Love’s Enmity.

I acknowledge..

It is with cautious hand and trepidation,

That I put pen to paper,

For I come not to pontificate, lecture, sanctimonious preach,

But to touch on delicate subject matter.

Our world is gripped in angst, tormented agitation,

Lamenting so much male causation,

Of violent attack, aggressive, harassing set-backs,

On a woman’s situation.

So to focus on what is construed as a dire construction,

The bias of gender devastation,

All on the evening news killing of a young woman by,

A rejected lover’s frustration,

Then he in turn, with guilt and unforgiving remorse,

Casts ‘self to death, off precipice,

Waste on waste of life and promise, all for what we would curse,

As brutal crime, moral violation. 

And so completes history’s tragic cycle of so many lover’s assignations.

*

But stay!..For surely it must be experienced and well known,

By any who venture love’s trysts,

You leave certainty and security shelved at entrance door,

In fair exchange for a lover’s ecstatic whisp’,

For are there any not innocent, who would faithfully believe,

Cupid gives freely without recipricate receive,

Such high ecstasy of love, sexual delight, splendoured nights,

Unconditional entity?

What naive or hapless fool we be, to expect this life, these loves,

Have no expectancy of thee,

Would we claim the right among such savage reprieve,

To act, do as we please?

While demanding Gaea give all we desire for pleasure’s ease,

When Gaea will do as Gaea please.

And go on to curse this or that person who wrongs the rights,

Of the other tight-held in their clutch.

While brutal men slaughter and burn with sword and torch,

A woman may “kill” with but a velvet touch.

*

So..

It is with cautious hand and solemn trepidation,

That I seek some enlightening comprehension,

In that we instead name not the crime as “criminal”, but rather..

View it as “crime of passion”.

For how can it be doubted with any degree of certainty,

A lover seeks but love, not enmity,

But when hope is lost, affection cruelly or carelessly cast’d,

With neither sentiment nor pity,

Cupid turns its angry eyes and plots violent redress, most passionately,

Determinedly, so suddenly,

For sadly..hell itself hath no fury, equal to the blazing inferno,

The white heat, of love’s jealousy.

So . . .

Should I for thee, or perchance thou….weep for me?

Me and My Shadow.

Every day I walk, my Shadow walks with me,

If ever an apt name given, it is :’Innocent entity’,

Whether I be idle at the gate,

Rushing to a meet lest I be late,

Perhaps one moment dreaming to rob a bank,

Stealthily stealing a rose from the hedge of Mrs Krantz,

Or imagining scattering largesse to wanting serfs,

There is my Shadow, an innocent participant,

Mimicking my movements in total agreeance,

Even if in anger were I to strike a blow,

The one other ‘personage’ to give support be my Shadow..

*

But in the dark of night, when I be making love,

Limbs entwined affectionately, like fingers held intense,

Breath on breath softly as a window full of moonlight,

My Shadow will leave the amorous scene in discreet deference.

So up at next morning, when we join together with our stroll,

I can hear Shadow’s whisper, in low mocking droll,

Some would call it conscience,

Some would claim it vain,

Many could laugh at my inflated ego’s sweet, serenading refrain,

But as far as concerns, me-myself, and my Shadow,

Fain should Tyche and Aphrodite collude in interest germane,

The day cannot proceed swift enough for to make such time again!

(Pic ; “Holiday in Gaza”).

A cold night on the range.

Was the year after the blast that ended it all,

Not a whole room left standing..just rubble and sprawl,

And we were camp’d freezing amongst it all.

With nary a stick to burn to keep us warm,

But a box full of books packed in haste,

A box full of books found buried among waste.

So we lit a fire with those learned tomes,

Warmed our hands to the rhymes of poems,

And in jest to our plight using the fire we might

Read a line or two and laugh with vulgar delight!

“Here’s a good one”…Louise called out,

Holding the screed aloft in theatrical tout,

And with an exaggerated voice of stage,

Read those prescient words from the page;

“When first the tottering house begins to sink,

Thither goes all the weight by an instinct”.

