lit a small black candle, held its destructing waxgas to the feather's tatty frond. She closed her eyes, savoured his acrid organic smoke, received the small strokes of his heat, curled shut around the burn as a trail of flame fused the synthetic plush of her family-room floor and slowly consumed her just-constructed, abstract-geometric, bravebright blockout drapes.

Janet Jackson

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Picking Mulberries At the Dewings Spread on lattice of gnarled lichen-stain branchesare green heart-shaped tooth-edged leaves,set against clear bright blue sky background. I am under the canopyof the old mulberry treeon the Dewing’s farm,suspended in time and space,and pick berry that has sweet ripened crimson fleshthat bleeds sanguine-red down my fingers, hands, arms,licked up by my tongue,stain onto my face. Any not-ready small opaque pink berry (dull cadmium red),or any close to ready,but not quite true mulberry hue,are left alone,but still cherished,to ripenunder the summer sunfor picking on another day. If only Adam and Evecould have lived this way,learnt about Life beneath this Tree,been able to pick berry under its canopy…

Elio Novello ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rhythmic Dance Dancing blades in unisonto and fro as a metronomeperfect rhythmic timingflying arms from left to right –right to left gliding smoothlysynchronising perpetual motionskating glassy surface.Tempo quickens freneticallyduo doesn’t miss a beat. Hypnoticmesmerisingmustn’t focus on their dancingmechanical precisiondistracting from the task on hand.Rain is drumming, beating, pounding,visibility almost nil,safer to pull overwait until the storm has passed.

Meryl Manoy ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Tiresome

Tiresome is as tiresome does’—old nursery motto

Not good to feel tiresometo the rest of your race, for tiresome is as tiresome does—waiting for Bell’s mechanism



to trill; waiting for that dance of the overgrown alarm clock we call desk telephone. Or the oldwall phone hung in the farmhouse, with cranking handle and long cordfrom the handpiece to the stained box. You shouted to be heard according to the distance of the call. Or so it seemed with irascible grandparoaring, ‘What the blazes did you say, man? Told you I need it now!’But most of all we wait and wait for the bell of the call of dreadin wartime or from hospitals where meningitis, typhus ortorn flesh waylaid loved ones. Then drove like maniacs to bein time. And waited outside closed wards, operating theatres to knowif the stone-faced matron or medico would tell us what the phone declined.As old Sam Butler opined, human kind’s greatest sin maybe is illness,or to suffer unsound wind or limb. Yet nothing sets the phone lines tinklingmore than calamity’s fearful toll. And so tiresome for us healthy ones to dance to your jingle bells, prance across the room while you have uson a string. But those who suffer that sickness we call love, you waittoo by a fevered phone for release from your own ague, tiresome needof the unrung heart, waiting to be freed.

Glen Phillips ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Budding Artist? Fair haired bright eyed two year oldDrawing on wallsExasperated mother Not on walls On paperDrawing on furniture Not on furniture On paperTries the gumbootsBrickie Dad off to work In decorated gum bootsGrandmother presents Packet of stickers Pad of paperChild happily decorates Walls



Table legs Bed linen with stickers on the paperBusy mother prepares for visit of Nan and GrampsBusy child prepares trail of stickers from lounge to toilet Exasperation and horrorWinning smilePaper adorned with drawing and stickers handed to departing NanArt work Drawing and stickers on paper now on Nan’s frig.

Rona J. Okely ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ballad of the Sad Losers When Margret Roadnight came to town old Jimmy Cowman remembered how he was going to be the greatest jazz player in the world. Play that sax, Jimmy play them Blues. He was Satchmo When Margret Roadnight came to town she sang a song of the fifties. Little Nancy Dee remembered dancing with Johnnie Jones to the old seventy-eights Jimmy Dorsey and Glenn Miller. When Margret Roadnight left town she took her songs with her. Old Jimmy Cowman sat upon his porch. He didn't see the crop that was failing. Little Nancy Dee wept remembering the night Johnnie Jones waltzed out of her life in the arms of her best friend. When Margret Roadnight left town she left her dreams behind.

