Wednesday, 14 May 2025

President

 


Epiglottis

George Washington got his

stuck in one of history’s what-ifs

 

Undetermined

Jimmy Carter turned the page

or was it simply old age

 

Processes

by which American presidents

met pressured ends

 

Assassination

dismissed by shotgun

how the West was won

 

Expletive

one after another or in noxious groups

foul mouths on permanent loops

 

Cardiac

not ones to wear their heart-on-sleeve

exited without a by-your-leave

 

Library

calm where scholars are wont to go

with the eternal, well what do you know?

 

Dementia

their gold rhetoric turned to garble

verbal cues for losing of marbles

 

Vanity

gone as the glowing face breaks up

from suffocating make-up

 

Airliner

filled with Qatari gilding

flying into a building

 

Pedestal

toppled having ignored all portents

died of unimportance

 

Ghostwriting

or at the least on the shelf

not feeling too good myself

Tuesday, 6 May 2025

Seventy

  


[Seventy]

 

“may haiku seventy”

 

nothing to say for itself

seventy

then this word torrent of years

 

leaves and hailstones then raindrops

seventy

at a time fall from the skies

 

so many books to read at

seventy

so few hours in the day

 

at the birthday party for

seventy

old talk turns to falls units

 

the world is not seven but

seventy

times seven awesome with age

 

were simeon and anna

seventy

when the child confirmed their hopes

 

while in news just to hand see

seventy

is the age when life begins

 

people also ask: how do you spell

seventy?

what’s the word for 70?

 

blood thinners beta blockers

seventy

gout inhibitors aspirin

 

the bedroom study kitchen

seventy

the bathroom laundry garage

 

what journeys to recall at

seventy

names and faces remembered

 

cities of gold in time’s light

seventy

buried in the mind to mine

 

could you take from all your words

seventy

that said all that need be said

 

seventeen in a haiku

seventy

in a psalm about to end

 

to hold to all the past at

seventy

or pass on to the future

 

unknown obscure empty

seventy

yet known true full, to oneself

 

we are meant to understand

seventy

but we don’t, altogether

 

 

 


Sunday, 27 April 2025

Objects

 


[April]

 

“haiku april object”

 

emptied of undreamt refuse

wheelie bins

left yawning in dawning streets

 

pop-up theatre of old

roller-door

plays morning’s mini-drama

 

shorts or pants shoes or sandals

cardigan

or not the day cold or hot?

 

perhaps install white wooden

venetian

blinds on sun-facing windows

 

autumn comes early to the

computer

upgrades downloads old versions

 

train faces silent in thought

audio

wired to pocket podcasts

 

rushed some give a second glance

clocktower

but most don’t have a minute

 

tradies make up new storeys

scaffolding

comes to grips with construction

 

bike helmets walking frames ring

ceramic

coffee cups at street cafés

 

the present moment includes

cameras

distracting from the present

 

the pope dies elections pass

newspapers

flatten their worlds to an inch

 

prune plum-trees to improve heat

reduction

of buildings and the spring buds

 

so much depends upon the

secateurs

left in the old wheelbarrow

 

95% rain meets

overheads

runs then drops to long dry earth

 

night reads too much into the

standard lamp

window glowing in darkness

 

unfixed constellations of

satellites

leave transitory flight charts

 

dreaming so far that even

eiderdown

is faraway memory

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday, 23 April 2025

Saoirse

 


[Saoirse]

 

Our new cat has arrived at home.

She’s hiding behind the couch.

Saoirse.

 

Circe is not right.

She is not Circe

Or Saucy or Sauces. Sushi, no.

 

Pronounced Shirr Sea,

like rain on the ocean

making easy silken designs.

 

“Shirr Sea,” we practise

on the friendly side of the couch,

“Shirr Sea, here’s a bowl of water.”

 

Irish as it happens

and it happens with some regularity

wedged behind the couch, purring.

 

Addressed Sir She,

as you would a lady possessed

of the demeanour of lord of the manor.

 

She is white with ginger markings

off the streets her papers say

and only one year old

 

landed on her feet

but for now sweet mews from the couch.

Her thoroughly Irish name means Freedom

 

“Like Saoirse Ronan -

you know, ‘Little Women’!”

“Um vaguely yes of course.”

 

One day fearless she’ll be lord of the manor

walk soft as rain on sea

but on Day Two she’s behind the couch.