A moody silence fell from those words,

A warning wasted from a long-lost world,

The predicted path of how it all fell…

Wisdom in the silence, it’s echo did tell…

‘Twas Burton’s “Anatomy of Melancholy”,

Come to think..I recall..but whatever ‘twas,

It made good fire…a roaring good fire for us all.

Freezing our bones amid the sprawl.

      Under the mallee bough,

       Across the quiet waters,

             Blended with cries of river birds,

                We hear our ancestral voices . . .

                                    

A compendium of poems.

By ; Helen Tuxford and Joe Carli.

                       ( Sponsored by : The Scriveners Review.)

Y’ know..

I go outside in the mornin’

Pause..take in th’ weather..;yawnin’,

Mark how the dawnin’ sun

Gives the silver’d branches of the Mallee

A dun coloured sheen…nice ‘n clean.

Matching the wing of a galah

Tight-cling’d there…..on a spar.

An’ I’m thinking..

In this quiet, morning haste

That one oughta’ feel some poetry

Whilst in such a place..

But then…ah..it’d just be a waste…

(J.C)

Cherish the Trees.

In September,

Pink gum blossom flowers

Against the spring blue sky –

While among the leaves

Honeyeaters wage silent and savage wars

Over the bounty of the nectar.

Last year’s fledgling magpie

Practices his carol,

Weaving a spell

Over cliff and mud and reeds

Of the river valley.

A black feather, faultless in every detail

Lies upon the grass.

Whose hand crafted the perfection of that feather?

Gifted to each bird, their song

Grew each leaf, upon each tree?

In September,

The pink gum blossom falls

Upon the old brick path

To make a rich and splendid carpet for my feet,

That fades,

As swiftly

As the sweetness of the spring.

(H.T.)

Silence & Stillness.

Be still..

What merit in rushing about,

Like scalded cat, all fuss and shout,

When chance and the wild world,

Intrudes with its multitude of variables,

So never can we be certain of a correct choice.

So be still..

And with a matador’s flourish,

With a sweep of the cape, we make,

A “veronica” turn and avoid grave mistake!

The clamour and shout of public opinion,

No more than a roar of bluff and delusion.

Be still..

My friends, be still..wait till passing rage,

Exhausts itself in futile passage,

How many empires in an eon of age,

Destroyed themselves in self-flattery?

Leaving only scant remnant of golden days.

So be still..

With purity of thought we climb,

To heights only dreamed of in many minds,

All intention fixed on ascending away,

From base existence and mob affray,

Until we breathe air with the Gods company.

Be still..

We of an age have served our time,

Apprenticed to family, work, demands, grime,

Until now, at this age, we claim for our own pleasure,

To meditate at our own private leisure,

Those moments treasured in memory sublime.

So be still..

Be patient, reduce work to simple actions,

Show compassion to our fellow travellers,

In this way we build on our courage,

To hold at bay, life’s intruding emptiness,

Forever together we can live in quiet sleep.

So I urge you..

Be still . . .

Be still . . .

(J.C)

Early in the Spring Morning.

I want pie,

Said the man in the moon.

Apple and blackberry,

Fig jam and cinnamon,

Pudding and wine.

Words are a rhyme

A chant and a song.

A magic, a murmur

Drips from a broken crock.

Dropping,

Into a dark well

And gone.

(H.T.)

The Eastern Star.

I call that star in the early morning sky,

“The Eastern Star”..for know not I,

The names given to stars of the night,

Save those sung in songs of delight.

I confess I know not, so many things,

Like the names of public holidays,

People’s names, and sundry things,

Of deep regret I have to sling..

But I do know the difference,

Between what is intoned,

As a lonely life against a life alone.

Myself, if I can but quote;

‘Married with children’, not to gloat,

But to example a situation done,

Yet to me, I live in this life alone.

For there is one part of my soul,

I would not like to have others know,

Of thoughts I think nor ideas I sow,

Not for want of any scant disgust,

But rather because I have so little trust,

Or faith that “the public mob” (‘scuse my scorn),

Would not banter and laugh to so forlorn,

At my silly dreams and colourful plans I lay,

Should ever such come to the light of day..