Laurel Lamperd

Previously published in’ Redoubt’Winner Jacolyte Books CompetitionThe Japanese Gardener, download poetry and short story anthology.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A Sad Sonnet For Santa Father Christmases are all up in arms,because of their podgy or spindly legs!The politically correct say it harmschildren sitting on the legs of the dregsof the employment queues, begging for giftsand tugging at beards on a strangers knee.It’s a thoroughly modern mum who liftsher endangered child by setting it freefrom potential paedophilic peril,and wrapping it in a loving cocoon:ensuring that it cannot go feral,feeding it from a safety silver spoon. So either put Santa in a glass case, or in a PC with a virtual face!



Derek Fenton

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Friday Night she diesholding tight ontoblack & white negativesbroken knuckleslike peeled onion skinscrying from the strainof not wanting to let go a child pounds againstthunder of a bruised breastexpecting immortalitywanting more than just21 new years’ eves demanding her rightto another birthday party

Rose van Son Sunday Afternoon His son nearly drownedat the Blue Hole with Tiffany in towswimming alongside her mother frantic

to stop hergoing too fartried several strokes

to reach herbreast strokeback stroke his father pushing past in his best overarm sequence pairedto win brought them backbeached on the sandlike a whale

Rose van Son ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Cormorant On a rock, reflectedin a slow-flowing stream,a cormorant dries feathers, wings spread wide like a flasher’s shocking coat. Look! Look!See me!See me mirroredtwice in your mind. Alert for unwary prey,he turns this way and that,blatant in the sunlight,ready to snap shut his wings and dive for cover.



Mardi May Heron A white-faced heronpaces the shallows with ballerina gracehigh-stepping and splashless stands on a rock sentinelstill and grey as stone waits for fingerling shadowsin the dappled, liquid light patient as driftwoodbleaching in the sun the dart of a beakswift and arrow keen a startle of dropshis snake-neck swallow the surface seals itselfmirrors the bird’s bright eye.

Mardi May ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ In a Flash of Brilliance

You’ve lived, like a wanderer butterfly.Isn’t it enough?Enough that you have lived so long, so well?The future has always been uncertain,something to fear or accept.You have been bold ‘til now.Isn’t it enough that you have lived? You lived like a brilliant butterfly.Emerging from its cramped chrysalis,dazzled by the light, it pumps its wingsthen drifts, a dainty delight,to dance among the daffodils. It lives like a carefree wandererand when the seasons changeit flings itself into the wind,flying with the multitudeover mountain and marshlandto that deep, dark, wondrous forest of passion and procreation.Its journey complete,it flutters to the forest flooramongst a carpet of fading colour. Isn’t it enough – to have lived?Enough to have flung yourselfinto the chaos of lifeand flashed your brilliance,folded life within your embrace?Why so fearful? The future,where all have flown before you,will fulfil its eternal promiseand accept you, like a wanderer butterfly,fluttering to the forest floor.

Jacqui Merckenschlager

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Raindrops

[lyric poem from our musical play ‘Beyond The Blues’: 1850’s Ballarat gold digger Wing Lee receives word that his beloved Su Lin Yen has been given as a concubine to a powerful warlord]

Raindrops,desolate cries, tapping on the panes of my heart.They’re only raindropsfrom wintery eyes, gathering in streams on my face,making oceans of tearsthat will keep us apart,that have stolen our years. And they’re only raindrops, glistening jewels,promising sunshine to come.But tomorrow is hereand the rain never ends, and I can’t see the point of a sun. Raindrops,drenching my dreams,lapping at the doors of my heart.They’re only raindrops,destiny’s streams,ripples over islands apart.But the memories dearand the moments of joy,I shall hold to me here. And they’re only raindrops,glistening jewels,promising new life to come,when tomorrow is hereand a rainbow returns,and we share an eternity’s sun.

Max and Jacqui Merckenschlager ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Red Sea Bathing We camped beside the Red Sea our first term break.Beyond the mosques and minarets of Taiz compass-clad in speakers,outside the fishing village of Al Hawharpugged and panting in the midday shimmer,we strung our nylon fly, intent on spending time with books and beaches,dipping toes in Yemen’s edge, combing shores, no chores. Dumped beneath date palms by plump-faced Ghazi, the mercenary bursar,abandoned near hollow hull of wood-wormed trawlerlisting and lifeless as a long-beached whale,we were two against the tide,twin islands in a drowning sea of Arab faces, sounds and placesstrange to western senses. Within tent embassy immune to Moslem world,we curled, unfurled and dealt with matters fictional and fact,refilled our dried-out minds from books, the wells and brooks of learning and sub-artesian fantasies,received informal visits from puzzled youth; the truth – why raise our lonely tent there? He patiently taught us a few words of Arabic.We tried, replied, but tongues denied



the subtle nuances of language. He failed to understand our quest for solitude,soured of crowds and voices loud; the subtle nuances of freedom. Midweek we were reading seated in shade cast by the wooden wreck.Struck with awe, we saw a four-wheel-drive track past and brake along the beach. And from its cab He leapt. she wept,roughly pushed aheadfully-clothed, into the Red Sea –forced to kneel and slosh and wash;waved on until His will was done. That scene was as incomprehensible to usas, it seems, our campsite was to them.

