Saturday, April 30, 2011

Joy

Poem 13: Joy, 23rd October 2004
Joy is now
This freedom.
These are the words
My heart sings
At midnight on Saturday.

I am not in your prison
Any longer.

I am tired,
but I will sleep,
And know peace.

And I will wake and
Be glad.

Move Me Still

Friday's Poem.

Poem 12: Move Me Still, originally titled 'My Words', 22nd January 2002, age 19


I’ve listened to Jewel’s songs,
And I’ve read her poems
they haunt me still,
because I feel I understand.
And her words they cry freely,
So there are no tears left for me.
But I want to sing them.
I wish they were mine.
They’ll never be mine.


So I sat in my room
With [a pen and paper and] too much wine
And I sung her words, strong and sad
Picturing his face in my mind.
What a foolish fantasy
Wanting what simply can not be.
But I’d sing you a song,
If you were mine.
You’ll never be mine.



Her words were beautiful
They move me still.
Even though I was not there
When they first were sung
But I’ve heard them now,
And if I could, I’d give them new life.
I would sing them.
I wish they were mine
They’ll never be mine


She wrote a love song
To a stranger, (this is mine)
I hardly knew you
But you’re so great to talk to.
Will we ever talk again –
About life and king Arthur?
I’d sing a song about you
But you’re not mine
You’ll never be mine.


These words are mine.
And I will sing them.


(... The irony being not only did I neglect to post this yesterday, I don't actually sing these words, or any really...)

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Music In The Dark

Poem 11: Music In The Dark, 22nd January 2004, 10.25pm, age 21
Music in the dark
Beats in my soul
It turns, it turns
I am not whole.
I can feel the pulse
Of life in my arm,
But tonight there
Will be no harm.
I shut my eyes
To keep loneliness out
Otherwise the shadows
Create fear and doubt.

Alive

I always thought that what I wanted most was a voice; both in terms of a musical instrument and the ability to publicly express worthwhile opinions. But I've realised just these last few days that a voice, of any sort, is nothing without a platform from which to be heard, and without the ears of somebody listening.

When I read over Poem 10 (which is also a song that I actually performed once, with Mike Pooley, in a song writing competition), I have a feeling I already knew this.

Poem 10, Alive, August 2003

Yesterday the road was wet
From where the rain fell.
I’ve so many stories,
But no-one to tell.
And underneath the harbour bridge
Stand a couple holding tight,
Afraid that if they don’t, their love
Might escape, off into the night.
I can see the lights
Of the cars above me
But down here on the ground
It is dark and empty.
There’s a hole, in my life
And I don’t know what will fill it
God heals my soul, to give life
And I know Satan can not kill it,
Still I feel
Broken.

This is my city
But it seems so surreal.
I can’t always find the words
To express what I feel.
I am me, I am alive
Why should I want more?
But sometimes I still wonder
What am I living for?
In a pub a man is
Singing a Greenday song
But no-one is listening
And that is so wrong.
There’s a hole, in my life
And I don’t know how to fill it
God – heal my soul, and give life
And I’ll know Satan can not kill it
Still I feel
Broken

I’d just done a dance class
I’d an ache in every limb
And as I walked along,
I still thought of him.
I crave your friendship
You reassure my busy mind
But after all my searching
I’ve realised you’re not for me to find.
This then is the lesson
Which is evident
God, won’t you help me
To be content.
There’s a hole in my life
One day we’ll fill it
God healed my soul, gave me life
Praise – no one will ever kill it
I won’t be
Broken

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Negativity

On Sunday I found myself thinking how wonderful it was to have the space of so many years between me and the melodramatic self absorbed things I had written; thinking how liberating it was to have a bit of a laugh at my teenage self. I then picked the poems for this week in advance. I figured that as I was pulling out poems of angst there was no need to try and match them to each day.

So I find it a bit disturbing that the poem chosen for today should so aptly describe how I'm feeling. It makes me a bit afraid that either hanging out with my teenage self is a bad idea, or I'm still a melodramatic self and absorbed girl who really needs to get over herself. Perhaps in addition to having a laugh at who I was, I need to have a laugh at who I am.

