Poetry

I was drawn to words as poetry and plays from primary school days. I read and re read cover to cover a set of America encyclopaedias Knewes during my school holidays. Twelve volumes in all. I was captivated by Greek mythology. I would spend all my school holidays alone at home. This was because my parents worked in blue collar jobs during the day leaving for work at 6.00 am each morning Monday to Friday and arrive home after 5.00 pm. They were Displaced persons in WWII who arrived in Australia in 1949 as migrants. I grew up being able to be alone and not become bored.

At primary school I wrote a play in grade 5 that all the school came to see. It was called Troublesome Kins. I am in awe of my teacher Mr Hatchet liking my play and allowing it to be presented to the grade five. In grade 6 and 7 I put on school plays taken from our school magazine and often acted as the main character in them.

These poems were written by me as teenager- first one I was 17 years old the next two 18 years old. I was obviously in a dark frame of mind at this time. On reading them today I can see they reflect the dysfunctional childhood at home and capture the internal impending doom filter I lived in right up to when I sought professional counselling when I was 40 years old- psychiatrist counselling for around 9 months that included a full time two week cognitive therapy program.

The one that won the Poetry prize in fifth year high school:

Trepidation

Life is made up of our past,

Which travels so mercilessly fast,

Staining our individual picture frames,

With the painter a unknown mystic.

Unscrupulous, like a malignant

disease,

Does existence creep into a sombre background

Forever delineating the ambiguity

of

Tomorrows yesterday.

Yet piety towards a shadowy horizon

Is fermented by the night

And life is turned into a metaphysical brothel for emotions.

Published in the Australian Society for Education through Art -ASEA Bulletin Assembly Issue May 1971.

A consideration

The snail so slow:

Painfully pursuing

Each summit

With a nonchalant

Perseverance,

So irritated the young man

That he

Destroyed it.

Nothings changed except the kitchen sink.

A knife is a tool for incision

A fork a three fingered hand

A spoon a mouth that doesn’t swallow

A plate the battle ground.

Supply an object of attack

Dressed in a ostentatious cravat,

Add some liberal reason

Then cheer for one of the threesome.

With the battle won,

The chef accoladed,

They are anointed with detergent

To cleanse away the blood of the insurgent.