ROSEMARY'S TIME

Great Australian poet Rosemary Dobson passed away last Wednesday, aged 92. I never read her work extensively - I must rectify this. I adore the following potent lines from her poem To A Child.

the world divides - and yet we hold
an end to each, the seeking skein,
the indestructible thread of love.

LJ, June 30 2012.

POEM #18

MASTER/CHIEF?

They queued
around the
block for
macaroons.

Will they queue
around the block
when you're
marooned?

LJ, June 22 2012.

POEM #17

Yesterday afternoon, Hamish Macdonald, sitting in for Richard Glover on 702 ABC Sydney, wanted people to call in (or send texts) with poems centred on current world events. I scribbled something down as I drove home and rang up, offering the following brief poem on Greece (Hamish got me to read it twice and said positive things)...

We need a new useful Zeus,
miracles not oracles;
in the immortal words
of Con the Fruiterer,
ah, a cuppla days.

LJ, 19 June 2012.

AT SEA

I've taken this sign photograph from an Engrish website. I can't even begin to think of its context. Was the photo taken at a restaurant, an aquarium, an airport, a freak show, a comic book convention? Thank god for unfathomable things. There are still a few out there.

LJ, June 14 2012.

FERAL LEGISLATION

I'm disgusted that Barry O'Farrell (let's now call him Backwoods Barry) has decided to open up the national parks, nature reserves and state conservation areas of New South Wales to hunters. What a joke. What a crime. Who can guarantee the safety of picnickers, families, hikers, birders etc? When will Josephine Average know when it is safe to visit particular national parks? Who's going to be monitoring what various goons with guns various are executing? Are the rare, vulnerable and endangered species of New South Wales going to be safe? I do not trust hunters to shoot only ferals - I'd love to think they'll do everything by the books, but I doubt they will. Take the case of some of our mallee reserves, now open to shooters. These reserves have small populations of endangered malleefowl. Who's going to be looking out for them? I know I sound alarmist/over-the-top, but really, Backwoods Barry has thrown us into the Dark Ages. I talk a little more about this over at my other blogsite - http://wildbundanoon.blogspot.com

LJ, June 12 2012

KISSING IN THE BLUE DARK

I'm such a fan of Lana Del Ray's Video Games. I heard it in Two Skinny Cooks (best coffee and tarts in the Southern Highlands) last weekend and was bowled over.

Her voice - her glorious voice - is like twelve-year old single malt scotch whisky poured over ice cubes at 11pm in a low lit Sydney bar most of us have forgotten about.

LJ, June 6 2012.

POEM #16

WHAT THE CRAZED THEOLOGIAN, WHO LOOKED LIKE A CROSS BETWEEN TROTSKY AND WOODY ALLEN, ASKED AT BAKERS DELIGHT, BOWRAL, LAST SATURDAY MORNING

Are the 
         Dead Sea scrolls 
                               still fresh?

LJ, June 4 2012