So best I live in this life alone,

With all my angels, demons and dreams convolved,

Rather than see myself be publicly scold,

And let what is personal, not obscure personality,

Be the measure of my worth in social equity,

And so leave The Eastern Star shine down on me.

(J. C.)

Pink Thongs.

Short brown hair, blown in the river breeze,

A face that looked more inclined to smile than to frown.

Grace in her movements,

Though her body was large

And her feet, in pink thongs

Were white and fat.

Glimpsed in the few minutes that it takes

The ferry to cross the water

I wondered

What journey you were on,

And from whence you came.

Though I am a stranger to you,

We are fellow travellers

For we are all following the same path,

We are all trying to find our way home.

Is it from the dust of the stars that we were made?

Or are we in spirit, treading a pot holed road?

Only the wise question each turning of the way.

Only the valiant dare its deepest shadows.

Only the gentle hearted know all

Whether star dust or clay,

Must stumble now and then.

Journey bravely, fellow traveller,

For the strong river,

And life,

Flows on.

And to our own heaven,

We each are bound.

(H.T.)

The Shrine.

(An ode).

A whitened, limestone country road,

Wedding ribbon white in the Mallee sun,

Mile upon mile stretching lonely, ever on,

Past a wrought-iron gate it does run,

Where sits silent an old Mallee school,

A singular shrine for our memory’s recall.

*

In the deep hollow of a morning frost,

Mallee trees loom like spectral ghosts,

Thickly, fog slithers through the forest,

While the muffled calls of birds disturb the air,

Dewdrops, wire-captured, make sharp crystals of ice,

And the cold bites to the bone and freezes there,

*

In high Summer, The Shrine sits solid, still,

Its stone walls a bulwark against the heat,

It’s iron roof in creaks and groans it yields ,

Under an incessant barrage of the Sun,

A crow insistent, barks its clamouring cry,

Hot, hammer-welded on the anvil of a Mallee sky.

*

In the cool silence, inside The Shrine,

All the reminders of a time long-gone,

Pictures, desks, initials carved in grain,

A welcome fireplace small at the room’s end,

And a table, clothed, in the middle sits,

Almost sacred..like an altar..lay’d with holy writ.

*

Once upon a time..

. . . A school-ma’am would ring a big, brass bell,

Starting time for lessons it labouringly peals,

Ka-ring! Ka-ring! Ka-ring! Its deep echoes chime,

Like the rolling, rhythmic chanting of a nursery rhyme,

And all the children would rush to stand in line,

To enter the classroom instructed..one at a time.

*

Pencils, pens, nibs, ink wells and exercise books,

The school mistress chanted dictation with gravitas words,

A dozen children shuffled bare feet on a wooden floor,

Impatient for lunchtime, releasing them to play some more,

Spilling out of the small schoolhouse with all the cries and glee,

Of a yelping, rampaging, victorious, conquering army!

*

Ball, bat, and galah cry, mix as syrup in deep Mallee sky,

Onward, Tommy, onward Helen, onward little Charlotte!

A new world is awaiting your laughing chatter and talk,

Awaiting all your wild dreams and schemes and design,

One day, far away from the shelter and origins,

Of learned lessons and structured discipline. . .

*

It is recorded that..

The school was built from the saddest cost,

A schoolboy drowned as he the Murray River crossed,

The community joined to ameliorate the pain, stop another loss,

Childrens tender years lived and growing under the shade,

Under the shelter of a benevolence shown to thee,

Of This Shrine, sheltered among the Mallee trees.

*

But there is a little Principality here..in this locate’,

A small kingdom one enters through the front gate,

One touches the ethereal film keeping us at bay,

From those times gone past, and the here and now,

And for just that moment when we touch these built stones,

Desks, books, look to the pictures..with their story we co-join.

*

For what remains after a time of years gone,

If not the visible shadows of those who lived when,

Such photos taken, structures built, tables hand-worn,

And cannot one hear the same cries of children’s joy,

And what is it that a child there could ever see,

That could not in like kind be visible to the child in me?

*

Along that white, lonely Mallee road,

A limestone school sits in its silent realm,

Reminder of how those communities lived,

Dependent on their skills and hard work done,

The memory, fixed always now in our body and mind,

Embraced, revered ever lovingly as….The Shrine.

