ONE SLEEP TO GO! Launch February 2021
ONE SLEEP TO GO! Launch February 2021 Read More »
These Flying Islands Blog
papa osmubal: introducing ‘doors to both worlds’, a recent work
‘Doors to Both Worlds’ is mixed media (collage and Chinese ink). It was exhibited in Macau at a collective exhibition called ‘Unlock That Door’, on August 28-September 19, 2020, in celebration of the 17th anniversary of Creative Macau-Center for Creative Industries (CCI). (-papa osmubal) —–
papa osmubal: introducing ‘doors to both worlds’, a recent work Read More »
responding to John Bennett’s love poem
the legislators acknowledged at last
having expelled all thoughts of republic
peace declared universally
with every kind of song and dance
guardians tickled to a fit
esperanto
everyone listens
we take turns
money’s abolished
the budget is open
machines, but only if they’re fun
everyone will get enough
sleep, cuddles, sweetmeats, admiration
and every tree may grow
come koalas!
your golden age
the borders gone
Zeus patron of the exiles, cross-dressed
open to all suggestion
this is a world of infinite care
acceptance
or do as you damn well please
no one is blamed for what they can’t help
everyone held to opinion
do we need watches, clocks?
no crimes against humanity!
where no one will remember tomorrow
or read between these lines
all this is proclaimed – a NO year plan
must have been the way I slept
and those who believed in us
whom we loved
the dead shall rise
to our conversation
argue the toss
and call account
it’s all looking good from here
.
plus a haiku
the rain persisting here too
I take off my hat
unzip and join in
responding to John Bennett’s love poem Read More »
Love Poem
Love poem 13 Feb 2021
I am relieving myself, a natural start to a new day
over Japanese Irises, watching a low, sharp light
tightly focused by the foliage, solar rays must be photons
not waves. This red eye rising over the raucous ocean
gives us everything, even the BCC cut out of my back
a couple of weeks ago. I think of our garden, our love,
how I should write a love poem every day, tallying
the magic conjured daily, because 600 million years
away our star will discharge so much solar radiation
that silicate minerals (90 percent of Earth’s crust)
will rapidly weather recasting the carbonate-silicate cycle.
Carbon dioxide will fall below the level needed to sustain
C3 photosynthesis used by trees. Though, some plants
use the C4 method, enabling survival at concentrations
as low as 10 parts per million, but eventually plant life
will become extinct, leading to the extinction of nearly all
living beings since plants are the bedrock of the food chain.
I end my contribution to the nitrogen cycle, zipper up,
notice the ‘clumping’ Black Bamboo is starting to run amok
and stray into the Irises, Austromyrtus and Club Moss,
a fern that popped up two years ago. I should survey
our garden in days, and love in heartbeats, every second.
KING OF THE WORLD – ROI DU MONDE
Responding to Carol Archer’s Sandstone Walk
(don’k ask me how this « story » came to my mind !! I guess it’s a mix of testimonies and readings I’ve stored somewhere in my memory and consciousness…)
Delivered on the shoulder of the road
you tumble down a landfill
to end up in a lukewarm puddle of water
It’s summer
you have been spending two weeks in jail
By now the gibbous moon slides out of a stormy cloud
Even though treated as a burglar
while you’re just a beggar
trying to get out of the slum you were born into
you feel in the mood for dancing
It has been months since a single drop of rain
fell from the sky
it has been months during which flames
by the thousands
have devoured ground and forests
it’s a time for celebration
and heartfelt gratitude
it’s a time for ashes to slip from memory
and desperation
At this very moment
you’re the king of the world
wading in his golden bathtub(e)
Déposé sur le bord de la route
tu dévales un talus
pour atterrir dans une flaque d’eau tiède
C’est l’été
tu viens de passer deux semaines en prison
maintenant la lune gibbeuse se glisse hors d’un nuage orageux
Bien que traité comme un cambrioleur
alors que tu n’es qu’un mendiant
essayant de se sortir du taudis dans lequel tu es né
tu es pris d’une envie de danser
Il s’est passé des mois sans qu’une goutte de pluie
soit tombée à terre
il s’est passé des mois entiers pendant lesquels
des flammes par milliers
ont dévoré sols et forêts
c’est le moment de fêter
c’est le moment de gratitude sincère
c’est le moment pour les cendres de s’échapper de la mémoire
et du désespoir
À ce moment précis
tu es le roi du monde
en train de barbotter dans sa baignoire en or
KING OF THE WORLD – ROI DU MONDE Read More »
Carol Archer introducing a recent etching
Carol Archer, 2020. Sandstone Walk (after the fires), aluminium etching.
Carol Archer introducing a recent etching Read More »
roadkill – responding to Sarah St Vincent Welch’s ‘the recent burials’
roadkill
responding to Sarah’s ‘the recent burials’
wallaby gone when we came back with rifle
so push off the tar
and days watch by, summer fast
yd hardly see the crows, or who were they (?)
driving by each day
dog of my childhood
in a backyard gone
and the time capsules (late sixties) must be there still too
damp mouldy remains of still live and breathe
important things forgotten now
but smell bad
and straight to the bin
sometimes you’d think the whole planet bones
sunk further toward the molten core
but some were smoke before
no one buried the dinosaurs
that was a sad sad day
roadkill – responding to Sarah St Vincent Welch’s ‘the recent burials’ Read More »
the recent burials
Inspired by ‘Is this the Azure Kingfisher’ Sarah St Vincent Welch
the recent burials
last year it was a friend’s dog
old fella still warm
her child’s best friend
one of her family
bundled and wrapped
we were weak
the soil clay
we smiled at just how weak
we were
my cracking body
could still pick axe
with a shallow swing
chisel head drag
into fractured rock
we made a superficial grave
anchored it with broken bricks
La Niña keened over Queanbeyan
we talked on the verandah
the wind rattled the carport loose
we remembered that a fox
tried to dig up the bird
that drowned in our lazy rain-filled bucket
the bird grave in our front garden
today a felled cockatoo
beside the road
her yellow crest still raised
we saw her at dusk
we dug by torchlight
remembered
how the cockies talked to us
when we visited this house
swinging upside down
us looking up to hear
just who do you think you are,
who?
the recent burials Read More »