Stare at it Chantel!

Feet up, I am relaxing and unwinding  from all the headiness of Christmas Day and the madness leading to it. (Next year this will not happen, I swear.) I am reminiscing and in recovery mode, I now have the giggles as I look through the pictures I took on the day. This one has had me falling about laughing. I can’t believe I said this to my niece as she was waiting for a piece of the Pav she watched her cousins decorate.

 ‘Stare at it Chantel!’

and she did, for a full 30 seconds I reckon.

hahahahahaha Am I bad? ><

all in the name of a good pic of course, poor kid!

(hungry 5 year olds can be very obedient.)

Propped up awkwardly on the narrow ER bed, I hear a little boy laughing like he is being tickled. I am surprised to feel his laughter is making me feel incredibly sad. Perhaps it’s the drugs, perhaps I am in a state of delirium, I don’t know. But later, the same little boy (about 3 years old) walk past my cubicle with his dad and older brother in tow. As he walks by, he coyly turns only his eyes towards me, waves, and skips on happily. I sit there in a daze wondering why he did that. He didn’t know me at all, but I knew he was the same little boy who had laughed earlier. Why did he wave at me? Every day now I think about him, and I am completely perplexed. This memory makes me feel happy, and sustains me as I think upon it during my stay in hospital, and smiles me still.

It took 5 days in the hospital before they were happy for me to go home. I was mortified at first, as I am a do-er, a constant thinker, and I get bored easily. My iPod and mobile phone had little charge left, so I tweeted out a few drug-addled tweets and, well, basically slept away the first two days oblivious to everything.

I was admitted to the short stay unit at first, so I thought, ok a couple of days and i’ll be home, but on the fourth day they admitted me onto the Ward for Physio. Thank god I only had to stay one day and night there. It was awful and noisy and they were understaffed, and by this time, all I want to do is go home, not listen to across the hall Colleen, coughing up a lung begging for a cigarette at 1am in the morning with the Nurse telling her no and why in a booming voice. 1am in the morning! My fingers itch, I ring the nurse and ask her to tell hacker lady and booming nurse to shut up! I am at my wits end. Colleen gets a filthy look from me the next day.

Circling back a day to the quiet, caring and attentive Short Stay Unit. On the fourth night, I was up late watching a bit of tv, passing time, and I notice an old man talking to the nurses at the nurses station. My nurse, Hilda, comes to me and tells me he was a recent patient (he even still had his hospital band on). He wants to give something back to the staff, so on his release from hospital, he starts to make pleated butterflies. He also wrote some verse to go along with them. His plan was to give them to the nurses, as he felt they saw a lot with their job and wanted to give them a gift of ‘unburden.’

Hilda asks me if I would like one, says she has asked him if he would give me one, that it would cheer me up, and proceeds to read me the verse. I tell her I would love to have one of his butterflies. I watch him smile shyly as she tells him, and he moves slowly towards my bed. He and another Nurse bring in two boxes of butterflies, about 40 in all. So many to choose from. Each one he tells me takes an hour to make, and says ‘choose one’. I umm, I ahh, and look them over, and finally decide upon one. I’m in no hurry. He hands me a sheet of verse and tells me ‘This will help you as it’s helped me’. I place the butterfly on top of the verse. They go together. I tear up as I watch him begin to walk away. Here was a man who is so grateful to be alive, that he wants to say thank you in the most personal way possible, to making something with your hands, and write something from your heart. I summon up a little courage and say ‘You are a very special man, thank you’. He looks down shyly, and says ‘thank you.’ I don’t think I’ve ever heard those two words said so gently, humbly, beautifully.

Since my fathers passing, everything seems so alive, so bright, so painfully beautiful.

[I should split this into two posts, but i'm too tired, and somehow, they go together, young and old].

Be like the Moon

“The moon will never lie to anyone. Be like the moon. No one hates the moon or wants to kill it. The moon does not take antidepressants and never gets sent to prison. The moon never shot a guy in the face and ran away. The moon has been around a long time and has never tried to rip anyone off. The moon does not care who you want to touch or what color you are. The moon treats everyone the same. The moon never tries to get in on the guest list or use your name to impress others. Be like the moon. When others insult or belittle in an attempt to elevate themselves, the moon sits passively and watches, never lowering itself to anything that weak. The moon is beautiful and bright. It needs no makeup to look beautiful. The moon never shoves clouds out of its way so it can be seen. The moon needs no fame or money to be powerful. The moon never asks you to go to war to defend it. Be like the moon.”