(J.C.)

Testament.

Flowers on the grave,

Spread upon the new turned ground.

The noon day hush

And a lonely tree –

There is no communique

Between they who sleep

And those who stand and mourn.

I have a photograph,

Blurred and small,

Of a girl with guarded eyes,

No smile.

What small girl unhappiness

Made you guard your eyes so well?

I have wondered since

If she ever wholly went away,

That child.

Or if she lingered,

Through the years,

In all the roles you made your own –

Wife, dearest Nana;

Mother, most and best of all.

I prayed for you each day,

Not knowing what to pray for

Or what was best.

Knowing, beyond the waiting and the prayers,

That the end was written long ago.

Oh, how fast the chains of fate are fettered,

Link upon link,

Through the slow hours of time.

My hope was too small.

All my prayers

Were doubtful questions in the dark.

My love

Could not ease your grief,

Nor shield your face from pain.

Is it enough that I remember now

The small and ordinary moments,

And smile?

I wish, I hope, each prayer,

Each smile and remembering

May shed one small candle’s light

To turn the dark, to light the way

Of your road to Paradise.

The grass is smooth and green,

And a small neat stone

(Place no flowers, please),

And the world is a little colder, now

That you are gone.

(H.T.)

There’s a singular tragedy happening on social media in these times where many single mothers are using the media platforms to sell, swap or influence with their persons or crafts so as to capitalise on the “E-commerce” market…where one puts one’s “produce” up on a “donation” site like “Kindle” or “Ko-Fi” or any number of other “sell yourself” sites, and anyone who likes them or their product “donates” via the “purchase of a price of a cup of coffee (Ko-Fi..get it?)” or the price of a read of their book, the cost of that coffee…usually a few dollars at a time..in effect, as I am portraying in my poem below, a Penelope of the old world, reworking her dilemma in this post-modern world..with their children being taken along for the tragic ride on this “runaway train” of dying capitalism.

Penelope weaves her tapestry.  

Upon the digital Isle of Ithaca,

A lonely “X” in the social media sea,

Penelope bends over her qwerty loom,

“Weaving” patiently her influencer tapestry,

The night is still, the air is quiet,

The world around Ithaca is strangely pliant.

*

Her faithful confidant, Poussey,

Loyal as a four-legged hound,

Looks to her companionship needs,

Ready with therapy advice, profound,

Ushering and filtering suitors demands,

Always howling hungrily at her door for feed,

While her steadfast child; Telemachus,

Seeking news of the return of Ulysses,

Wanders through a labyrinthian game-room,

Of childhood self-doubt and poverty.

*

But there is no more home for Ulysses,

Who long ago perished in Gender Wars,

Along with legions of other fathering men,

In fulfilling a perverted feminist cause,

To be replaced by androgenous eunuchs,

Hem-huggers to harridan chanting of cant,

More in line with “kissing the bishop’s ring”,

Than in singing serenade as a male is wont.

*

So..

Now Penelope sits alone in her Ithaca,

Assiduously at work on the qwerty loom,

Weaving the shroud, she’ll wear so proud,

Even to her social media condemn!

And all those suitors, eyes to keyhole glued,

Crawling, flattering, seeking for free,

Any chanced glimpse of soft-core pornography,

That such suitors need to satiate a greed,

Regardless of HER wants, fears, or dread,

For they really come not to admire or assist,

But to have their Munchausen by proxy fed.

*

Now, there is no mythical Ulysses coming to help her,

Indeed, she would flatly refuse to admit the need,

For whilst there is chance of “E-commerce” money,

And millions flock to that bait like ants to the honey,

And while the voyeurs, for a ko-fi coin, give heed,

She will continue her social media “influencing”,

With the soulful, plaintive cry, of a beggarman’s plead.

Oh, Cynthia..

I wish I knew you when angels flew,

When, of an age, a beard I could not grow,

And my denim jeans were a darker blue..

I do wish I knew you..

So. . .

Will you sing for me a song, Cynthia?

Like the wind whispers my ear, a song,

When morning air feels so soft, so good,

When all alone in the mallee wood?