Max Merckenschlager

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Signing What all of us together at the same time? Yes So you can all hear the same Thing and do your bit Are you going to die soon? No of course not but what if we did Got hit by a bus or some such thing What’s Enduring Power of Attorney It means you might have to Take care of our finances When we can’tThat sounds OK But not until we can’t do it ourselves What’s Enduring Guardian It means knowing how we feel And what we’d want to happen If we couldn’t tell youYou mean life and death and all that stuff? Yes it’s pretty heaving isn’t it But sooner you than some Government ‘bozo’ who’s never known us OK Show us the formsBut you’re not going to die yet are you?What are we going to do with all your poems? Ah Shove them up your memory

Ron Okely ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ butterflies aren’t moths nearly black. black rather than blue.blue uncontrollably.uncontrollably blue, yes, but redder too,to mauve, though not purple,nothing rhymes with purplepurple was the colour of



my 70’s childhood, thatand burnt orangeorange eyes on the wings of brown butterflies.butterflies aren’t moths.moths, soft desperation, knottingstreetlights with satin wings.wing dust on my fingers, black, nearly

Kevin Gillam ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ cheap its been daytime television washing machine beepunderfoot stair creaktiled floor cold for me

but now at fourfriday arvo knock offstreet roarshoons are outclaudia & candicetonightsattractionat the inland cityhoteltwo dollarsto droptheir tits outcheap

Coral Carter YOU Do you want me to label each word? This one LOVER, I was giving to Janet or Anne or James, someone else and the one I can't remember. Maybe to them all, I am not sure. OCEAN was a reference to ablution, absolution. MOON, I actually thought heavenly body as I wrote or do you need further explanation? But I wasn't writing about YOU, someone I know intimately. There are many: YOU. YOU. YOU. PLUS YOU. Which one is YOU? Go ahead point yourself out.

Coral Carter ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Lepus and Rebus Lepus paused ahead of pressure by the gate of taunts and treasures when Rebus standing just behind her sighed, be a darling Lepus and please hurry since I must speed to be on time and announce what is yours, what is mine, then traverse that path to shine. So Lepus hopped to halt for long-range learning focusing on earnestness and irony with a yearning to discover the essence of a rabbit’s and a hare’s existence, yet noticing a car speeding past with a lizard at the wheel of rarely tardy; on its way to a party, where one devours crustaceans and caviar?



Joyce Parkes

The Cup

With thanks to Bo Ju’i

If what also matters is how one creature treats another, then how non-homo sapien animals are regarded remains, regretfully, a rein in the hands of a jockey who abuses his horse in the saddle of should rather than applaud a canter for an era without blinkers and boots. Do horses, running in in Cups, covertly covet their ride as their corium screams under the whip in their stride while every breath they take through their pummelled hides is taken for a win or a place to profit a bettor’s base?

Joyce Parkes ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ For weeks the trees whisper rain For weeks the trees whisper rainecho my rainstick – seeds inside a dry cactuscalling against intransigent sky.Leaves dry as the seeds are twisted by drought on their twigs,right-angled to sun. Ground the brown river hollowedscrunches under our feet,breathes clouds of warm dust.The river has slugged along low in its bed, stayedin depressions remembering flood. Seven moons have arced over our valleysince one last jigged in the falls,their beaming white on bleached grasses,stiff brackens spiking their light. We have heard the silence of frogs,watched our dam water dwindle and thicken,gone fishing under the showerherding skerricks of liquid from basinsto buckets, taking our catch to the garden(which plants to save from the scorch?) Beaks agape, rosellas have sagged, the birdbath so near yet so farThe finches have wallowed, reluctant to leave . . .We knew how they felt,dragging ourselves from the sea that still has its feet in ice. Now something the summer distilled – yellow of Sun, mauve glow of the Moon –powers out of baked earthin delicate crocus buds. At last there are mares’ tails at sunsetover the gully like comets,tails fiery with water. This night our white bedroom curtain is lifted



