QUESTIONS

Yet another mass shooting in America. This time a twenty year old honors student with his handguns and .223 Bushmaster. So many little kids dead.

Questions tumble from this... How many massacres is it going to take to get serious firearm reform in the US? Who's going to have the fortitude to really take on the National Rifle Association etc? Why are there so many young men in the US who are bitter, disillusioned, crazed, narcissistic, out of control, unloved, lost? Why are they slipping through the cracks? What are adults doing to look out for these potentially volatile young men? Is enough money being pumped into counseling and mental health in the US? What's the National Rifle Association going to say, then do? When is US congress going to address the fact the US is a warmongering nation and they need to cool it, lead by example?

Michael Moore recently tweeted a message stating that there have been sixty-one, yes sixty-one, mass shootings in the US since Columbine.

Enough already. Enough already.

LJ, December 16 2012

LOVE WILL TEAR US APART, AGAIN

An aphoristic 'love' poem I put together a while ago called Love Songs has been selected for an anthology tied to the Poetry d'Amour Love Poetry Contest 2013. WA Poets Inc are behind the comp; the anthology is to be published by Mulla Mulla Press in Kalgoorlie. My thanks to the powers that be for selecting my work. I don't usually set out to write 'love' poems. What is a love poem anyway? The poem I penned looks at love from all angles. It's a poem predominantly about loss, healing, confusion, lust, sex, technology, hedonism and fatherhood. There's the odd bit on love too. It isn't Elizabeth Barrett Browning. It isn't Rick Astley. LJ, December 14 2012.

THE SHOALHAVEN RIVER FROM LONGPOINT LOOKOUT, TALLONG NSW

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE REALLY GOOD

I was just told by a colleague that I remind her of a minister in a western. I'm so glad. That's the look I've been cultivating for the last few years! Not enough Aussies have that look.

LJ, December 3 2012.