Negativity, 5th November 2001, (4 days shy of my 19th birthday)

I do not love
This shell I live in
It has won me
Nothing.
I do not love
The way it works
Because it often
Doesn’t.
I do not want
To see the image
Before me in the
Mirror.
I can no longer stand
To weigh myself
On this safe, secure
Greyscale.
And I do not want
To blend into the
Landscape so full of
Colour.
I do not have
The courage to be
All I really
should be.
All I have
I do not love,
This empty
Negativity.

Monday, April 25, 2011

Pain

Thinking about yesterday's poem, 'Hollow', I'm reminded of what a bitter person I was, and still can be; of how even though I try be full of joy and hope, to focus on others and not on myself, it is too easy to slip back into a pattern of selfishness, bitterness and even anger.

And although I was, in general, a rather lively and happy teenager, there was always an undercurrent of bitterness, loneliness and sadness, which every now and then bubbled closer to the surface than was good for me. So for poems 8 and 9 we'll take a short ride on that undercurrent, and then gradually as we move on through the week, we'll hopefully leave it behind.

Poem 8: Pain, September(?) 1999, age 16

It is what I feel
When nobody understands,
Or when I strike a match
And put it out on my own hands.

It is the hammer in my head
Perhaps my hair is held too tight,
It is the blender in my stomach
Keeping me awake at night.

Shaving, a little deeply,
My weak ankle might be twisted,
Dry dead skin on my feet
I'll pull it off when it has blistered.

It is what I feel
When cold runs down my spine
Or when tears burn heavy in my eyes
Because everything is just fine.

Sunday, April 24, 2011

Hollow

and now it is time for a good dose of angst, because there really were days when you felt like this...

Poem 7: Hollow, 28th July 2001, age 18
Hollow
Like a log
Fallen.

Dream your dreams
Of colour and stars
Ride through life
In fast fancy cars.
Plan all the places
Where one day you’ll go,
Imagine all the faces
That one day you’ll know.
Paint a picture
Of who you will be,
Memorise your fantasy
Until its all you can see.
Write your life into
A beautiful book,
Finish with the day
Where you like how you look.
Fly
Like a bird,
Pure.
Free.

Dream all your dreams
No one else can,
And remember – failure
Is the worst thing know to man.
Realise the truth
And don’t miss your calling,
Enjoy being at the top
Before you start falling.
Reach for the moon
The stars are too high
Fall to your knees
As you start to cry,
Keep feeding your fire
And let it burn,
I’ve heard that love is the
Greatest thing I’ll learn

Fly
like a bird.
Pure.
Free.
No I’m
Hollow
Like a log
Fallen.

Saturday, April 23, 2011

Sunset

"what we need is commonly acknowledged rules that protect the individual because we value us as individuals... one of the great harms that Darwinism has done is fostering this idea of a free market as a basis to build a decent society on - it is not. The market which is allowed to buy and sell anything unconstrained will destroy human dignity" - Tim Flannery


While sitting at home today and making wigs, I've listened to three very interesting podcasts. Each of the speakers have had very different, yet strangely complementary takes on how the world operates, and I have been encouraged to think over the importance of not putting ourselves and our selfish desires at the centre of the universe, despite the fact that our life is a precious thing. A thought that has come back to me most clearly is that we have been given a world of good gifts - other people, education, natural resources, material blessings - and we should learn to enjoy them and look after them rather than take advatage of them or else they might be lost...

The first two podcasts were from Conversations, a programme on ABC 702, the second was from the sermon blog on my church's website. On Conversations I heard Sheila Given talk of her experiences growing up in Northern Island before moving to Tasmania and becoming a Quaker, the tipping point that made her ready to leave was hearing her daughter say she 'could smell the Catholics'. Sheila got her PhD at 64, and is an advocate of life-long learning.

Then, in order to do some learning, I listened to Tim Flannery, and honestly, I don't know how I have managed to live this long without paying attention to what he has to say.

To continue my day of learning, I listened to Phil Britton talk about Psalm 51, about guilt, adultery, Freud, Christina Aguilera, and - perhaps most importantly- God's compassion and the offer of atonement for sin, guilt and shame, made possible through the painful death and triumphant resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And I don't know how in the light of all these thought provoking podcasts which have set my brain ticking today how I can possibly pick a youthful poem for the day that does any justice to anything. However, that is the challenge I set for myself, and having read over my shortlist, I've picked 'Sunset', in the hope that it might somehow echo the big things - moving to the other side of world, environmental conservation, religious/political conflict, guilt/sin/compassion/atonement - that i've been considering today.