like a great wing quivered in lightning. The stars are dimming, have vanished And the tin roof clamours with moleculestumbled and drumming. We run out and hold up our arms – feel the cool bounce on our skin; We laugh with the chant of the gathering flow from the gutterssinging in downpipes, the happy splashof its hitting low in our tank. It was never like this in the citywhere the rains are swallowed by drains,where mentioning cloud forecasters look sour,and the dams are unseen in the hills. So, driving the road that twists with the river,let’s not curse, in the wet the hopping of frogs to be dodged, nor resent, summer nights, the need to beware of the roos on their way for a drink: We are learning Earth’s contrasts by heart.

Jenny de Garis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ droving i am the dust my spirit in the crevices of the dry creek bed with a closed mouth bitter against the harsh desert sun i am the worn tracks mapped out by bullocks centuries ago their remains dust mingled with mine on this long hard journey if you follow the map of my face it will take you to a place where only the harshest survive where hard work and anger replace the heart where the soft inside of a mouth knows only silence shrivels up and dies it is only my eyes where you will see the life once lived did you notice that one tear in the corner? it contains a faded memory if only i had not breathed in the dust of this land to be shackled to its eternal existence

Maureen Sexton lessons in floating she walks in water, glides like a miracle breaks away from her portable chair and steps into aqua cloud she gives me no words yet tells me more than i could ever learn from philosophers preachers or poets her bent body stands proud tight joints loose and free in the warm flow she walks in water and i imagine i am flying it is her miracle i am only learning



Maureen Sexton

Previously published in Beating Time in A Gothic Space Friendly Street Poets 23 and No River is Safe Poets Union Inc Anthology) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ The Stone The stone is back: we were made for each other.The stone has a surface smooth as dough butThe stone is calcified, set, cast. Immoveable.The stone will be added to my collection.The stone will put the night sky into my pocket.The stone will help me find the river.The stone has no memory but it never forgets.The stone lingers, like lichen, in the shadowed side.The stone is a comfort for an empty hand.

Josephine Clarke Breakfast Sitting. edging the freeway metal lace of lightpoles where pelicans sit like mythical gods deconstructing the river hurrying to the office ants carrying yesterday’s worries to breakfast radio foreplay we look up and wonder how they seem made for each other - the lightpoles and the birds

Josephine Clarke ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Signs Galloping wind rolls across paddocksscatters dust, bucking debris to flutter and fall.Undulating land sighs and settles in repose.Venus reclines to sleep another day. Hands weathered by seasons, calloused from shaping, from moulding the landscoops dry soil and sifts it free through fingers.Red gold grit cascades eagernessshrugs dust puffs that billow to nothing.Parched by cloudless sky, emptiness fills his soul. Generations tilled this soil, won from virgin scrubwith blood and sweat. Men, women, childrenwithout distinction building dreams on golden harvests.Common-unity built on isolation, cemented by purposebonded in friendship. Life and death as regularas the seasons. Dust blows like dreams pounded by reality.How much can shoulders bear, how longcan hands hold on? How painful to stem the tears, the spectre of suicide.Generations stand behind him, generations yet to come, wait. The decision is his. To stay, or leave?He looks to the horizon searchingfor rain. He looks to heavenhoping for a sign.