– Henry Rollins

Are you ready for a little rumble, a lick of ricochet, a tad of whirly-gig? Cool!

Does the world seem bigger to you now than ever before? It does to me. With the onslaught of social media, we have become addicted to needing to know what’s going on in the world 24/7, and now with today’s modern technology, we can and do, often. I think the days are long gone when mum hushed the children so that dad could watch the news after work. Dad has already smart-phoned in his news during the day, or someone filled him in over lunch. Breaking news has a way of leaking into every boardroom, lunchroom, shopping centre, and don’t forget the children with internet mobile; the school playground.

I fear for the de-sensitization of our souls as we continue to drink NEWS, data, information and images images images. I wonder have we become numb as the layers that lay upon our compassion become heavy with information overload? I want to go back to the days when people met up at kitchen tables and cafes, talked face to face, where understanding can grow and laughter can be heard, not imagined. Where inflection and gestures and body language add to the mix of communication and the world becomes clearer, with less room for awkward gaps, confusion, silence and misunderstandings.

Enter Google+. After not too much thought and reading, I concluded a big loud NO and an enthusiastic ‘enough already!!’ There is already a glut of noise on the internet. Admittedly I was curious to have a squizz (look), but i’m comfortable in my refrain and will stick with my twitter bytes and the occasional facebook flutter. And really [really] in the arena of many echoes, my real life is screeching the loudest of all.

For those who read me here, (as sparingly as I post), I hope when this storm settles, to get back here and write about a lot of things I have on my mind, things I have experienced of late (grief, ‘refugee’ memories, solitude, illness, friendships, raising sensitive children, the status of poetry). Forgive me friends for the self indulgent survival trekking i’ve been on, and thank you for allowing me to wander off into the dark dunes (special thanks for those keeping an eagle eye on me in the desert). I seem to be finding ‘a way’. 

It’s a curly time, and I’m caught up in whirlwinds hurtling me across landscapes I never knew existed.   

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The silence knocks

and knocks

a book is open at a page;

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‘there is no more room

you cannot stuff in anymore

love the scar

touch tenderness’

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lily © 2011

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Death sat on her shoulder hitching a ride everywhere. She would put it down when it grew heavy and made it walk on its own.

Few words for the way i am feeling, i’m letting the madness take me to the garden. Count the i’s, give me a flower for every one.

I’m a barrel rolling killing off the moss, i’m a warm pie that everyone tucks into, i’m a little bead waiting to be strung.

The heavy curtains closed in the rambling rose theatre, tickets whirlwind under the billboard, the patrons walk home in a daze kicking cans.

Death muse is at the breakfast table, running rings around the reverie children’s souls. We shall allow her voice when our cries die down.

I watch the blackbirds picking out seeds from the autumn flotsam, and I weep as I hear their silent joy while I grieve for you.

We tried to whisper our hidden screams and ended up screaming our secrets.

excerpts from @myarspoetica (twitter)

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lily © 2011

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I suffer from that malady many of us writers and poets suffer from. The dreaded writers block. It can destroy a writers soul. I believe that poetry comes to us, it’s less excruciating to wait for the butterfly to come to us than to run about wildly, catching bugs and bees and bark and swirling leaves, though they are nice too, but not when you really just want the butterfly.

Last year writing was like pulling teeth, but I learnt a lot about acceptance and waiting, but only after vowing I would stop writing altogether to put my self out of my blank page misery. I’m no Charles Bukowski or any of those other prolific writers, all I wanted was a butterfly. Maybe we expect too much of our muses.  Maybe we should be grateful that we can still imagine and dream even if we never write a word of it down.

So my muse was slothing around my house eating peanuts and making a deep impression upon my couch, when  I stumbled upon this project through twitter. A River of Stones, the idea to write one small stone a day for all of January. The intention is to really pay attention to one small thing, and write a ‘stone’, a small piece of writing about your observation (eg. a sentence, a small poem, a haiku).

Read more about  The River of Stones here, it’s not too late to join if so inspired. I’ve found it harder than it sounds, but if I stay still long enough, a stone  appears. Sometimes if it doesn’t and i’m pushing boulders uphill, I forget about it and often an essence will reveal itself later.

I am dropping my daily stones into my @myarspoetica stream at twitter (hashtagged #aros).

Here are my first five stones. I will update them to here every few days or so.

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Curtains drawn in a darkening room; the TV, a computer screen, the dying light outside the window.

~*~

The Sea is all I see, a dream stone in a crumpled pouch, I wave to a bright yellow yacht.

