Shelf Poems: ‘Water over Stone’

‘Water over Stone’ by Laura Jan Shore published by Interactive Press, Brisbane in 2011.

I have so many books, it’s time again to clear space for my new ones.  If I buy new shelves, it won’t solve the problem – I have a very small home. So.

Faced with such a hard job and before I give my copy to someone else to enjoy, just as my poetic friend and colleague Glen Phillips gave me this one, I hope to convince you to buy your own copy.

Opening stanza includes my favourite tree;  a Jacaranda: ‘Leaning up against this gnarled tree,/bark shredded/and dangling like loose skin,/’ .

After 44 life-exposing pieces, I found the last poem didn’t seem to fit with the journey, but seemed to be included to placate someone else…

Personally, the book ended nicely for me just before the last with my favourite car, although not a car in this last stanza of  ‘Jaguar’:  ‘ …and the laws of balance snap/the tender neck/of my desolate/youth.’

But it’s all about the page 44 for me and the stand-out poem by Laura Jan Shore from ‘Water over Stone’.

Embracing The Wind

Whipped to a froth, surf

suds the shore.  

Wings churn as the crown, blown back,

surrenders and shifts course.

 

The echo of your words clatter

with dry leaves against stone.

The gum tree groans.  Parrots cuddle

three pairs in the banksia.

 

Air tangles my hair, clutches at

my clothes and like your strong hands

curved around my waist, shoves me

towards the rocky point.

 

Unresisting, I rush headlong

into swirls of sand

chafing my ankles like the harsh

intimacies of our long marriage,

grit between my teeth. 

 

Eyelids at half-mast, arms akimbo

my tousled thoughts

rinse clear.

 

This spring quickening

all biff and bluster

unfurls my ragged nerves.

 

None of the houses we’ve built

can shelter us from these gusts,

so unlatch the door and join me

in this great whoosh – 

 

see how the crow glides now,

wings outstretched

sustained by the wind?

 

Laura Jan Shore © 2011

(Laura’s latest books are available from Dangerously Poetic Press.)

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Today

From my inbox: a poem; agent advice on being an ‘Influencer’; the presence of food in writing.

Folcum Park

The Family Recipe

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Film, Art & Poetry.

Tropfest cancelled after huge hole in funding…  Perth’s Film & TV Institute in the State Cultural Centre will show local films made for this year’s cancelled event.

If you’re into elves and fantasy:  Creative Haven Fantasy Designs Coloring Book by a local artist, Aaron Pocock.

And I just loved this, Colin Farrell reading William Butler Yeats.

 

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Silver Spun Sand

The Borrowers (Poetry Monthly)

 

An expedition, all the way to the top –

me, and my two year old; a picnic

by a covey of chattering pines…

 

Planted an oak, to stake our claim,

the day we moved in; the hill – ours,

hers and mine, plus a hundred acres of sky.

 

Dwarfed – our cottage, way below,

in the peach-tree dappled shade,

of a long-since tended orchard.

 

Bees – strum-hum in the clover,

and a skylark sings the many faces

of god and she sees dragons in the clouds.

 

‘Look!’ I say.  ‘There’s a ‘Meadow Brown’ –

a ‘Painted Lady’, but now – far too busy,

playing with her toys.

 

Tea-time – the wind is chill, so pick up

her bat and ball – her teddy; a book

I brought to read.  Fat chance of that!

 

‘Couldn’t we stay?’ she whines, as I lift her

to my hip.  Grubby hands reach out –

reluctant to leave…

 

grabs a tuft of budding vetch; purple

and white.  Gleefully, she brings it home –

as tiny flowers, shyly open

 

but the butterflies, the sun, the smell

of fresh-shorn grass, too much for us

to carry, and indeed, not ours to take.

 

Only on loan…the hill – the whole

of this.  The best I can do, is to promise

we’ll come again…maybe tomorrow,

 

but then…only if we give back,

what we borrow.

 

by

Silver Spun Sand on ABC Tales

 

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The Light on the Stairs

A beautiful poem by Silver Spun Sand, otherwise known as Tina, on ABC Tales.

http://www.abctales.com/story/silver-spun-sand/light-stairs#comment-652487

 

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GUEST POEM: Bit by Bit.

Photo Source here.

Marisa Wikramanayake  : “I’m a journalist, a writer and an editor. Well, actually, I write novels and attempt to survive doing so by having adventures and being a journalist and an editor.”

Take a look at her website where, among many interesting postings, most recently she has started doing videologs in support of Australian Women Writers.  I’ve just watched Robin Bowers’ interview.

This poem was posted on Facebook today and I loved it. (Naturally, I asked permission to post it here.)

Were you to break me down into my constituent parts,
Bit by bit,
Build me back up again with IKEA instructions but perfectly,
(I will give you an Allen key),
With each Lego piece in its spot,
Bit by bit,
There would be no place for love.

Oh, there would be a tinkertoy space here, some engine that whirled around,
That makes me good at all the grand gestures,
That would let me let you go if you were happier without me,
Without me blinking,
Because you are made of flesh and nerve endings that will hurt,
But I am made of blocks that can be broken down and rebuilt,
Bit by bit.
So I can withstand it.

But there is the space you would find surrounded by the Fabuland set,
That would be that space that doesn’t quite work,
Perhaps they discontinued that line a long time ago,
Bit by bit,
But it’s the space that makes me wake you,
At three am because I want to talk,
Makes me since I am a brick,
Quite selfish and quite thick,
No good at the small important everyday love,
Ever feeling that my part in any duo would not be enough,
It’s the space that will make me leave you behind,
While I chase things that intrigue my mind,
Where I will stand wondering why I am not the one to be in your part when I know how a gendered romance should go,
That openly states when and how I feel,
Because no one who hears believes it’s real.
It’s the space in me that makes me stubborn,
Want to break down your walls and lay you open.
Bit by bit,
To dissect you, pull you apart so I know how you work,
So I can love you the way you deserve.

And you deserve different, flesh and blood with nerve endings and all,
Not something, half real, built of bricks prone to break apart and fall.
I have built myself up to work like a machine.
Over the years,
Bit by bit,
For maternal, fraternal love,
For grand gestures because I can’t protect you enough,
But not at all adequately for the small love on which you’re keen.

– Marisa Wikramanayake, (c) 2015

 

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