Poem 6 - Sunset, 24th September 2000, age 17
Soft in the sand
a breeze against my back,
I cry at the thought
of what i will lack.
As I sit still,
after a full, long day,
I study the sky
and to heaven I pray.

Surrounded by beauty -
the sky golden and pink,
above me the sun
is beginning to sink.
Down beyond the waves
and out of my sight,
the powerful sun falls
despite of its might.

This beach is my place,
where I come, in the light,
but now, dark approaches
soon it will be night.
How different it is, now that
the sun has sunk low -
the atmosphere changes
but I don’t want to go.

Alone on the beach,
the moon slowly appears,
and strange as it seems
this lessens my tears.
As i realise the night sky,
is a wondrous sight -
across the dark ocean there
rides a silver beam of light.

This silver memory
beautiful and free,
reflects the great sun
which lets all things be;
So, at the end of your day
when night forces you under
let me be your moon,
to reflect all your wonder.



...create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me...
Psalm 51:10

Friday, April 22, 2011

To Write About God

'And He came to the disciples and found them sleeping. And he said to Peter, "So, could you not keep watch with me one hour? Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The Spirit is indeed willing, but the flesh is weak'
-Matthew 26: 40-41

I began my day reading Matthew 26 & 27. These two chapters depict the last moments in Jesus' journey towards crucifxion. I re-read them this morning because today is Good Friday. And I'm aware of the fact that it is too easy to feel too tired, too busy for prayer and for God.

Every year I find Good Friday to be a strange day. It's strange because essentially, as a person who believes that Jesus Christ is Lord, this day commemorates possibly the most significant day ever (exceptions could include the day Jesus was born and the day he rose from the dead). Yet every year attending church on Good Friday seems like a small burden, a thing that I do because that's what we do. This makes me feel sad, because I want so much to be filled with joy and gratitude, maybe even a sense of mourning, but usually I find myself feeling not much at all at the prospect of remembering Good Friday.

It struck me that maybe this was just a learned habit. Due mainly to the commerical nature these things seem to accrue, I have a learned love/hate relationship with lots of events on the calendar (birthdays, valentines day, Christmas day - but not Christmas eve). I've not liked Easter services in the past, and therefore I go, expecting to not like them; to be bored; to be bitter; to be left wanting.

And maybe it's not so bad to be left wanting, if I can let that feeling serve as a reminder that this life is not all there is, but that there will be a day when "at the name of Jesus every knee should bow on heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the father".(Philippians 2:10-11).

Today I shall post a rambling poem from 2003 which came to mind this morning, as I sat in church willing myself to be full of enthusiasm, rather than thinking how nice it would be to be back in bed.

poem 5: To Write About God, 15th May 2003, written in spurts behind a shop counter, Darlinghurst Sydney.

I find that I
Am not inspired
To write about God,
I simply feel tired.
I feel it would be
Something close to a lie
If wrote about beautiful faith –
So I won’t even try.
I would not presume
That the tunes I sing
Or the verses I write
Are my way of worshipping.

Why must we make
Art seem so deep?
When all I want is a lullaby
Before I fall asleep,
Or to read about Ron and Harry
Without being told its bad
Or about Frodo and Gandalf
And the adventures they had.
Yes, I understand the symbols
In The Return of The King
As they overcome evil, restore the right
And destroy the ring.

But sometimes its nice
To just read a story,
Without wondering
If it gives Him glory.
Its not that I think
We shouldn’t profess what is true
Because proclaiming is something
We are all called to do,
Its just when it comes to interpretive dance
I don’t seem to be educated enough
So I don’t understand and I think I prefer
Seventeenth century liturgical stuff.

When I open my mouth
I like to hear the song that I make,
But I don’t want to perform belief
Because I don’t want to look fake.
See when I want to show-off
That’s when I’ll stand on a stage,
And I just want to write about boys
When I rhyme on a page.
I like pictures to be pretty
So when I create with paint,
I don’t force images to be biblical
When they clearly ain’t.

I find that sometimes
I am moved deep inside
And I do have a message
That I don’t want to hide.
And other times I think
We’re all just good liars,
And that we’re all nursing
Inconsolable fires.
I find I appreciate
Those who voice what they feel,
Who unlike Iago,
Are open and constantly real.