~*~

Cockatoos screech violently at the Sun as it rises above the sleeping mountain.

~*~

Holding a small bottle of vitamin E, she shows me her forehead scar, healing.

~*~

The floods reach the top porch step, a blank faced man waves to the rescue boat.

~*~

The phone call, blood drains from her face, she curls up with a heavy stone embedded in her chest.

~*~

‘Her poetry was always so dark’. Yin and Yang glance at the boxed girl. ‘Disturbing.’

~*~

Sap drips on the car, birds dig up the garden, spiders crawl in uninvited. At least the remote control obeys.

~*~

I admire people who can just say things and it comes out right and fluid like turning on a tap to fill a glass of water.

~*~

My tap splutters and the pipes groan and I let the dirty water flush through and then I collect the water.

~*~

She wished her gravely ill father was an exemplary man so she could speak of his amazing selfless loving life but alas he was a brute.

~*~

Last week they climbed the tallest building in town. Today a little girl closes her eyes tight wishing her family back there.

~*~

Rain, blood and tears, I have no words left. http://twitpic.com/3poclu (Art for Queensland Floods)

~*~

Jim Morrison singing his own kind of scat, from the other side, subterranean poetry [save our city].

~*~

Night light, white noise, books, nothing could persuade her to close her eyes to meet the dream master. Please leave the hall light on.

~*~

This will be your year, things will get better, I hope you find your happiness soon. Things they said to be free of her melancholy.

~*~

The raging river and panicked faces took over her mind, the fading sounds of helicopters were the last to leave.

~*~

The mutinous river broke through the levee of her mind. A full bellied lake sighs, the fevers were back.

~*~

Paintings of puppets & robots lined the walls leading to the auditorium door, opened by a man with splintered hands. Her palms itched.

~*~

The great pearl has been rolled into the inky sky just above the eucalyptus trees. the stars are closed, the garden flowers are open.

~*~

Moonlight snaked up the road, slithering over shadows and around the silhouette of trees.

~*~

A six year grudge became sludge, the rains came and washed it all away. He did me wrong in a song, now I sing my own words.

~*~

She dyed her hair bright red, tattooed a tear beneath her eye, wore a bouncing tutu and a t-shirt that said ‘don’t look at me.’

~*~

A little girl believes she can change peoples hearts with her songs, singing as an angel for her mother who watches from heavens wings.

~*~

The spinning death cloud loomed on the horizon, all the animals silenced & folded themselves into peoples hearts to give them strength.

~*~

Hard stone, weeping stone.

~*~

Fold up your sorrows, throw them into a safe burrow, hold close.

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The note on the back door said it all: ‘You cut me down, made me beautiful & adored me, then you threw me on the bonfire. I feel so used‘.

At least you don’t get pulled until you pop said the bon-bons. At least you don’t get left on the plate said the mince pies.

Fairy lights draped over the neighbors hedge. neon blue, stop light red.

‘Can we plant the tree after christmas Mum? you know, recycling’. ‘No dear, we’ll have a bonfire after the bushfire season is past’.

Fake tree branches fallen, missing lights, baubles under the couch, creased stockings, broken angel in the nativity set. Santa was disgusted.

His favourite, a lamb roast, he wipes his chin as she nervously eyes the presents under the tree, spilling a little whiskey as she pours.

Finally under the weight of all the tinsel, his mind collapses, defaults to reverse and is towed off to the junkyard of broken lights.

~*~

On Christmas morning she heard scratching noises in the hall, bundled near the door was a pile of tree baubles.The Earth ones.

~*~

Memories of Christmas are bittersweet, like Moonface from the Enchanted Forest sucking on that lolly, sweet, sour, sweet, sour.

~*~

The look on her face could have sunk the Titanic, but she forced a smile & said thank you, just what I wanted. A self-help book, & deodorant.

~*~

You are positively glowing, she thought as she saw her reflection in a christmas bauble. Then she remembered the tree lights were still on.

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~lily © 2010

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excerpts from @myarspoetica, twitter

we can’t hear the purrs

for all the barking

this is the most brilliant poem I’ve ever written

Image by Stevesworldofphotos via Flickr (click to Zoom)

Black dog yard

a few grass patches left

the rest worn away

by the pacing

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of a dog so restless

it cannot wear a leash

lest the same fate

fall upon the neck

as the yard

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the sun will peek through

and scented winds will revive

and we will break free

and walk for miles and miles and miles

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~lily © 2010

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