POETRY JAM - TIME

“Time is the most valuable thing a man can spend.” – Theophrastus

Poetry Jam has prompted its contributors for the final time this week. As this poetry site is having a rest (only for a while, I would like to believe), the parting prompt is all about TIME… I would like to thank especially Mary, Peggy, Gabriella, Alan, Sumana and Brian who have prompted, encouraged and appraised poetical efforts. I would also like to thank all other participants for the fine offerings every week, and also all readers of the poems who have the time to read, ponder and comment on each other’s poems.

My contribution for this week, below is a villanelle, its cyclic nature perhaps the most suitable for the depiction of cycles, things beginning and ending, and above all the inscrutable passage of time as all things change:

The Time of Change

The time of change is here:

Awake, renew, revise,

I feel the freshness near.

There is no need to fear,

Look up with cloudless eyes

The time of change is here.

Smile brightly then, my dear,

Gone are the endless sighs

I feel the freshness near.

Sweet songs again you'll hear,

The truth defeats all lies –

The time of change is here,

Wipe clean the frown and tear.

As darkness ebbs and dies,

I feel the freshness near…

As we defeat night drear,

Our hope will climb and rise;

The time of change is here

I feel the freshness near.

POETRY JAM - IMPOSSIBILITY

“If we’re destroying our trees and destroying our environment and hurting animals and hurting one another and all that stuff, there’s got to be a very powerful energy to fight that. I think we need more love in the world. We need more kindness, more compassion, more joy, more laughter. I definitely want to contribute to that.” - Ellen DeGeneres

Poetry Jam this week has enjoined participants to think about thing impossible and write a poem about it. Here is my contribution in response to this:

The Impossible

The world is ageing fast

And in its death vision sees

With rheumy, presbyopic eyes,

Its own end in oceans of hellish fire, 

Rain of lambent ash, and rivers of molten metal.

People have hardened hearts

And robbed spirits, hollow souls;

Humanity overcome by brute savagery,

As our basest cannibalistic tendencies

Cause us to tear apart with nails and devour each other’s flesh.

Nature was stunned, killed long ago:

No green leaf budding, flowers but a distant memory;

No animal left to roam the burning deserts;

No bird to fly in poisoned air, no insect to burrow in roasted earth;

No shelter, no safe haven, no refuge left.

And yet, as long as there is one amongst us

With a vision, with a deep well of hope,

With strong belief and endless love,

We shall achieve what seems well nigh impossible:

This bluish-white sphere spinning endlessly in space,

This our only home, to save, and our dying world to revivify…

POETRY JAM - THE FLAME

“Love cannot endure indifference. It needs to be wanted. Like a lamp, it needs to be fed out of the oil of another's heart, or its flame burns low.” - Henry Ward Beecher

This week, Poetry Jam wants participants to write about “the flame”. A broad topic to be sure, and whether one chooses to be literal or figurative, there are countless possibilities. Here is my contribution:


Our Love’s Flames

In the depths of my abyss
And my endless, lonely night,
I remember a sweet kiss
And the flames of love’s delight.

In the desert of my strife
In the coldness of my soul,
I recall our happy life
And the warmth that made us whole.

In the roiling seas ice-cold
And the Winter’s howling storm,
Long past Spring of old
I yearn, and the fire of Summer warm.

In a dark, dejected place
Hungry, thirsty and forlorn,
I seek you, of endless grace,
Come, remove my heart’s deep thorn.

In the Autumn greyness drear
And my freezing blood’s despair,
I await you to come by near
All my damage to repair.

Come again, and heal my pain,
Blow the ash off my cold grate;
Light my fires, fan my flames,
Tell me all was not in vain;
I was right to hope and wait,
Let us play our old love games.

POETRY JAM - TEA OR COFFEE?

“I have measured out my life with coffee spoons.” - T. S. Eliot

Poetry Jam this week sets as its theme the doublet tea/coffee. Contributors are invited to: “Write about your first cup in the morning, or a special event that happened when you were drinking either at home or in a café. Share your fist cup of the day with us.”

Although I love tea and drink quite a bit of it, coffee is what I choose to start my day with. As far as the way that I drink it is concerned, typically a caffé latte in the morning, and if I have another cup during the day, it is usually an espresso or a double espresso without any sugar – coffee that is dark, strong, bitter and aromatic. Occasionally I will have a Vienna coffee or rarely a cappuccino.

Here is my poetic contribution:

Haiku for an Autumn Morning

Look! The East’s on fire
Darkness is quickly dispelled:
I start to think of work.

A crowded train; packed
Escalators, hubbub, din –
Cold streets are empty.

Fragrance of coffee
Warm cup; steam in the cold air.
Bitter taste, absence.

Words, numbers, papers:
My desk chaotic. Your call
Orders my morning.

