of

ThePoetry

The Heartscaping and Hope-shaping of

C A M E R O N S E M M E N S

HOME

I write this at a little table in my bedroom looking out the window to wind-ruffled trees and bushy hills, wondering what I need to say by way of introduction...

Home, Heart and Hope have emerged as leading themes, but I don’t really want to say more about them, because with any luck, the poems will speak for themselves – that’s what I trained them to do.

I probably should say this book is pretty much a memoir of the last five years, with a just few tendrils reaching further back. It is me sharing my life-living, art-making, home-owning, child-rearing and day-dreaming. It is my way of connecting. That’s what we all want, isn’t it? What we all need? Connection to our past, our future, our culture, friends, family, strangers, God. We humans are communal. No matter how individual we’re told we are, we’re nothing without each other. So this is my story... may you find hope, heart and home-ness within.

God bless and high fives,

a qu

ick

wor

d fro

m th

e A

utho

r

Melbourne, July 2013

C O

N T

E N

T S

Being Here and The Sweet Splendour of The Everyday 14Every Home is Sacred Space ... 16Tree Top Whisper ... ... 17Sting Like a Beam ... ... 18The Watch Pines ... ... 19The Eight Eyes of Potentiality ... 20Our House in Wind ... ... 21Venus Running For The Trees ... 22Greenerosity ... ... 23Moving To The Hills Can Change a Man ... 24As With Home, So With Heart ... 25Every Bush is Burning – I Carry an Axe ... 26 Dreams are Dull – Reality’s The Real Bobby Dazzler 28My House Speaks To Me ... ... 30

1. MY HOME – Go Home! Get Home! Be Home!

The Force of A Thousand Flowers ... 34White Knight Me ... ... 36Tiff and Ta ... ... 37The Bride in The Aisle ... ... 38The Hidden City ... ... 39Tea Cup in a Storm ... ... 40The Husband Manifesto ... ... 41Heat Wave Hot Wife Bun in Oven ... 42Unborn Father ... ... 455 Day Old Parents ... ... 46I Wrote You a Poem ... ... 47The Only Story He Has is a Sad One, Let’s Hope That’s Not... 48Sonya Love in Whale Song ... ... 49God is a Poet ... ... 50Let’s Call It Love ... ... 52Countdown to Motherhood ... 54The Naming of Names ... ... 56Rodeo Kiddo and The Marvelling Horsey ... 57Two Histories and a Prophecy ... 58Things I Say When People Ask How It’s Going With The Kids 59Whispers in The Language of Touch ... 60Condor Dreaming on Collins Street ... 61

2. MY FAMILY – Spinning into Love, Flying into Family

A Big Explosion of Future ... ... 84 Today, I Turtle ... ... 86Kindness is a Guinea Pig ... ... 87My Innate Need for Cuddles ... 88 In The World of Whispers ... ... 90Jesus in My Head ... ... 91Heavy Heart and The Freedom Found in Clouds 92Salt, Vinegar and Fire ... ... 94Dreams are Winged, Stinged Things ... 96The Warmth and Itch of Scarves ... 98You (and The Memory of Flight) ... 100Unlove ... ... 102Beauty of The Blizzard ... 103A Herd of Elephants is in My Chest ... 104 Grief and The Grace of Magpies ... 106I Have Grown a Tooth on My Forehead ... 107

Pentecostaling ... ... 64 Entranced & Entrampled by Elephantine India (daily lessons) 65 I Dream of Gandhi ... ... 66 Beat of The Moth ... ... 68 The Many Wings of Prayerflies ... 69Bubbles and Breath ... ... 70Marble is a Dirty Stinkin’ Rotten Filthy Fraud... 72The Hidden Cost of Extra Baggage ... 73

3. FAR from HOME – India’s an Elephant in My Room

5. THE WEIRD – Morphings & Musings on Meaning & Being

4. MY MEN – When I Was 8 I Became a DeityIntroductory Twists of The Wire ... 76Part 1. My Pipe-Cleaner Kingdom ... 77Part 2. My Family’s Recollections ... 80

