gazette no 185

Europa Poets Gazette No 185 September 2019 

Europa Poets,Tasmania

Annual Concert

Burnie Regional Art Gallery

Sunday, October 6, 2-4.30 pm

Tarkine Strings

with Michael Cannon, MC

Readings by the poets

Tea supplied by Friends of the Gallery

$10 entry (includes tea)

In Cohort With God

(Launceston earthquake 1893)

Is it right or is it wrong

When a man of the cloth asks his friend, God,

To punish wayward folk

To redeem their ways?

In Launceston in 1892,

A reverend asked God

To bring on an earthquake

To shake these wayward folk into submission.

This reverend man was granted his request

With not only one earthquake but two.

Then, to the reverend's surprise, he was issued with

A writ for scaring the good people of Launceston.

King O’Malley, an insurance Yank,

Later our Commonwealth Bank creator

And Labor leader, was helped by his lawyer friend

To bring legal redress

Against the reverend for the damage caused

And scaring the elderly and children nearly to death

As solid buildings cracked.

A chimney at the hospital fell

And the doctor fled the town in fear.

Is it right or is it wrong

When a man of the cloth

Gets favouritism from God?

Judy Brumby-Lake

From gazette No 65

Wild And Free

There was a violent storm today

And on my way home I passed by the sea -

Seething, savage and spellbinding

In its fury.

Enormous waves exploded

Against the stark grey headland,

Sending spray high into the air -

Like a white volcano erupting from the deep.

Unlike the sea, I must contain my turbulence -

I must bottle it up and act with restraint -

Society dictates it, society expects it.

I just want to be as wild and free as nature,

And called beautiful -

In all my moods.

June Maureen Hitchcock,

From gazette No 39

Little Bird Sky

I was just walking

A little bird landed

               On the ground near my feet

The little bird looked at me

               And said

Why are you sad?

I said

I don’t know why, I just am

The little bird said

Look up at he sky

               And you will feel better

So I did and I did

When I looked down

               The little bird had gone

But I continued to look up at the sky

Catherine Burton

Jazz Band

The saxophone leads this jazzmical helm

commanding the song with its tone.

The bass player slaps in his musical realm

and makes this journey his own.

               The drummer is chuffed by his cymbalic choice,

as he clocks on the rim of his snare. 

The drumhead reverbs with a resonant voice

of flams, paradiddles and flare.

               The singer slides in, absorbing the scene,

fondling the microphone lead.

She waits for the offbeat to join in the theme

and sings it like smooth honey mead.

               Piano man plays a riff on the keys

unlacing the melody line

He substitutes chords as he beats with his knees,

then ends with a piano slide fine.

               The music now fills the room with its scent,

as the jazz fans cuddle their booze.

The air radiates, as though Heaven sent,

of wine and smoky-note blues.

 Kathryn Conlin

In The Rain

Smiles die in the rain,

Washed away, as with incessant tears,

In waterfall cascade of sorrow,

In the torrent where all is misshapen,

When sparkle eyes dissolve,

As with lips that don’t belong,

Fluid in this silent surrender,

An image in departure,

Under weight of weeping clouds.

And the rivers run without end,

Cruel, this crying sky

when smile vanishes in raging deluge.

Michael Garrad July 2019

Scream Her Name

Scream her name,

Resonating in valley green,

On wall of trees,

Birds flock high, messengers,

Carry to the blue,

They sing in sky orchestration,

Wheeling and soaring,

Precious the cargo,

The name, above verdant pasture,

Her name,

To her belonging place.

Scream dies on the echo,

She whispers, consoling,

in gentle rustle of leaves,

Close now, on the cusp,

This majestic deliverance.

Michael Garrad July 2019

Think, Think, Think

What has become of this supreme race?

Wired up to apps, iphones

More electronic devices than

A patient in an intensive care ward

Where even flowers are banned, yet

Still people tear them from the ground

And force them into containers,

               flowers crying and dying

Never able to complete their earthly cycle

And because of our shameful ignorance,

Neither will you and neither will I.

 Lorettta Gaul

Annoyance

Band, bang, bang. What’s going on?

It was about seven o’clock in the morning.

I thought it might have been a leaking roof.

I turned on the wireless

To try to drown out the noise

But all I heard was politics.

Malcolm Turnbull is no longer prime minister.

I made a cup of tea

And the noise stopped.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to my neighbours

But it’s all right.

Yvonne Matheson 

Sonnet

The girl when drawn into the computer’s face

Is hypnotised by its alluring smile

To signal noughts and ones within its trance.

It spits its binaries with eager guile.

Expostulating all that’s real and true

Into a dancing and confusing fog.

It reaches out, pretending to be new

In this seductive and confusing blog.

Yet I sit here, at this electric trap,

Believing that it’s God who Googles me,

A net that may entwine me in this rap

Where I now live, much too afraid to flee.

I have a home that is secure and warm

And that may never try to do me harm.

Joe Lake

So Deep

Anger so deep

The journey so far

The pain so real

Pain so real it makes time stand still

I am overwhelmed by my demons

I am forced to question the person I am

I question why, just why, I seemed to be far removed

               From this place

Dark cold and lonely pain is my new place

Oscar Harding

The Fagus

The fagus is turning!

When autumn days begin to chill

The beech leaves turn from green

To rust, then gold.

The forest floor looks like a carpet

Of autumnal hues

What a sight to behold.

Robbie Taylor

painting by Robbie Taylor

Selfie, Joe Lake 30/40, acrylic on canvas

lakej5263@gmail.com