A full day ahead,
The diary’s crammed, I talk on,
Loth to lose your voice.

A sunny morning,
Cool air and leaves that yellow:
Work as clouds gather.

POETRY JAM - LOOKING BACK

“Doubt thou the stars are fire, Doubt that the sun doth move. Doubt truth to be a liar, But never doubt I love.” - William Shakespeare

This week Poetry Jam sets as a challenge the following theme: “This week go back to a year in the past and write a poem about your life or life in general at that time.”

Halley’s Comet is a short-period comet visible from Earth every 75–76 years. Halley is the only short-period comet that is clearly visible to the naked eye from Earth, and the only naked-eye comet that might appear twice in a human lifetime. Halley last appeared in the inner Solar System in 1986 and will next appear in mid-2061. Halley’s returns to the inner Solar System have been observed and recorded by astronomers since at least 240 BC. Clear records of the comet’s appearances were made by Chinese, Babylonian, and medieval European chroniclers, but were not recognised as reappearances of the same object at the time.

Here is my poem duet:

1986: Night of the Comet, I

And then tonight
Was the night of the comet.
Clear sky spattered with stars
And in the midst of astral dust
Of star-strewn chaotic order,
A faint, fuzzy, ill-defined light
Lost in all the others.

“Search and ye shall find!”
The night crisp, cold, pungent
And beside me...
“Ask and ye shall receive...”

Have I found you?
Faint, pale and ill-defined
A light amidst a billion others,
Yet only that one mattering;
Like that once in a lifetime glimpsed at,
Faint, pale and ill-defined,
Comet-light...

1986: Night of the Comet, II

Billions upon billions of suns
Strewn through the endless emptiness
Of the cosmos,
I look at them and yet remain indifferent
To the immensity that stares at me,
Being able to contain it all
Within the low walls and ceiling
Holding my brain.

I love...
I love you and that is more important
Than the speed of light within a vacuum.
What should it matter if now a million suns
Should suddenly decide to supernova?
What if I am but a mite on a speck of dust?
It is enough that I have loved,
Nothing can take that from me.

I feel, I love, I understand,
I am small, insignificant, an atom only
In the endlessness of eternity
And yet I love and I can pinpoint my existence
In unfaltering co-ordinates.

What if the earth should suddenly expire?
What if Death around each corner lies in wait?
My only fear now is that we two are on a parallel course
And that the threads of our two lives will never cross...

That which I feel
Is infinitely more important
Than all the vastness looming above,
Below, on all sides of me.
The space within me
Annuls the space without.

POETRY JAM - EYES

“Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn.” - Walter Scott

For this week, Poetry Jam has given a prompt relating to eyes, with the directive: “This week I would like you to write a NEW poem about eyes. A mother’s caring eyes. A father’s stern eyes. A child’s innocent eyes. A lover’s warm eyes. Eyes of God. Cold eyes. Open eyes. Closed eyes. Squinting eyes. Blind eyes. Inner Eye…”

Here is my contribution, keeping in mind that Autumn is coming to us who reside in the Southern Hemisphere:

Coming of Autumn

The rose was bled

And now it languishes,

Wilting, pallid, lifeless

Propped only by the collar of the vase.

The summer’s dead, its blue eyes

Forced shut by an autumn

Prematurely reigning –

Heat drowned by drizzle.

My eyes extinguished,

Are overcome by the opium

Of your memory;

Its presence strong, although illusory.

How can the frozen heart thaw

In autumn’s chills and icy rains?

How can even a sanguine libation

Revive the wilting rose?

No! – Coals of eyes cannot by fantasy’s

Cold fires be rekindled.

So I abandon me, in Fall’s grey skies,

A leaf unwilful, tossed by icy winds.

So I surrender me to a fading, wilting,

Premature exsanguination

And yield, succumbing me

To what fate has writ.

POETRY JAM - LOCAL

“Home is where the heart is.” - Pliny theElder

Poetry Jam today has set the theme of “Local” as inspiration for all participants in its poetry challenge. The instructions are: “Give us a feel of what makes your town or city special - it could be a person, a local character, a place off the beaten path that few know about or a food that you can only find - maybe even a celebration that only happens locally.”

Oddly enough, this immediately brought to my mind a distant place, which once upon a time I considered as “local” when I lived there alone for a few months. It was Amsterdam, where I went on sabbatical, many years ago. Yes, it was quite special and yes, I met a host of interesting work colleagues and made a few friends, however, it was also a bit of a hard time for me as my beloved was far away from me, on the other side of the world. Pliny said, “Home is where the heart is”, and though I made a new home for myself in Holland, my real home was back in Australia, where my beloved was. So “local” was a questionable concept in my predicament then…

Amsterdam IV

In the yellow streets of Amsterdam
So early in the morning, that night still darkens the sky;
When the thin houses loom high over the canals
And the water flows so slowly that it mirrors
The yellow lights unblemishingly,
I walk the cold streets, going home at last
After a long night’s pretence at carousal.