Preliminary Thoughts: Homeward Writing ... 142Homeway 1. Memory Burst ... 143Homeway 2. Phase by Phrase ... 144 Homeway 3. Theme Dreaming ... 145Homeway 4. Six Word Memoirs ... 146

Part of Me was at Gallipoli ... ... 128I Saw a Man Die ... ... 130Harry Don’t ... ... 132Vigil Hope ... ... 133Spencer Shows How To Let Go ... 134The Tension of An Unaccepted Past ... 136The Sermon of Tears ... ... 137Michael Jackson is Dead, I Need a Dictionary ... 138Resolution ... ... 139

Poetic Dusts – Domestic Musts ... 110Written With Hugs ... ... 111A Poem Desperately Awaiting its Sequel ... 112There’s a Box of Books on My Doorstep and I’m Still 2 Hours... 114The Tear and Tear and Tear of Love ... 115Poems That Help Me Believe ... 116Lines From Poems That Don’t Exist (yet) ... 117Oneirobard, or... Lines from Poems I Wrote in My Dreams 118 Eye of The Poet ... ... 121Make Poetry History ... ... 122Things I Won’t Write Poems About ... 123...ummm... a Title ... ... 124Last Lines of Poems That Didn’t Quite Make it into This... 125

8. YOUR TURN – How To Write Your Own Way Home

7. FINAL HOME – When Does The End Begin?

6. MY POETRY – True Joy is an Open Stanza

Introductory Twists of The Wire ... 76Part 1. My Pipe-Cleaner Kingdom ... 77Part 2. My Family’s Recollections ... 80

12

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The ache for home lives in all of us. The safe place where we can go as we are and not be questioned.– Maya angelou

I think what you notice most when you haven’t been home in a while is how much the trees have grown around your memories.– Mitch alboM

Go Home! Get Home! Be Home!M Y H O M E

1

14

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I love being here.

Here, is at homewith my wife on the couch laptop tapping, TV quietly chatting to itself.

I love a bit of routine.

Routine is a nice frame for a spot of spontaneity.Everything looks better in a frame.

I love buttons.Buttons that stay on.I also admire the pluck and determinationof buttons that cut their ties and move on.But I love buttons that stay on more.

I love the mundane moments of life with my wife:finding bras hanging to dry on the Christmas tree;sleepy Sunday snuggling with apple crumble in the oven;sending each other emails from opposite ends of the couch.

On those occasional free-range button daysI do dream of being somewhere else,like eating salsa in sweaty sombreros;or counting cobblestones on rural French roads;or sipping single malt whiskey in Scottish Highland pubs.

Bei

ng H

ere

and

the

swee

t spl

endo

ur o

f the

eve

ryda

y

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Most of the time I deal with these spasms of wanderlust by domesticating them, framing them within the routine of my life:putting on a taco night with friends;watching the entire Tour de France on SBS;sipping whatever whiskey I can afford in weather equivalent to the Scottish Highlands.

Cos I love being here.

My heart’s here;housed by weatherboard,homed by my wife’s roomy love.There’s a sweetness here;the sugar of familiarity,the syrup of acceptance.This is my home – here –Sweet Home Sweet.

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What have you achieved you never thought you would?

i.Walk with mebeneath the towering dead treein our front yard;cockies perch like gargoyles on its grey spire.Our whole quarter-acre blockits earthy church.

ii.Come inside –cathedral ceilingsand windows stainedwith the sticky handprintsof our very own cherubim.

What’s our altar I wonder?The kitchen bench?The TV cabinet?

iii.Come back with meto the day we moved in.The torturously steep drivewayour Via Dolorosa.The cross we bear –the literal weight of every single thing we own.

