gazette No 203 March 2021
Tasmanian Europa Poets Gazette No 203 March 2021
What's At The Bottom Of The Garden
I now journey, where once when young I journeyed
Out into a late sun-soaked afternoon
Past springing shoots, which like youth
Are straining hard for light and truth
On, past an aged leaning garden shed
Now so worn, with worm and rot
Broken pots like broken dreams
Some I have used and some just not
At last, as the lowering day falls calm
My forking path leans to the right
Beside that lonely bramble patch,
A flurrying gust leads on into the night
Beyond that sharp stench of compost heap
Where wasps grow fat on last year's crop
There lies in wait, a new-mown plot
I have often asked
It waits for what?
Jeremy Cleverley
Poets And Painters’ Exhibition
Judy Brumby-Lake
and
Joe Lake
Artscape, Wynyard.
Opening Sunday, March 7,
2 pm, then 2 weeks
March 9-March 13,
March 16-March 20,
10am-2pm.
Artscape, 45 Jackson Street, Wynyard
Curator: Mary Kille 64 421923
A drop of rain falls from the tree
Judy Brumby-Lake
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| Judy Brumby-Lake |
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| Joe Lake |
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| Joe Lake's Henry Hellyer |
Human Emotions
Gently hitting you on the head
Look up now and appreciate it
Before human emotion is dead
Leaping into our future selves
Modern toys all on the shelves
Numbing and dumbing all that we are
Still thinking we have come so very far
In balance of things are we perhaps lost?
Better ask Siri to please add up the cost
Next step is to put some AI in your head
That is how emotion will one day be dead
A future devoid of love or any real feeling
Controlled society means no more stealing
If you want to feel some love in that day
Another programme you can perhaps play
A holiday no longer spent in the sun
Hook yourself up for some other fun
Roll the lucky dice once or twice
Just a piece of random advice
Take care of the chip
Thrown in the air
It is all sorts of fun
Until you don’t care
No coming back once it is done
It’s a brand-new type of loaded gun.
Trudi Jane
Just A Humble Poet
No! I am not a bard.
I’m not in the league of Poe
Or Shakespeare.
I am just a humble poet
With the words I have written here.
Suddenly a thought resonates
In my head.
I’m supposed to be washing my floors!
But I am writing my poem instead.
Whether it be about sausages
Or the history of Great Britain.
‘I muse for a while on the word bard’
For I can’t be a Banjo
Or a Lawson
Their works I admire.
But I consider Bob Dylan
Bloody awesome!
Robbie Taylor
Salvador Dali
Your art, Mr Dali
Surrealist, so real,
Presents like an insight
That deep dreams reveal.
You captured, like photos,
Your tired melting clocks
But what does it mean
When they’re not ticking-tocks?
Your elephants, painted
On long skinny poles
Making them weightless
Like astronaut souls.
What was the thought
Or each sinuous prop,
That held up strange life forms
In case they should drop?
Your baskets of bread,
And that water jug too…
How did you paint them?
I haven’t a clue!
Your Last Supper art
Was a feast of display,
Down the folds of the
Tablecloth lay.
So, Salvador Dali,
Subconscious aware,
No limit on vision,
Salvador Dali (version 2)
Your art, Mr Dali, surrealist, so real,
Is a journey that deep dreams expose.
They capture, like photos (that software distorts)
With no limits to superimpose.
Your floppy disc clocks and stick-legged props
On elephants daring to stand,
And spongy stone heads, with expressions
so dead,
What did we know was on hand?
We can only suppose that your brilliance
was nurtured
By those who supported your face.
And your mind and moustache,
beyond all understanding…
..
.took us all into that surrealist space.
Kathryn Conlin
Touched Me
She touched me,
In the pain,
In the peace.
The missing still hurts.
Always.
Tears still fall,
They deluge,
I can see her,
Others don’t,
They aren’t looking,
Love in passion,
Love, whole,
Through tempest of grief,
And laughter’s potion,
Bond strengthened by death,
Growing in the aftermath,
Unique,
A beginning at the end,
Years have passed,
But time freezes at dawn,
That dawn,
When even the sun cried.