Where wild birds sing to heart’s desire,

When morning sun sweeps away any despair,

And you sing for me a song, Cynthia.

For I truly believe your voice has a sweet tone..

Oh, if when I was young, you, I could had known,

In that time of fumbling, youthful, blushing charm.

I wish I knew you when for me the angels flew,

When too young was I for a beard to grow,

And my denim jeans were a brighter hue,

I do, do wish I had known you,

Cynthia…

Cut of the whip.

Of course, it cut like a whip-crack when she did,

Killed the affair fair dead as a damp squib,

Knew the pain it would surely inflict as she did,

THAT was the point of the whip-cut that she did!

*

But there..’tis a woman’s prerogative..at the end of the day,

To show what she has..place all on display..

The entice, the tease, the voluptuous ‘Ole’!

Or not….as to myself she was sometimes wont to relay..

*

It is for the man that a woman is to admire,

Why else would Nature design such perfect core of desire?

And if he is anything of a man worthy of describe,

He will not turn his eyes from a woman’s better side.

*

Win or lose, a man must give her his best,

Try for her pleasing, her favour..devil take the rest!

Little point otherwise in combatting the worries of this life, 

As the number of this populated world will attest!

*

And should she curse you, fair or blind,

It serves no favour to complain or whine,

For what is delivered, is delivered as per rules of the game,

If you don’t like it…well, you can always abstain.

*

For myself, I am quite willing to subscribe,

To live in that mystic, elusive, sensuous abode,

Where it best suits me to slip, like fingers in a glove,

Into the svelte, dreamy delights of when falling in love.

*

And should my lover then throw me aside,

What choice have I but to let fate decide,

For as The Poet said about “better to love and to lose..”

It is not often our prerogative in granted whom we may choose.

Riddle me ree.

Riddle me, riddle me, riddle me ree,

What, child, did you see from behind the lemon tree?

I saw the family doctor did come and go,

I saw the doctor did talk to my mother in tone so low.

What, dear child, did the doctor, he say to she?

I didn’t hear all..I confess…but,

I feel all that was silence will come to me.

Oh riddle me, riddle me, riddle me ree,

What is it obvious that a fool cannot see?

It is what is abundant in another so lacking in thee.

What dear child, did the doctor, he say to she?

I didn’t hear what said..but saw the silence, it speaks to me.

And in that visceral silence, oh riddle me ree,

I retreat to the shadows to escape their cloying similies.

So riddle me, riddle me…I am so like my mother similarly,

Now Death has taken my mother so sudden from me,

Woe…

Riddle me, riddle me, riddle me ree…..

The final fall of Delphi.

“Tell the king…..
The fair wrought hall is fallen,
No more hut, nor prophetic laurel,

Its waters murmur, sigh and sorrow,
The spring of eloquence is quenched….”

Tell the folk :
Delphi ; the house of Apollo is fallen.
The Oracle speaks it’s last,
In stuttering tongue, before dusk,
And cometh now an age of gilded lust.

Tell the people :
The Gods are gone, their whispered scent,
From spring and bough wisdom sent,
Is barren now….rubble strewn,
Where once was beauty marble hewn.

Tell them all :
The temple walls are forlorn and broken!
The paths of herb and steps awry,
Beast debased, their perfumes descry,
Man’s heart’s desire…now a banker’s token.

Yes!..Go!..Tell the Kings of the world:
Of the thousands who have homaged Delphi,
Now..only two of us stand on the Sibylline Rock
….in the pouring rain….
Two stand ; the merchant and the poet..

….but only one of us is crying.

The ignominious defeat of the Radical Left.

And what a demoralising, grubby victory it is..facilitated as an “insider job”..best described as “Blue on Blue” collateral damage orchestrated by the “educated to imbecility middle-class”, proclaimed “Wokes” who, in their incessant search for self-absolution and act of contrition of their own greed and hedonistic lifestyle, have welded themselves to what was once The Radical Left, and with the usurpation of language to suit their own agendas, have adopted, as one adopts abandoned animals or projects as a kind of pet to shower with the exaggerated attention narcissists apply to those things they wish to use as examples of their (really) unconcerned pity. To show what “really nice and concerned members of society they are and what a decent society SHOULD be AS concerned about as I OBVIOUSLY AM!” taken to such an extreme that no-one would dare to contradict…and if any do, they are immediately piled upon as “enemies of common decency” and abused and cancelled from their controlling media platforms.