Consecrated with toddler tearsour house became a sanctuarythat very first day.

ever

y ho

me

is Sa

cred

spac

e A Selby triptych

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I am now a man of property.I just bought a chainsaw and a ladder.The property is steep;my learning curve steeper.Kookaburras seem to find this whole business pretty funny:Bookish Boy of Poetry Now Blokey Man of Property. Sure, the land, the house is mine and ours,but will I ownthe responsibility?The tree tops whisper their bets.I wish I knew the odds they’re giving.

tree top Whisper

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The full moon punches through the windowlike Mohammed Ali in the 70sall brilliance and attitude boxing the shadows backwith sharp jabs.The beauty overwhelms,I slump into bed,stars spinning above.It’s a knock out.St

ing

like

a be

am

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three pine trees –

huge hairy houndswith deep rough barks

watch over our humble timber home;

nipping the heels of sheepish clouds,

moulting all over the roof

yet I fear the flames

that could turn our dogs against ustransform their shade

into an orange glowconvert every placid twig and needle

into rabid, biting embers

and I fear the thunderous winds

that would push their huge muscle-branched bodies onto our fragile frame

with love and fear’s twisted leashesI beholdour threepine trees

the Watch pines

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The lower shed –a metallic echo of a practical past;it chats to me in architectural slang:corrugated iron, galvanised steel,with accents of chipboard and treated pine.

Entering,I walk though webs,wave them away like flies.But I am the spider,seeing this space with eight different eyes:home owner’s,opportunist’s,husband’s,poet’s, father’s,philanthropist’s,workman’s,outsider’s,every eye sees something different.

I spin my dreams all overthe old structure,waiting for something to catch.

the E

ight

Eye

s of

pot

entia

lity

... o

r …

so

nya’

s onl

y be

en in

ther

e on

ce

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my H

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The lower shed –a metallic echo of a practical past;it chats to me in architectural slang:corrugated iron, galvanised steel,with accents of chipboard and treated pine.

Entering,I walk though webs,wave them away like flies.But I am the spider,seeing this space with eight different eyes:home owner’s,opportunist’s,husband’s,poet’s, father’s,philanthropist’s,workman’s,outsider’s,every eye sees something different.

I spin my dreams all overthe old structure,waiting for something to catch.

Our house in wind sounds like a Puffing Billy carriage:beam creak, window clunk, wood groan

The drain pipes catalogue the output of a charcoal sky

Our sense of homespins out through the walls in radar sweeps of wild-animal awareness

Arriving like a Texan in a geisha barthe wind chastises the glass for its fragilityand twigs scream at the corrugated roofin sharp expletives

And there – jumping down from the trees –black cat branchescaterwauling for the earth

Here, civilisation has no swaybuffeted bush moans and loomsa changeling is the air from breath to bulldozer

And we who emerge jangled, tangledawed, umm-eddimmed and left alonegroaning for the peace of the underground raise our eyes

Where have we come to?is this the way of the hills?and the birds, where are all the birds?

our House in W

ind

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From our bedroom windowI’ve watched the moon riseover Black Hilllike a bushfirethe trees ablazetheir branches burnt to a crisp silhouette

From our kitchen windowI’ve watched Venusrunning for the treesfrom the stalking sun.She didn’t make it –extinguished in the shotgun flash of dawn.

From our dining roomI’ve watched the setting sunturn Black Hill gold,as if every single eucalyptwas instantly grafted with wattle.It was so damn Aussie!

Looking out of our bathroom windowfrom the bathSpencer says“Look out there!”“What do you see?” I say“I see dark treeshiding the sun away.”I scramble for my notebook.

Ven

us ru

nnin

g fo

r the

tree

s

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There’s so many greens on our propertyI had to turn to the Dulux Colour Atlas to find words for them.

In the foliage of a fern I see Coincidence and Jazzercise.In the centre of a succulent I see Old Money and Wimbledon.In the stem of a tulip I see Kermit.

Every time I get out the car I’m greeted by Molly Robinswith traces of Antarctic Lake and Hypnotism.

When the wind catches the monsteraI see flashes of Jurassic Park and Bladerunnerwith a hint of Calculus.

The gumtree leaves sit somewhere between Sea Grass, Sea Cabbage and Sea Lettuce.

In the mature leaves of our rhododendronI see Lamb’s Ear fading out to Martian Moon.

And the patchy lawn is a feast of Mint Ice Cream, Peppermint Pie and Effervescent Lime just to name a few.

Coming from the suburbsthe only greens I really knewwere grass green, wheely bin greenand left-wing balance-of-power Green.

But here, even the Dulux Colour Atlasdoesn’t really capture the all round greenness, greenality and greenerosity.

Green

erosity