Gary Colombo De Piazzi



Interrupted Bare feet stomp a rhythm amidst the dustthat rises and collapses to the didgeridoo.Clay smeared faces peer from the darknessflash bright in firelight and withdraw.Advance and retreat to the primal beat. Blank faced dancers with trance eyes shiftin mimicry, stalk and jump recounting storiesreliving journeys of creation, of lore. In dust and dark, bodies merge into the nightrekindle in firelight. Waves of men move forward stomp, collapse, retreat beneath night’s magician cape.Silence fills the interlude. Women on the fringe tap song sticksdraw another wave of dancersto mesmerize piccaninnies waiting their turn, theirpassage to adulthood. Generation after generation cycles flowed without change.From father to son, motherto daughter; a respect for the land for each other ceremoniously passed.In the wave of a white handit all vanished. Gary Colombo De Piazzi Gaia Ache rises from within, drawn from the depths of beingprimordial urges resurrect to meander supplicant body.In rhythmic sinuosity, wave after wave washes in maelstrom luminescence, strikes as thunder collapsing paradigms, shattering the known.Stripped of conditioning, vulnerable as newborna sense of ease, of release gently caresses heartsoothes mind as thoughts retire somnambulistic. Each step awakens joy, reveals minutest detailrefreshes every sense to nature’s opus.Leaves in delicate flow of form beckon welcomeusher paths long forgotten as manufactured world strips away. An infusion of scentsraises to the clouds to float wispy softnessin graceful flight of freedom. Lofty eyesencompass all, penetrate the impenetrable. All is revealed, nothing beyond grasp, beyond comprehension. Light flows brilliant, radiatesto strike, collapse, meld and infuse everythingand everyone to everything and everyone. Separation collapses with the minddrifts to the tiniest speck of selfawed by the brilliance, bythe potency of Gaia. Gary Colombo De Piazzi ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Mock Turtle Soup Nobody loves the poor mock turtlestrapped in a willow plate pattern



mould of blue on an island of their own devising, where they weep into the waterwhile birds purr like cats.They should smile like the menin sideshow alley, whose heads turn from side to side to catch the balls life throws them.Ask the mouse and dodo,nobody likes to swim in a sea of tears.

Sue Clennell.First published in The World According To Goldfish. USA.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Secular Sacrament Thin porcelain Chunky white china Battered enamel Any vessel graced by tea taken in your company is made holy

Liana Joy Christensen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Anaesthesia

Iearly morning to the hospitalthe Terrace visible, looking hosed clear view right down to the bridge and riverthe gradient, the undulations, the curves hedged by city architecture, new shadowing oldthe first cars, first workers, early light

IIthe hospital is not quiet like the streetshospitals are never deeply quiet unless you can shut the door of your own roomlike the room I had once in the hospital where I met my uncle’s wifeskin of burnt olive, chicken thin and pea-breasted assuredness made sexuality her own possessionas if she held the patent

IIII take the sports bag, she the handbagboth readied the night before the written things easy, slowly acceding to instructionfear and anaesthesia, heavier, between us into the world of scrubbed abbreviationssecret words, private letters, created mystery acronyms are for the modernsmedicine understands some ancient vulnerabilities the ways a body rips and tears and leaksthe signature of blood and organism

IVher skin is always white, anaemia-thintoday it needs no explanation



later I learn about d&c, biopsy and iudhow the anaesthetist changed the plan I already know how anaesthesia now defines usthe freeway weighted with traffic and panic on the homeward run

Alistair P D BainCommended in 2009 Julie Lewis Literary Awards

Affect in the evening i make my toilet,ready for the morning and its otherrituals. waiting for the heat to penetratethe water, fetching soap, towel, shaving gel and razor, i'm thinking of how chefetz, writing of dolores, sez,

All this unitary aggregate identityis dependent on a capacity to knowfeeling. If we are unable to know feeling, unable to be affected, unable toaffect others, then we areisolated from our self and from theother.

who is this other? i wander to the lounge, shaven, my

dry skin taut. the movie’s about pirate radio, anchored offthe british coast, making rock and roll literal, scripttight, humour slicing, characters devastatingly flawed.these ones are affect on a drip. we come to them, dissociated, seeking our own kind. in later scenes theship is sinking; the dj spins procul harem, whiter shade ofpale, a good song for that moment’s pathos … leavingfor the coast… though I never liked the organ. dolores and I, checking for our knowledge of feeling, begin to tick the boxes Alistair P D Bain

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My Friend Willy My friend Willy is a lovable chap,He has a warble full of glee.He sits on the chopping block out the backEating pieces of meat for tea. His tail will dart, back and forth,As he gives his cheeky whistle.Like his family down south to way up north,He cheerfully sings his epistle. Teasing the dog by riding on its back,He manages to pass the day,Or dive-bombing the cat to make him scat,He chases him far away! Cheeky Willy sits on the clothesline,Enjoying a ride in the sun.Warbling to me his song so fine,You see - he thinks I’m his Mum!