This collective has gathered together under the applied misnomer of the ;“Woke” conglomerate ..you can easily pick them out as they will only too happily describe to you a comprehensive list as long as your arm of all those topics de jour they fervently support and would..except they know full well it will never be called upon..die in a ditch for!

I do not doubt there is hardly any subject, object or ethnicity that does not fall under their banner of “things to be hagiographised”…except strangely; religion itself!…for the contradictory demands of religious zealotry and its cultural demands are anathema to this cult of socially religious zealots that demand freedom of speech (conditional), freedom of genetic interpretation, freedom of racial, sexual, social inclusiveness to all except those outside their limited accessible cult. Their exaggerated expectation of entitlement is limitless.

The most recent, visible undermining of Left-wing ideology was with the meteoric rise of the use of social media, that extended the immediacy of those sluggish political blogs, run on the most part by equally sluggish middle-class groups, to the mass, mob validation of clustering hem-huggers on Twitter (now rebranded as “X”). The ghastly truth of THAT platform, is that to have one’s comments, postings and links seen, one has to accrue a legion of “followers” that in turn grants one access to another legion of other’s followers so a multiplier effect comes into play and one is then able to “ride the algorithm stampede” to get one’s point and opinions across to “The Mob”..so then one becomes one of the “holy of holies” …an “Influencer”!….But unfortunately, and here is the catch..so many are now “influencing” no-one is really listening or reading just what everyone else is talking about…

The downside to this mode of “communication”, is that if one’s points and opinions are not “in sync” with the accepted norm’ of the collective middle-class mood de jour, one can be challenged and piled upon by that very group that promoted and encouraged “freedom of expression” for the “downtrodden and oppressed” until a line is crossed because of frustration of misinterpretation (whether accidental or constructed) and then comes THE ACCUSATION..and of course, any who have participated in the melee of point – counterpoint of public debate and argument on social media knows ; “To be accused is to be automatically condemned” and THEN the ADJECTIVE of collective myopia can be best described.

This is what has happened to the once clear and concise direction of Left-wing ideology, it has been hijacked by the feel-good, warm-fuzzy useful idiots who have castrated or de-feminised the Left until it is nothing more than a sluggish mule overburdened with un-resolvable social incidentals and incurable social ills that feed the insatiable need for the petty-bourgeois to feel they actually belong as a legitimate and sensitive commentator on social identity. The Left-wing is now at the final unattainable height of its once reaching toward the proletariat “Heaven” of the mythical Tower of Babel scenario, where the white-noise, unintelligible babble of a legion of incoherent clamouring from a legion of insane cult-seekers are all shouting into an abyss of social history that cannot, never has and never will want nor be able to satisfy all the wants of all the Good-Samaritans of all the inconsolable needs of the world…and in so demanding and in so trying, the entire Radical Left edifice of “Big Picture Socialism” or Communism has been thrown down to be replaced by an immediacy of triviality that would have been absorbed and resolved anyway in the bigger realm of social inclusion of a Solid Left-wing State authority…

“ This topic need scarcely be pursued further here; but the remark may not be out of place that all that considerable body of morals that clusters about the concept of an inviolable ownership is itself a psychological precipitate of the traditional meritoriousness of wealth. And it should be added that this wealth which is held sacred is valued primarily for the sake of the good repute to be got through its conspicuous consumption. The bearing of pecuniary decency upon the scientific spirit or the quest of knowledge will be taken up in some detail in a separate chapter. Also as regards the sense of devout or ritual merit and adequacy in this connection, little need be said in this place . . .” (Thorsten Veblen ; ‘The Theory of the Leisure Class’).

Truly, The Left-wing of politics has descended into a Don Quixote / Sancho Panza comedy!

Anyway..that’s how I feel about it all.

(“Being Woke” is where defrocked postmodernists go for moral sustenance).