A Possibly Amusing Picture and Poem Combo

Quite a while ago, 2005 to be precise, I was a student sitting in a poetry class, when the teacher gave us an exercise. 'Write a job advertisement looking for a muse in the form of a poem,' she said. Now, I wasn't really much of a poet (still not actually), but it was a groovy right brained balance to all the other non-fictiony, grammary, computery kind of classes I was also doing. So, as it was really just a class exercise, I thought, yes, I can do that. Mmmm.

Anyway, I didn't like the result, but the teacher and my fellow wannabe poets had a good laugh, and a couple even clapped. So, does that mean it's good or bad or just funny? Who knows? Who cares?

I came across the poem in a notebook the other day and typed it up. Better late than never I guess. Then I had a brilliant poetic kind of idea. I have a lot of photos of a statue called The Three Muses which is in a town just up the road from here called Deniliquin, or Deni to us locals. You dig? My big idea was to somehow put the poem together with a photo of the Muses. Cool eh? So, thanks to Photoshop and my lovely laptop, here is the result. You might like it; you might hate it. Why not tell me? A bit of fun anyway, and it got some creative juices flowing that have been pretty stagnant of late.

Enjoy!

Share with Me: The Birth of a Poem.

I finished a poem today, and I would like to share its birth with you, my faithful readers (if indeed there are any of you out there). It began, this poem, as I sat as a passenger driving through the country near our home here on the Murray River. And I finished it over a cup of tea at our local bakery following a stroll and a lie down on a log staring up at the speeding (is the word scudding? Sounds like a nautical thing) down by the river, listening to the whistles of the river paddle steamers as they plied the tourist trade.

Now that I've got you all psyched up, the poem has more or less (not sure which is correct; help me out here?) nothing to do with either the river or the country around or the bakery or me being a passenger which I'm not very often as it happens.

It's about my father. And another person he met on the day in question. Sad story all round really. But let the poem speak for itself. I lay no claim to it being a 'good' poem-or otherwise really. In fact it really is a first draft; I have only just now finished the first typing of it into my lovely laptop filing system.

So,here it is for your interest. Any feedback will be gratefully welcomed-whatever it is that's said. It is a gift anyway, from me, to you. Whoever you are.

A Sunshine Coast Meditation Session

Sitting close, thigh to thigh

on the tiny two seater settee.

Left hand on the one, clutches the right

of the other.

Fingers entwined in desperation

as they both, the two of them,

teeter on the rim

of the waiting

yawning

all devouring

abyss.

Alone—and lonely.

Loneliness oozes from the pores

of aging skins. The psyches

too, are lost.

Spiralling towards

Annihilation.

Echuca Australia

September 2009