Colleen O’Grady ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Under the Wattle Scrub, Coalseam Park

For Frank Cook

When I want to whisper to those long gone, I go to the fields of everlastings



And hold still watching the taut yellow dawn. A friend who has drowned, my father indrawn Both becalmed like tallships at half-masting, When I want to whisper to those long gone. All the ones who have been too early drawn By cancerous rot or the blue clasping, I hold still watching the taut yellow dawn. Frank, here you are with your tall sapphire brawn Wide as the flowered hills and unlapsing When I want to whisper to those long gone. Under the wattle scrub, shimmering lawn With the lissome Irwin River grasping, I hold still watching the taut yellow dawn. The arid lands east, the kwongan heath on To the Indian Ocean’s rare lapping; When I want to whisper to those long gone, I hold still watching the taut yellow dawn.

John Ryan ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ‘Fragmented’ he said. The word resounded in my head: ‘Fragmented’Frag-mented. It sounds like ‘Frag-mental’Fragmented. Fragile.Fragmented. It fits right; inside my head.That's what I've been feeling like.Fragmented. Shattered into pieces.Fragmented. But still functioning pieces.Me—Marilyn—one personcapable of doing many things successfully.Of functioning effortlessly.Now I feel desolated.A part of me is devastated but I still function.Fragmented.Perfect word to describe this horrible emotional situation.Diagnosis - PTSD.

Marilyn Dorothea King

A Child's Cry. Why, Mummy, why, does the moon stay up in the sky?How, Mummy, how come it doesn't fall down now?Where, Mummy, where did the moon come?What, Mummy, what is the moon made from?When, Mummy, when did the moonlight come? Why, Mummy, why is the grass so green?How, Mummy, how come it looks so clean?Where, Mummy, where does the grass come?What, Mummy, what is grass made from?When Mummy, when did the first grass come? Why, Mummy, why do some trees grow tall?How, Mummy, how come some are small?Where, Mummy, where are the leaves made?What, Mummy, what makes trees give shade?When, Mummy, when will the trees flowers fade? Why, Mummy, why must you and Daddy fight?How, Mummy, how come nothing is right?Where, Mummy, where can I run to so I can hide?What, Mummy, what is this pain deep inside?When, Mummy, when did your love die? Was it something I did or said?



If so, please tell me why, how, where, what or whenand if you do, Mummy, if you do,I'll promise never, ever to do it again.

Marilyn Dorothea King ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GORD-A-DAN

THE ROOTS ARE CLAIRVOYANT, GRASPINGUNTOUCHABLE WISDOM THAT IS THE WAY IT STARTS,

THE SIGN OF THE TIMES IS DECEIVING. IT IS THE TIME TOSEE THE DROWNED. DO YOU UNDERSTAND WHAT YOU

ARE READING? YOU ARE BRINGING AS SMALL AMOUNTSAS YOU LIKE TO. YOUR IMAGE IS STILL GROWING ANDCRYING. COMING CLOSER AND GOING AWAY, STRONG

WEAKNESS. THE WORLD THAT IS SPREADING BUT DOESNOT BELONG TO ANYONE, GIVE SOMETHING FROM THE

THREAD OF WILL. TRY LOOKING WITH DIFFERENTEYES TO THE LIGHT. EVIL IS DANGEROUS,

CONTAGIOUS ILLNESS, MOVE OUT OF THAT EVIL, IT MAKES THE CENTURY LONGER. ‘GORD-A-DAN’ THE

TEAR RIVERS ARE NOW MURMURING, THE DOG ISWAILING, YOU ARE GONE. BREAK LOOSE I BEG YOU!

AND SILENTLY, THROUGH THE OPEN DOOR, COME TOATTEND THE FEAST OF PRESERVED EMOTIONS,

DAYDREAMS, THE HAPPY MOMENTS! DECENT GIFT,HUNGRY CRAVING IN THE BUNK OF FEATHERS, SILK AS

PURE AS THE SNOW, WITH THE FORCE OF SILENCE.FLOWERS OF THE DANDELIONS LET’S DANCE FROM AFAR

WITH OUR LOOKS, WITH OUR BODIES, LET’S TOUCHWITH PALMS ONLY.

Tatjana Debeljacki Japan In April Truly stunning, sometimes careless,I crave silently and far away!Naked, filled up with perfection,I am attending enjoyment!!!Where there is trust there is always glee.He never painted my passion,Dreams from the colour to the word,Without suspense and shivers.The moment of light strikes me.Pressing Japanese air onto my face.April is slowly spilling its colours,Above duplicate shadows dancing away. Tatjana Debeljacki ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



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