Wednesday, April 30, 2003
A few days ago Ronald McDonald came to the children's ward at Broken Hill Base and doled out fairy bread and fries. A number of our "repeat offender" patients attended, as did staff's kids, and a reporter from the Barrier Daily Truth (the local rag). I refused to attend on moral grounds. The issue (that McD was actually INVITED to come, and got free publicity for very little outlay) must have offended me more than I realised, because yesterday over breakfast this poem just spilled out:
A Song for George W.
Hurray! Ronald McDonald’s coming to town.
Ronald McDonald, the evil clown
He’ll beckon you in with his painted grin
And sell you burgers laced with sin.
Ronald McDonald’s always right.
He grasps the minds of children tight.
Beware the friendly French-Fry lads
Who grin so sweet from every ad.
It’s too late now to stem the tide
McDonald flagships US pride.
His double arches hold proud sway
O’er every country’s motorways.
BH 29/4/03
Boo! Down with macho drawling warmaker dictators and big multinationals!! I do try to boycott large obviously US companies like McDs (with the exception of using their free toilets and the traditional greasy 3 am post-party meals) and KFC, but what bothers me is that I'm unlikely to know, let alone try to avoid, which companies are multinationals and which are truly "home grown". Since they all buy into each other anyway, then try to hide the fact. I know this is a non-commerce person talking, so feel free to correct me.....
Piokiwi 5:48 pm
Tuesday, April 29, 2003
More poetry from me:
Essence
II
These days
the lazy sun stretches
ambles across the sky
to lap humanity with her warm tongue
These days
nothing is lazier
than cereal swimming languidly
in the late-morning milk
These days
while trees embrace the light
their blooms swell
With golden bellies of fruit
These days
The coconut-cream smell of sunblock
Oozes off warm salty bodies
While sand migrates mischievously into every crevice.....
Time trickles softly through my fingers.
How, then, to bottle this warmth:
To save a summer essence
Against approaching winter?
9/3/03
This poem, ironically, was rewritten the day before Casey collapsed. The original - a much smaller two verse poem - was written in 1995, before the appraching medical school finals. but strange how poignant and true the emotions still are for me.
Piokiwi 3:56 pm
I've been reading "Dr Zhivago" by Boris Pasternak. Although it's known as a Hollywood movie made in the 1960s, the novel itself is a giant of literature with many deep observations on the human condition. Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize in the 1960's but was not able to accept on pain of exile from Russia.
I thought the following poem really shows how poetry so passionately expresses emotion when something is lost:
“February. Get ink, shed tears..”
Boris Pasternak
February. Get ink, shed tears.
Write of it, sob your heart out, sing,
While torrential slush that roars
Burns in the blackness of the spring.
Go hire a buggy. For six grivnas,
Race through the noise of bells and wheels
To where the ink and all your grieving
Are muffled when the rainshower falls.
To where, like pears burnt black as charcoal,
A myriad rooks, plucked from the trees,
Fall down into the puddles, hurl
Dry sadness deep into the eyes.
Below, the wet black earth shows through,
With sudden cries the wind is pitted,
The more haphazard, the more true
The poetry that sobs its heart out.
1912
Piokiwi 3:47 pm
Who is Pio? Well, for those who have not yet had the pleasure of meeting him, here's a recent photo:
Pio is a Kiwi - a bit of a travel fanatic who always manages to talk his way into my luggage when I'm contemplating new explorations. He also fancies himself as a bit of a poet and even insisted I use his poem on my Xmas card last year (I had to correct the spelling first of course). Among his exploits Pio has talked loudly in the Sistine Chapel, thumbed his nose at the dons in Cambridge England and bungy jumped off the Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris.
Piokiwi 3:40 pm
Monday, April 28, 2003
For the curious who want to see what I'm doing in Broken Hill, I have been featured in the hospital's monthly newsletter:
http://www.health.nsw.gov.au/areas/fwahs/pubs/msMar03.pdf
- unfortunately this page has now been taken off the server. The photo I've pasted below.
I'm on page three. The picture was taken the first day back at work from my emergency trip to Sydney/Auckland, and I was not feeling at all photogenic. Or even that anything at all was very relevant, in that strange disembodied state when something very important has just been taken away from you. Funnily enough that doesn't come across in the photo - amazing what liars photographs can be. Anyway, this is the situation my earlier poem was referring to.
Piokiwi 2:37 pm
Friday, April 25, 2003
Well, the picture below was painted when I returned to BH from Auckland where I had been at Casey's memorial service and importantly, getting much needed support from my friends. Although I have only recently started painting, the pull of the paints was strong when I returned to my quiet living room in an outback town in the dessicated heart of Australia. It goes with a poem that I wrote in the first week after Casey's death.
Journey
It was not you
in the bed under the wailing machines
Your body so obedient,
your hands so calm.
Though your heart beat still
you were already standing beside me.
It could not be you
so still under roses
face twisted by your leaving.
Eyes sparrow-bright
fingers playing on my body
lips nibbling on the edge of ecstasy,
You encircle me still with your warmth.
As I begin my journey,
you whisper that I am not alone:
you dance to make me laugh.
I will know to find you
in the blue morning of the mountains,
in the spray of afternoon snow,
in the sunset at Karekare,
in the moon splashing in the waves.
Blue Mountains 16/3/03
Piokiwi 5:31 pm
Piokiwi 5:11 pm
Well, well, I have just become a BLOGGER. (is that somewhere between a blob and a jogger?). Where private rants become public and personal. Oh well, I've been doing a lot of writing recently; there's been a lot of things to think about, bad mostly, but some good. Creative urges have reopened where it's been dry for years. Maybe out of necessity to get all this stuff off my chest.
You see, a wonderful friend of mine died recently. Not just a friend: my best friend and partner. The one person who knew best what a "Renee" was: how she thought, how to disentangle the threads of her speech. Who knew how I could wormhole my thoughts and knew where to meet me when I came back up for air. Heck, he made me a close object of study for 8 years. And now it's as if a hurricane had hurtled past and grabbed him from my side, only I was still holding on to him so hard, it took part of me as well.
Fall off the world
I fly, I fly
past pink sunset cloud
below I see, you ski,
ski on apricot snow
Sun bows orange
I swoop over home lights
I have to land
I want to, want to
Fall off the world after you
I can’t believe
I can’t ever kiss you again
I cry, I cry
my tears never empty
can’t you see, I feel
feel I can’t let go
Friends surround me
my circle of safety
help me to stand
I want to, want to
Fall off the world after you
I can’t believe
I can’t ever kiss you again
I sigh, I sigh
I pour out my thoughts
in this book, I look
look for my memories of you
Now I can smile
even think of others
you stay in my mind
I want to, want to
Fall off the world after you
I can’t believe
I can’t ever kiss you again
You fly, you fly
over sea and sky
now you’re free, I see
see you in the world
I can’t follow
but somewhere beyond
the waterfall, you paddle on
I want to, want to
Fall off the world after you
I can’t believe
I can’t ever kiss you again
5/4/03 Adelaide
Piokiwi 4:51 pm
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