83. Passing Stranger

‘Frankie don’t dance’
his T-shirt says
and I’m sorry
for anyone who so restricts
his own joy,
so afraid of release
he fends it off
before it starts to begin.

‘If I can’t dance
at the revolution,’
Emma Goldman is said
to have said to Lenin,
‘I won’t come.’
Now that I like!

Me, I ain’t got
rhythm, trip over
my feet, and yet
I love to swirl and tap.

82. The Girl from Brazil (Market Client)

Soft, young,
excited by life.
I feel, empathic,
the suppressed fluttering
of breath wanting to surge.

A dentist in Brazil,
here she must study
again another year;
doesn’t complain, enjoys.

She longs for love.
I’m glad to see it coming
though not just yet.
First she will visit home.
In March, she agrees.

I see the large, warm family,
her brother’s new baby.
Smiling, she’s love
waiting to happen.

81. Old Colleague

“I need a new photo,” she says,
“To replace that one you took
nearly twenty years ago.”

On her website the new one
shows her whiter-haired,
still smooth-faced and lovely.

Upper Yarra Valley
Neighbourhood Centre.
Educators, enablers.

Our shared philosophies
expanded each other’s
gifts: teaching, writing.

Life moved us; 
we never forgot. Now
her best friend turns up here.

Rapturous reunion
via email. We swap
news, our latest books.

I can go public with this one! 

80. Spirit Sister

“Younger than you,” the seer said.
 “Dark-haired. A Celtic cross
around her neck. She will be
important.” Years later, visiting
the Caldera, strangers
we embraced at her door.
I read her cards. “You must
return here.” 

Life paths almost identical, even
same-named healing centre
in different cities. 12 weeks
we rented her property. She returned,
we stayed close, worked magic,
wrote. Never needed any
explanations. She is
important.

79. "Marijuana in the Mail"

Hates the press for this headline
and publishing her name:
“BASTARDS!”
Always felt above the law.
Stoned at the time, or drunk?

Pleaded guilty anyway
for trying to post it –
to Edinburgh.
“Don’t they have dope
in Scotland?” someone said.

She can’t stay free
by pleading the need
of her brain-damaged son.
He’s 18 now, and smart enough.
She does a runner,
leaving him home alone.

Oh, stay away!

78. Abused and Neglected

He is afraid. Always.
I don’t know if he knows
the always. He knows
the sometimes,
the worst, the most
immediate. He knows
he has no-one but himself
to bring himself up. Not me –
not often enough, no blood
connection, and old
like grandmother, though I try
mothering, in my blunt
and sometimes cranky
way (when I’m most alarmed).
19 already and nowhere
to go, still nowhere
for escape.

77. Schemer

She greets me in the shop
as we stand at the counter.
Startled, I respond too warmly.

She makes the cow eyes at me.
Pale, dishevelled, she’s lost
her sleekness along with her game.

Some are still fooled, most stand
with her intended victim.
I look away and place my order.

Later her man whom I’ve never met
sends me drunken emails. I feel
intense rage – his or mine?

Stocktaking

I began this blog on the 29th of June last year. I've posted 76 poems to date, from a still growing list of 326 subjects so far. Obviously I'm not going to finish by June 29th this year. There have been many interruptions. Nevertheless I enjoy doing it, and have found it a valuable tool for self-understanding, so I'll continue on – not for 365 consecutive days, but certainly for 365 of these pieces. And perhaps I'll just keep on forever ... or indefinitely, anyway. :)

76. Expatriate Blogger

I “met” her in her adopted city
turning the pain of her broken heart
into prose-poems that seared mine.
I thought them beautiful fictions,
then realised only truth
was that raw, that passionate.

She needed to leave the man,
his country and his family, all loved.
She needed her old home.
Returned, she lives in my adopted city
(I’m elsewhere now, we’ve never met)
begins writing new, beautiful ... fictions?

75. The Grandson

“Everyone says
leave him with his father,
can’t take a child to live
in a country like that.”

“What!” we said.
“You’ve been
the one constant
in his life.

“In South-East Asia
they’ll love
you beautiful blondes.”
She took him.

Too admired,
they couldn’t go out,
got mobbed.
Came back here.

Now he’s teenaged
tall and lean, big-eyed.
She’s given him
stepfather, step-brothers.

The other day
he hit her.

74. The Girl Next Door

A pretty three-syllable name
I never heard before.
Wasn’t sure at first
if she was girl or boy
despite long hair –
breasts just beginning.

She spoke softly, looking down;
liked playing with our cats,
asked their names.
I’d meet her walking
on the beach like me;
we’d smile briefly.

The older sisters
and little brothers
were noisy, laughing.
She: big-eyed, serious.
We began having
conversations, then they left.

73. Best Be Nameless!

She’s an offence
looking to be taken,
a deprivation
eager to be felt.

He puts his foot in it
innocently again,
is surprised again
by the sudden
sobbing reproaches.

Petite, shapely,
curly blonde
girl-next-door,
she looks happy
and as pretty
as a Christmas angel.

She looks sweet,
uncomplicated.
All she wants, she says,
all she longs for,
is her father’s love.
She stabs him repeatedly
and twists the knife.