Michael Garrad February 2021
This Cut
This cut upon the ground,
This safe belonging beneath storm of flowers,
This place where seeing eyes can never look,
Where sightless eyes see all,
Above and beyond, and all around,
This treasure trove of beautiful tranquillity,
This sanctuary that is the brightest dark,
Perpetual harmony in tailspin of chaos.
Chattering hordes may kiss the earth,
Their sorrow swept upon the wind,
And forgotten in the march of drudgery.
Michael Garrad February 2021
Running
Running from the laughter in my head,
And the turgid river ascending in rage,
Trees, their heads buried in flooded earth,
Running,
Laughing in disarray,
Tumble-weed in a mind deflecting,
Sunlight heavy on a bed of dark,
Rain dancing in ugly rhythm on the wind,
Frenzied wing beat in weighted cloud fall,
In the loud silence, the roaring of whispers.
I hear the cackle, inverted, taunting,
The senses in argument, disconnected,
In reverse as others dance backward step.
Michael Garrad February 2021
Never Ending
The season had been very dry,
Inside, warm and cosy.
The wind came quickly,
Crackling outside,
The noise, one thought, never to end,
On and on,
Louder and louder, scary, very scary,
Lights went out at 3am,
Came on again at 10pm.
A warm drink would have calmed nerves.
Next day the sun came out,
Some think it unusual,
Wonderful day ahead.
Yvonne Matheson
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Henry Hellyer (a novel) Joe Lake
Previously: Hellyer, the VDL surveyor, with some convicts, had begun to build the road to Surrey Hills into the bush from Emu Bay, against the will of the company. Lieutenant Barnard, who is ex-navy and also a surveyor, was not happy with this and went back to Table Cape in a whaleboat. Hellyer sketched what looked like a mouse.
Sandy, one of Hellyer’s servants, called out from outside the tent. ‘Mr Hellyer, sir, a cup of tea on this freezing cold morning.’
‘Come in.’
Sandy pushes aside the flap and enters.
‘Put it on the table, here, next to me. I’ve just finished sketching the mouse. She is actually not a European mouse but a native one.’
‘Are we going up into the bush today, sir?’
‘No, you’ll all be going by yourselves. You’ll have to complete the huts at Cascade Creek. There is plenty of bark. You can put bark slabs on logs and make yourselves beds off the damp earth. I’ll come too and build my tent there to see what you are doing and how I can help.’
Sandy nodded his head vigorously and said, ‘We’ll have to move from there soon enough as the road gets along.’ Sandy stepped back towards the tent entrance. ‘Drink your tea, sir, and eat the biscuit I have brought you.’
Hellyer picked up the cup, lifted it in acknowledgement and said, ‘Here’s to Sandy. You’ll get your ticket-of-leave soon enough and what then?’
‘I’ll stay here and serve you, sir. You’ve been good to us convicts, too good really. Some of them take advantage, don’t they?’
‘That’s life, Sandy… I’ve just been thinking. We could bury our supplies inside the hut as the road continues. Yes, that’s what we’ll do.’
‘Yes, sir. Whatever you say, sir.’
‘I say it’s going to be a beautiful day for winter. I mean in England, this time of year, there’d be snow. It’d be freezing. Here the sun is shining and that lifts one’s spirit.’
‘But it was freezing last night, sir. Freezing,’ answered Sandy.
‘Yes, but the moon shone bright even though it had a halo and that usually means rain is coming and we hope that it won’t, don’t we, Sandy?’
Hellyer has another sip of his tea and then continues working on the maps on the table. He turns to Sandy, ‘The sea is moderate and the breeze is calm. Another day in Van Diemen's Land, Sandy, just another day before we meet our maker.’
(To be continued next month.)
The Protector
Guns, guns were everywhere
When I was a child.
Some were used with fire crackers,
Some were water-guns
Sadly, some little boys became boy soldiers
And used real guns to
Protect their loved ones
From domestic fury.
Judy Brumby-Lake
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