Why abuse Eminem
About the filth and angst in each rap
When we aren’t perfect either
We’re just full of … (ourselves)

Thursday, April 21, 2011

Autumn

Because it is...

poem 4: Autumn, 6th April 2003, Ashfield, Sydney. (Age 20)

Autumn smells cold
I’ve been here before,
Time makes me old
We’re full of war.
How can anyone
Justify the fight?
How can this be won
When no-one is right?
Images of the dead
Blended with pancakes
Fill the depths of my head
Dark, like the oil lakes.
I feel shame
To be alive today,
We’re repeating the same
Scenes of the play.
We are at
The end of the line,
We’ve all grown fat
On lies and wine.
If life is progressing,
Then I will sit still
And wait on a blessing
Or just cry while they kill.
Then the leaves fall
As the cold winds blow,
And the trees all start small
But somehow they grow.

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Plastic Bands



Last night I was at the Strawberry Hills Hotel with some friends from uni. We were lucky enough to be entertained all night by a stack of video clips from the nineties, including Say You'll Be There, by the girl powered darlings of late nineties pop. Seeing this clip made me remember getting up at 8am on Saturdays to to watch the Spice Girls' clips on Rage.
As no retrospective of my teenage years would be complete without mentioning the Spice Girls, here is poem three:




Plastic Bands, 15th February, 1999 (age 16)
Once,
When there was still
Five of them,
They were on stickers
Inside the Chuppa Chups.
I have the box.
And in it
My life is rolled up,
and bound
By rubber bands.
They parade their platforms
And show off their thighs
Behind fish nets.
Pages and pages
Of glossy tabloid articles.
Of four hours of passion
on trains,
With guys who hide
Behind their
Football short shorts.
Falling out of friendships
and wonder bras.
And it is all in my
Chuppa Chup box.
With my life,
bound by
Rubber bands.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Crave

Tuesday morning is my 'date night'. This means skype time with Matthew and a constant reminder of just how far Sydney is from London, and how impossible it is to even hold his hand.

In honour of date night and frustrated romance, I shall today publish one of the many poems I wrote which belong to the genre of "I like a boy but he doesn't even know I exist and I think I am the only person who has ever felt this".

So here is number 2: Crave, 29th October 2000, age 17
You stand
Alone.
In order to
Feed your hunger.
And I try to watch
But
There is only a
Memory which
Fades away
Into the night air.
I can…
Smell your smell
And
I can
Pull it apart,
Your breath and
Deodorant all mixed
And one in
Your jumper.
I stand by you
And breathe,
All that
I can
Of your warmth
And
Your words
Stale, but
Delicious.
And
I can
Only begin to
Feed my
Hunger.

Sunday, April 17, 2011

Reveal Too Much Of Me...


...or ... A Self Indulgent Retrospective
Three weeks tomorrow, I'm leaving Sydney and moving to London for a couple of years. This is the type of event which is often signalled as 'a new chapter', 'a new phase', 'a new beginning' or some such rot. Although its probably kind of true.

So, having worked my last shift at Opera Australia, after having been there 7.5 years, after having finished uni, after having a strange long distance relationship fed mostly by skype time, I guess I am closing the pages on one of life's metaphorical chapters and about to begin the next one. I figured that this was, therefore, an appropriate time as ever, to take some time out to reflect upon the girl who was and who became the girl/woman/lady/adult female that I am now.

I have decided to sort through the pages and pages of mostly terrible poems I wrote during my adolescence in search of 21 decent poems, for surely I wrote at least 21 decent poems. For the purposes of this retrospective I deem my adolescence to have ended at 24, because when I look back, that is the time I feel I knew, once for all, that I had left my teenage self and her spice girls CDs behind me. It is also the time that my angsty poetic output began to slow.

For each day of these three weeks I am left in Sydney I will post one of the better ones. Please feel free to comment, laugh, cry, edit or offer any other response that won't damage me too much.

So... Number 1: All The Words, 27th October 2002, age 19
All the words I ever write
reveal too much of me.
They're so full of angst
and teenage views on how life should be.

I'd like to write more meaning
into the words I say,
Write in levels with hidden stories,
instead I only play.

Or maybe I could write the life
of a flower out in spring,
Or of the freedom and the love
for which they used to sing.

Maybe I could find beauty
in something quite mundane,
Like a homeless man in Darlinghurst
or a city rail train.

But all the words I ever write
are only what I feel,
So I wont write, what I dont know,
only what I find real.