Sunday, 20 April 2025

Resurrection

 


Detail of 'Resurrection, Cookham' (1924-27)

Sir Stanley Spencer, held at Tate Britain, London.

 

Reflections for Easter Day, the 20th of April 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 

Today Stanley Spencer (1891-1959) is one of England’s most celebrated artists. Like so many English people, Spencer lived virtually his entire life in one place, in his case the village of Cookham, upstream from London. He described the place as “possessed by a sacred presence.” Here he used his inimitable artistic gifts to depict Cookham through an understanding of his favourite reading: the Bible in the Authorised Version. ‘Christ Preaching at Cookham Regatta’ is one of his masterpieces. Another, ‘Resurrection, Cookham’, was acquired by Tate Britain in 1927. He turned the Victorian ‘conversation piece’ painting into a visionary and very personal revelation of Scripture, his lived environment, and those he knew in everyday life.

 The Resurrection recurs as a preferred subject throughout his life. The Resurrection is happening where you find yourself. In the Tate painting, the villagers rest or rise or stand in the church graveyard, dressed and in appearance as they were in the day, in the artist’s own memory, some of them standing literally in their graves. Surprise, bafflement, wonder, amazement, disbelief are responses to the vast image, but then what is the right response to seeing resurrection? The artist appears to be saying, this is what you do feel at such times. One observer has said Spencer had little sense of hierarchy: everything is a creation of God. Another recalled him saying some gallery visitors “become angry because his ‘Resurrection’s don’t look like their ideas about the Resurrection.”  Which rather begs the question of what does it look like? His painting, for all its unusual manner, creates an immense sense of peace. Although viewers recognize many of the traumas and challenges of Spencer’s own life writ large in the people portrayed, here in the churchyard there is a powerful sense of reconciliation and belonging. It is a painting that invites prolonged contemplation, even over a lifetime.

 Related to this exemplary Christian action in art, Stanley Spencer was also a kind of self-appointed lay preacher. Biographers tell countless stories of Spencer talking at length to anyone about Bible passages, at any time of the day or night. Understanding residents of Cookham are recorded as having every reaction to his extended exegeses, the underwhelming, whelming, and overwhelming. It was a great day to be alive. Blessedly, we can all take time today to be whelmed by his sermons on canvas and paper, prolific, inspiring, and original as they are. Spencer puts us in the way of seeing our own world in all of its immediacy, drama, and uniqueness.   

Thursday, 17 April 2025

Bubble

 


[Bubble]

 

Politicians. What more can we say?

Making it up till election day

keeping to a script inside their bubbles.

 

Climate? Confinement! Banning!

Cannot see the planet for the planning -

poll-driven pollies inside policy bubbles.

 

Kiss the baby and give the head a pat

Anthony Elbowgrease and Peter Doormat.

No trouble inside their bubbles.

 

Is it all soap opera and media spin

or just hot air and suds, ever so thin

confecting this show of permanent bubbles?

 

Scientists with their Warnings and Hubble,

doctors stepping through bombed-out rubble

need not detain those inside of bubbles.

 

Even the round world’s imagined corners

are but statistics to a mob of scorners

depending for life on this one space bubble.

 

Politicians. What more can they say?

Forever blowing bubbles night and day,

little bubbles in the air. Bubbles.

 

 

Saturday, 12 April 2025

Cat

 


[Cat]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘White Interior (Le Cannet)’ (1932)

 

The carpet must needs be tigerish fire,

symmetry a surprise that never tires –

light, juxtapose with dark to describe desires.

 

The table is a boundary across her view

height of leap, then an object avenue –

colour how litheness darts, slides, waits anew.

 

The teapot has never been more resolute

counterpoint to the cat arch, lively, cute –

make a galleon past which a yacht might scoot.

 

The eyes, closest to the mind in her head

pupils full moons, then thin as thread –

show her very thought in a thousand unsaids.

 

The spine curves through space on all fours

from under chest-of-drawers through French doors –

illustrate how her moving body is first cause.

 

The tail makes a trail in the air, a sign

of the general mood of the solid feline -

attempt to suggest a shrewd curl, a benign whine.

 

The canvas stretched uncracked from side to side

is the room where cat frolics, flirts and hides –

allow considerable contortions, and pride.

 

The brush with life is like the brush of the cat

touch and go the whole time, day in day out -

copy the cat out of wonder at where it’s at.

 

The paint turns nine lives into an organised herd,

there’s what will occur, what occurs and occurred –

ask it to say a few previously unheard words. 