I know that I will call you as soon as I get home
To share my night with you, to tell you yet again
How much I miss you, how much I wish you were here with me.

In the cobblestoned, jaundiced streets of Amsterdam
Early in the morning when night lingers on;
When the revellers go to their beds, staggering and tripping
And the air echoes now and then with a rowdy laugh, an off key song;
When the young men boisterously call out as they piss in the dark corners,
I walk home insulating myself from the drunken merrymakers
Walking quickly straight ahead, past the cheap whores in a line.

I know that I shall sleep alone again tonight,
After drinking of your soft voice across the thousands of miles,
I will dream of our frustrated embraces for one more night.

In the empty streets of old Amsterdam
Early in the morning when only I walk in the lonely alleys;
When even the air is asleep, and the wind dares not to blow,
When alleycats have found a snug, warm corner
Where they can dream of nimble mice and careless birds,
I walk the narrow streets, going home at last
After a long night’s torture without you by my side.

I know that I will count the hours once more tonight
To see if they are any less than last time I counted, discovering yet again
How slowly time passes until I can spend the night in your arms.

POETRY JAM - INSIDE LOOKING OUT

“The moon is a friend for the lonesome to talk to.” - Carl Sandburg

Poetry Jam’s prompt this week is “Inside Looking Out” (or vice-versa!) and participants can treat this in a poem literally or figuratively. Here is my contribution. The reference to Sappho is from a surviving fragment of her poetry (Diehl 94 / Voigt 168b / Cox 48):

“Well, the moon has set, and the Pleiades.
It is the middle of the night.
And the hours pass by,
But I sleep alone…”
Sappho (≈630/612 BCE to ≈570 BCE)

Couvre-feu

Moonlight streams into my room
(Ill luck would have me
Forget to draw the curtain tonight).

Outside, the garden
(Cold, frosty,
Silent and forsaken).
Tree branches
(bare, harsh, rapacious)
Clutch at illumined, star-strewn sky.
A sole night bird calls.
The chill, dark air is calm,
The sky so far away,
I know I’ll never reach it.

(Time passes;
The firmament rotates,
Sleep eludes me).

Cold, bright, impassive,
All-knowing moon looks in;
And on my desk Sappho remarks
That by my side
The bed is empty.

POETRY JAM - SOLITUDE/LONELINESS

“Loneliness is the poverty of self; solitude is the richness of self.” - May Sarton

Poetry Jam this week has set the theme of Loneliness/Solitude as a prompt for poetic outpourings.

Some people find themselves alone and immediately search for companionship, failing to differentiate between the two strikingly different faces of being alone: The self sufficiency of solitude and the gnawing pain of loneliness. It is a terrible thing when we have no choice in the matter – when we start by enjoying our solitude, but then as it turns into loneliness, we have no recourse to companionship…
Here is my offering:

The Castaway’s Island

the shipwreck
the survivor
–cruel sea!–
the laughing witch
the blue-green island
the ever moving waves
the hypnotising murmurs

the castaway
the solitudes
–gentle sea!–
the kind, lucid days
the island a prison of gold
the sunsets gilded yellow
the twilights violent violet

the shipwreck
the memories
–dark crystal sea!–
the impassive lizard
the island of a ghostly love
the palms battered by the wind
night awakening the shadows

The castaway:
A lonely death…
–Cruel, endless sea!–
Bleached bones on golden sands;
The island solitary, pitiless, self-serving
While on the horizon, deriding hope,
White sails of a ship appear.

POETRY JAM - SILENCE

“Only when you drink from the river of silence shall you indeed sing. And when you have reached the mountain top, then you shall begin to climb. And when the earth shall claim your limbs, then shall you truly dance.” - Kahlil Gibran

Poetry Jam this week asks participants to “feel the silence, experience the emotion and write whatever you feel your heart sets you free to share”. Here is my offering:

The Ditty of April Approaching

How far from you I feel
When I am by your side.
The moon who watches me
Understands, smiles but is silent
Leaving me alone, and you!
You are so distant
Especially when I am by your side.

Too much silence
Too much darkness.
Only I, alone, and you so far away
When I need you most.
The moon so far,
Pallid, lonely and silent, like me!

Too many fears,
Too many problems.
And I so close, yet far away
I dare not speak,
I cannot risk losing you,
I cannot ask you to approach me.
It’s better that you be far
Even though only beside me.

How far away and yet so near,
So close,
So forbidden,
So silent,
So very far!

