Wordplay

If you happen to wander amongst the tall rosewoods

On a red autumn evening, you might chance upon

The shadow of lithe figures with nimble fingers,

Weaving thoughts into images; images into runes,

While stars scintillate in the memory of dusk’s light.

Should fear step aside and curiosity lingers,

You may sight, from out beneath misty forests’ canopy,

Carrying with them the sweet, wafture of freshly fallen freesias,

Those lithe shadows melding into forms, as real as life,

To warmly welcome you into their cherished fold.

Words of inspiration: Lithe. Rosewood. Shadow. Wafture. Meld. Scintillate.

Blue Rose

There was a story I heard told once upon a star,

of a young siren who sings a sad, plaintive tune about a blue rose.

They say, a grass-fairy kissed a white rose and gave it to her blue,

a beacon of hope it become; the cradle of her dreams.

Alas, the wind, in a fit of jealousy stole it away,

and so the young siren swims the rough oceans and wanders the green earth

In search of her rose, her hope and cradle of her dreams.

They say that when she caresses white roses,

a faint blush of blue pigment can be seen where her fingers have been.

Though, you will never find a rose as blue as her fairy-kissed one,

you’ll know she has passed by if you happen across a blue-blushed white rose.

Dear Dimity

I don't normally post anything other than poetry or freewriting on my blog but this is something that I feel strongly about. Sign language has enriched my life from the day I went deaf as a toddler and for someone to imply that one can only live a full life by learning how to speak causes my hackles to rise. So, of course imagine my reaction to Dimity Dornan receiving an award - someone who has made it her life's mission to mould deaf children into society's image of normalcy and regards sign language as 'primitive'. It is also well known that if a deaf child enters her program and they don't show any signs of progression in learning how to hear/speak, the child and their family are asked to leave the program. This helps her to maintain a high success rate and this is probably true in any of the First Voice organisations. Deaf children in these programs are also discouraged from signing.
So, with all this in mind, I decided to write a little letter addressed to her.

Dear Dimity,
Today I read this in the Brisbane Times - "Brisbane's Hear and Say Centre has been giving children the gift of communication since 1992." I would like to let you know that I was given the gift of communication long before '92 came around. I am and was lucky because my gift gave me, not only a means of communicating but access to a rich expanse of language alive with meaning and with it came a community and a culture. My gift of communication lets me use what I have - hands that I can see and shape into signs. Not my voice, a voice I cannot hear to give life to spoken words. Your gift does not come with a guarantee, but mine does. My life is a “rainbow”* of hands and I would not want it any other way.
I know this won’t happen but I would rather see your honour bestowed on all parents who have given their deaf children a gift far richer than just communication, like mine did.

-R

Brisbane Times Article
Cora Barclay Ad citing sign language as 'primitive'
ABC Article
*"I say to parents, it's when the child's life has turned from black and white, into rainbow," Dr Dornan told the ABC.

Home amongst words

An unnamed fear, unbeknown to me, paused my writing

But within the pause I refused to wait, ignored the stillness,

Blamed inspiration’s desertion, all the while

Swept along life’s hurried currents I floundered as words waited…

Without pity, they watched as I gasped to breathe...

Having long forgotten their calm, thrumming rhythm.

And yet amidst my struggles for inspiration’s lifeline

Came a moment of stillness, a moment of quiet, then realisation.

Pray, forgive me, for I have forsaken you too long...

Cast you aside as I filled inspiration’s heaven with darkness and neglected it light,

Wondrous light from your words lovingly thread together

to form an intricate dance, so complex one can only watch.

And now you welcome me as I retreat to your safe haven.

Release

A rising tide of anxiety sweeps through me

And an unknown fear feeds it

As my calm centre wrestles to retain control once again.

My mind’s a tangled mess, I claw for air

And forked paths splinter off in every direction before me.

Peace and Light

Would that I could inscribe a prose of beauty and light,

Of fair-faced sweetness, adorned with dewy emerald jewels

From whence sorrow ne’er shimmered…

And yet, here I am, a fallen flake frozen,

Beneath the hidden depths of winter

In a forest of snow-laden pine,

Where still the sound of silence calls…

Away from the mocking noise of life,

Buried in ignorance’s blissful void,

Wallowing within a glass-tear half-empty,

Heavy of heart, wistfully watching…

Dancing words drifting down in dishevelled disarray,

Flitting beneath darkness’ dusky light,

To lie in scattered remnants, disjointed by silence’s echoes,

And yet, as some fall into outstretched hands, life returns...

Wondrous hues of light abound from cusped hands,

There in the hidden depths of winter’s silence,

Soothed by warm glows of serenity,

            I am safe.

Inspired by a picture of snow and light.

Something different

Concrete Poetry
poet i c
c i poet
ci po et
pic toe
toe pic
topic

Haiku
A lone diamond falls
In the midst of another
an eye its birthplace

15th

A two walked, turned and then wandered left
Stumbled across a beating shell numbed by theft.
A cusp came together to form a temporary shelter,
Affording a brief respite to its tender soldier
As it readied itself for return to the battlefield.
With renewed resolve and nerves steeled
The tender soldier, treaded guardedly
Amongst wayward traitors, searching blindly
For unscarred hope brightly shining forth
But none it spied til it turned due north
And there, in another, found its home
And so ended, with a whisper, its tome.

Of Monsters and Muppets

One fine day, tugged by my strings, I awoke,
Danced into the curse that my scourge bespoke.
While across clear blue skies, thunder rolled
Calling to a heart trapped and sadly sold.

Dismally my mind remained estranged
Then the tears came and the world changed,
As cloudlessly rain fell while I danced,
Strings falling as a dream chanced.

Through white wine-fuelled fire,
Another heart came to desire
The heart unsold from trickster.
And so the Muppet become a Monster.

Wordplay

The five words: delete, kiss, wind, power, secret


In a time since deleted from memory,
A secret was born within the power of a stolen kiss.
Alas, one too great for man to bear.
Said the Keeper of Secrets, “Cede to Wind”
And so it was that mankind first learnt oblivion.