Saturday, 5 April 2025

Cartoon

 


[Cartoon]

 

Anthony Albanese,

a workhorse some call lazy;

understated, or clearly hazy?

 

Anthony Albanese

not easy being PM Albanese

in a world of tariff crazies.

 

Adam Bandt.

Did you say Adam Ant?

Prepare for a two-hour rant!

 

Adam Bandt

can’t just cannot abide cant

for it he just cannot standt!

 

Peter Dutton

in Queensland thing’s hit rock bottom,

in Denmark there’s something rotten.

 

Peter Dutton

shows he ain’t got nuthin’ -

say “Nuclear” and press his button.

 

David Littleproud

can’t pull a crowd,

has to say things very loud.

 

David Littleproud?

Yes David Littleproud,

that’s correct David Littleproud.

 

Bob Brown,

he’s been around.

No one’s going to keep him down.

 

Bob Brown

speaks with a frown

about those Capital City clowns.

 

King Charles the Third

hasn’t heard, or been referred

to Pam the Bird.

 

Charles, King of Great Britain

of whom much is written.

Once shy, now hard bitten.

 

Samantha Mostyn

says climate’s costin’

this world we’re found or lost in.

 

The same Sam Mostyn

serves tea and buns (Boston)

when the neighbours come she’s hostyn.

 

Saturday, 29 March 2025

Bottle

 


[Bottle]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘Dining room at Le Cannet’ (1932)

 

Remind them of the shape of bottle

lip and neck and base and not too subtle

how it fills the space not too little.

 

Erect the form using line. incorrect colour

the time it takes to fill with water

or something sweeter or tipsier, richer.

 

Suggest body with blue patch of window,

crimson curl reflection, distant dayglow

inside glass silver liquid, go with the flow.

 

Demonstrate, using cubist traction

impressionist smudge, baroque affection,

its air of indefinite abstraction.

 

Imagine the genie who got us all here

all the questions so far yet so near.

all’s as it appears, yet changed it’s clear.

 

Write the message bottled for their word game

who still have to find out how futile is fame;

only love, work, rest, signed with your name.

 

Imply that all objects have such mystery,

the contents take effect in all their variety;

the poet said it, the world’s incorrigible plurality.

 

Describe its glassiness as simply the start

of iconic afternoon its edges prefiguring dark.

there are years wherein to appreciate the art.

 

Leave it to breathe where you saw it last

to the gaze of aging friends sharing the past

and the young who find the whole thing a blast.

Sunday, 23 March 2025

Table

 


[Table]

 

“Guidelines when Painting“

 

Pierre Bonnard, detail of ‘The Table’ (1925)

 

The head turns this way then that

so show that, with her face hidden at

an angle in thought whereat she sat.

 

The arm embraces as well as fends,

so show as veins and nerves extend

its curve, how the muscles flex and bend.

 

The hand puts all things in their place

so show how the fine parts hold in space,

move slight, or swift, with speechless grace.

 

The plate holds the earth’s goodness

so likewise show its hue and centralness

hard and round and chipped no less.

 

The knife there has ten thousand uses

so solitary, like a paintbrush that sluices

seizes on sizes, renders and reduces.

 

The bowl upholds all things their forms:

attend to the round, sharp, frilly, forlorn

each resting in transit to their next morn.

 

The table, the tablecloth picture the day,

so centre them so with the daily display

of our needs, our work, our play.

 

Then, the door exhibits our small universe

so render both dark and light as at first;

stay this side or exit, for better or worse.

 

The shadow shall speak of passing time

so define each body and object’s special line

outlined by light, and made a certain sign.

Monday, 17 March 2025

Suburb

 


Glen Huntly at Daybreak

[Suburb]

 

“march suburb haiku”

 

there’s a crack in everything

yarraville

and that’s how the light gets in

 

the compost is perfection

thomastown

the tomatoes turn bright red

 

minutes broadmeadows glenroy

pascoe vale

west brunswick on the freeway

 

pobblebonk frog from log drops

moonee ponds

into the water kerplop

 

the weekend arena of

jolimont

its roar of weekday workers

 

more green leaves than yellow leaves

collingwood

soon more yellow leaves than green

 

oh apartments apartments

south yarra

apartments more apartments!