POETRY JAM - JOURNEYS

“True love, especially first love, can be so tumultuous and passionate that it feels like a violent journey.” - Holliday Grainger

Poetry Jam has its theme this week “journeys”. Participants are asked to think about journeys and offer a poem relating to a literal or figurative journey. Here is my offering:

The Voyage

I am readying myself for a long voyage
On an ocean of tears wept long ago.
Dry-eyed now I fashion out of the fragments of my heart
A new, sea-faring ship with sails unfurling.

I am readying all that I shall take with me
Wrapping it in a cloth woven of old sorrows -
Would any other contain loss, despair, defeat?
Would any other wrap bitterness, pain, regret?

I am readying myself for the stormy seas ahead
By burning my remembrances, tearing my maps,
Scraping my tablet’s wax, denying all that I have learnt
Effacing dearly paid for past experience.

I am readying flesh and soul that they endure
New hardships, new sufferings, new betrayals.
I take with me the same knife that wounded me before
Resigned to let it test my scars for yet new pain.

And then what if before my voyage ends,
Even as I set my eyes on distant and welcoming new shores,
What if it should come to pass
That my feeble craft fail and sink?
That would not stop me boarding it,
I am ready for the shipwreck,
For after all I have survived a shipwreck once before...

POETRY JAM - TIS THE SEASON

“Ecstasy! In common parlance ecstasy is fun. But ecstasy is not fun. Your very soul is seized and shaken until it tingles. After all, who will choose to feel undiluted awe? The unknowing vulgar abuse the word; we must recapture its full and terrifying sense.” - R. Gordon Wasson

There are some places around the world where the very ground seems to be suffused with energy and where there is an electricity in the air. The wind soughing through tree branches seems to whisper in ancient tongues and echoes of forgotten music still vibrate in the air. The right place and right season combine and if we are in a receptive frame of mind, we can feel awe and an ecstasy of the soul that can be a life-changing experience.

This poem was inspired by a midsummer visit to a such a very special place in Greece, where ruins of ancient temples visited while listening to the drone of cicadas and the gentle whistling of the wind, give rise to a special feeling of timelessness and of a communion with times past.

Poetry Jam this week asks participants to: "Write about the mid-winter or mid-summer season and what it means to you."

The Eleusinian Mysteries

The sun, wild,
Lashes without pity
Naked bodies.
The ancient marble lolls
Strewn amongst the pine trees
And the noontime stillness
Is mirrored in the
Midsummer heat.

Somewhere in the forest,
Dense and shady,
A fountain trills
Like Pan’s flute.
In the heart of the mountain,
Deep in the rocks, Cyparissus
Sleeps lightly,
Caressed by gentle Zephyr.

It’s enough to find a magic word,
A word both ancient and true,
And if you murmur it,
Twenty five centuries
Will shatter like glass
And crash in front of
The violet-tinged temple,
Which will arise from the ground built anew.

POETRY JAM - JOY

“Find a place inside where there's joy, and the joy will burn out the pain.” - Joseph Campbell

The last Poetry Jam of this year has set the theme of “Spread the Joy” for participants. It is a busy time of the year for everyone and more so for me as I have been trying to finish a couple of work projects before Christmas. I dug into my poetry archive for a joyful poem and here is one, that foots the bill.

Have a wonderful Festive Season with health and happiness in 2015, fellow poets of the Jam, and I look forward to seeing you and your work again next year!

The Coming of Spring

A roseate dawn appears
While birds a-flutter sing.
Night swiftly flies and in mid-flight
Lets drop a star so shining bright
On the horizon-shell’s pink lip.

The sun comes up
The day is near.
Blossoms with sparkling dew bedecked,
Unfurl, offering precious gifts
Of multicoloured jewels.

Shimmering heat
And waking world.
A bright new day - promise of joy,
Spring passes by scattering perfumes,
Colours bright, new hopes, illusions...

The evening comes
A welcome guest.
The rising moon tempers the heat of day
And nightingale murmurs an evensong
A blessing uttered in the rite of spring.

POETRY JAM - QUIET

“Quiet is better than loud.” - Dieter Rams

Poetry Jam this week has set the theme of “quiet” for the participants of the weekly poetry challenge. My poem below is dedicated to the Northern Hemisphere readers who find themselves in the beginning of Winter…

Winter Reverie

Winter has arrived
Bringing with him,
The smell of decay: Rotting leaves,
Wet soil and the perfume of daphne.

Milky-white, still dawns,
With argent sun, feebly shining;
Plumes of grey smoke, evoking
Warm grates, hot buttered toast.

Lucidly cold nights,
Wet, shiny streets, on which
Only your footsteps echo, meandering
On the deserted, quiet, desolate footpaths.

Winter has arrived,
Clutching in his bony fist
Silken silences, fog-enveloped loneliness,
Cold, pure sheets and long, white nights.