 

the ubers go too fast through

elsternwick

and the trams go far too slow

 

cream brick fifties make way in

cheltenham

for the chocolate brick twenties

 

heatwave conditions of march

kananook

cool into daylight saving

 

glades caper and shimmer in

rosanna

eltham copper butterflies

 

patients in emergency

heidelberg

doctors talk in corridors

 

dry side toasts with rainwater

camberwell

wet side floats on gold bubbly

 

same same, same but different

glen iris

ashburton glen iris, same

 

eucalypt mural barks of

mooroolbark

and morale barks of park dogs

 

there’s vietnamese spanish

dandenong

peruvian sudanese greek

 

more carparks stores trolleys as

pakenham

grows miles in all directions

Saturday, 15 March 2025

Need

 


Image: Illustration to “How Much Land Does a Man Need?” by Leo Tolstoy. ‘Pahóm Running to the Hillock’ by Arkady Plastov (1952), watercolour and gouache on paper. The Leo Tolstoy State Museum, Moscow. 

Reflections for the Second Sunday in Lent, the 16th of March 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

 James Joyce, who wrote the funniest novel in the English language, regarded Leo Tolstoy’s short story ‘How Much Land Does a Man Need’ as “the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.” It is a story about being tempted with the promise of owning the world.

 Pahóm, a villager, listens to his wife argue with her sister, who comes from the city. The elder sister praises town life (fine clothes, good food, theatre) while the younger sister says she would not trade her peasant life; she and her husband may never grow rich, but they will always have enough, whereas rich people often lose all they have. The city, she says, surrounds people with temptations from the Devil. Pahóm agrees with his wife, but also thinks they do not have enough land. If he had more land, even the Devil would not be able to tempt him. The Devil, who is sitting unseen in the room, hears this boast and decides to give more land to ensnare him.

 And so Pahóm raises money to buy 40 acres of a deceased estate. Happiness reigns until he starts fining other peasant landowners who let cattle roam onto his land. This causes resentment. Trials are held with no outcome other than further quarrels, bribes, and ill-feeling. Soon Pahóm hears of promises of even better land some distance away on the other side of the River Volga. Selling his land, he moves there, further away from home. Crops are good, life is fine, but he then learns from a passing dealer of even better land, and cheaper, in a province 300 miles away. He takes a punt and travels all that way, taking a servant but leaving wife and family behind.

 Negotiations with the chiefs of this region, who flatter and entertain him, lead to a deal: the price of their land will be one thousand rubles a day. Pahóm is puzzled by what this means, so it is explained that he can have as much land as he can walk around in a day. If he fails to return to his starting point within that time, he will forfeit his thousand rubles. The night before the Big Walk, Pahóm in a dream meets a man who is laughing outside his tent. It’s the Chief, but he then sees it is also the land dealer of long ago and, in fact, the Devil and that at his feet is a dead man: Pahóm.

 Waking up he goes out early to walk the perimeter of the land he wishes to own. The chiefs watch, the day is hot, and he walks for a long time, morning into afternoon then evening. Exhausted, he goes faster and faster and breaks into a run, discarding his coat, boots, and flask. The sun is close to the horizon as he rushes towards the chiefs and collapses in front of them, touching the Chief’s cap, in which his money lies. The Chief declares that Pahóm has acquired a lot of land. However, when Pahóm’s servant runs to him, he finds that Pahóm is dead. The servant digs a grave and buries him.

 After striving for so long to acquire land, all the land Pahóm needs now is six feet.

 

Monday, 10 March 2025

Secret

 


Iso-mandala No. 162 (October 2020)

[Secret]

 

secrets flare up from coals alive in ash

containment lines detect the nascent flash

stop turning my mood into burning trash

 

others congregate around a name

yours or mine or theirs it’s never the same

given what’s the game or who is to blame

 

secrets exist in various sizes

so many metaphoric reprises

deliver the same old instant surprises

 

daylight is no obstacle to dream

secrets secreted burst into words, seem

undercover yet ever on the scene

 

spell them out on the page for all to gaze

secrets that have become set in their ways

they still shatter peace or frighten the days

 

but what guilt or guard or hurt or fear

made them secrets likely to reappear

keep us in the dark where the price is dear

 

I would be freed of their inner power

the years cannot undo to spoil the hour

of their return and the doubts that sour

 

can but offer them in secret, my own

known or forgot, to the only unknown

to whom all desires and secrets shown

 

are there made real in their act of reveal

their dash and shame and cries and schemes unsealed

tears and cowers and groans let go, appealed