September

 

Image: Iso-mandala no. 121 (September 2020)

 

[September] 

“september haiku senses”

 

nerves tingle that were dormant

september

birds sing faster in the veins

 

a jugful of tap water

september

washes down dawn’s windscreen ice

 

fingers run across thin glass

september

chasing favourite pictures

 

bright sun light details each room

september

rain darkens the next hour

 

look after the pennies and

september

the pounds look after themselves

 

tongue repeats the language of

september

after the songbirds have flown

 

sore sinuses under siege

september

meds a brief relief party

 

it’s all over already

september

the meeting texts the big news

 

cool mynahs pollinating

september

small pink nectarine blossoms

 

computer-free few hours

september

enjoying a meal with friends

 

red light runners tailgaters

september

lane hoppers late blinkers hoons

 

dog with a limp, dog with stick

september

park a whirligig of wind

 

noses waver savouring

september

is that blossom, lavender …?

 

if rain makes the ground sodden

september

wet football decides the score

 

their trespasses are scarlet

september

their online headlines are read

 

ear delicately tunes to

september

nature sublime chanteuse

 

eyes drew all geometries

september

that close now blank storyboards 

Money

 

Reflections for the Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost, the 28th of September 2025, in the pew notes at St Peter’s Church, Eastern Hill, Melbourne.  Written by Philip Harvey.

1Timothy 6:6-19; Luke 16: 19-end

‘Follow the money’ is the prompt saying people use to explain the real, if often hidden, cause of many of the messes and mischiefs of this world. Whether it be the obscene deviances of international politics, the apparent inability of our society to house people, or the complacent amorality of redundancy culture, follow the money. Even the smallest private argument may have money as its tacit meaning.

 Sermons since childhood have spelt out that it’s not money, as such, that is the root of all evil, but the love of money. The writer to Timothy wishes to make him aware of the devices and desires of his own heart. The selfishness of simply making wealth for its own sake blinds one to the needs of others. One can begin to judge all transactions and relationships in money terms rather than shared terms. But this ‘love’ can take many forms. The usurer applies unjust and unreal debts. Gamblers waste their earnings, and others’, in a meaningless cycle. The miser refuses to share, treating money as an end rather than a means. The spendthrift throws away earnings and inheritance, wasting resources and disregarding the likely consequences. Cheats weave a tangled web when first they practise to deceive. Charity, the root word of love, is absent where others are excluded from the common wealth, or used for selfish gain

.Scripture is everywhere plainspoken about wealth. If money is a necessity but love of it the root of all evil, then how to deal with it wisely becomes paramount. Today’s Gospel is a provocative challenge, even cartoon-like in its telling, a story of social division. If the unnamed rich man is so wrapped up in his own sumptuous lifestyle that he never notices the starving man at his gate, what happens when he must see existence through the poor man’s eyes? When leftovers were enough, the homeless man received nothing, whereas now the unnamed big shot begs for just a sip of water. Noticeably, the poor man is named, Lazarus is his own person both now and in time to come. Which gives us a strong idea about Jesus’ own interests in getting us also to identify with Lazarus. Luke ends this wakeup call of a parable with mordant irony, compounding the urgency of the present moment: if people like the unnamed rich man “do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced if some one should rise from the dead.”  

 

Impressionist

 Impressionist

 

Image: “Day for Night”, two views of Boulevard Montmartre, by Camille Pissarro (1897) in ‘Impressionism’, published by Scala in 2011

 

good morning

Degas Edgar wrong side of bed ah!

make way for the 1000 cameras

the piped Debussy Claude

a tote bag of collected finesse

courtesy the gallery specialty shop

and Manet Édouard bonjour

expect the unexpected

at breakfast high on grass

amidst the madding crowd

in something called real time

 

good afternoon

Renoir Pierre-Auguste thus

perfecter of views

glittering canals

impossible gondolas

soundpods tracking your every glance

where weekenders pay to escape

and Seurat Georges a forge

of individual pixels

a surge of urgent atoms

merging into one big gorgeous

stay perfectly still!

 

good evening

Pissarro Camille at will

witness to how landscape

leans forward into fading light

tends its wild forms

even as they simplify to abstract

and Monet Claude ever

in hat and bemusement

getting down down to the point

to everything the sun can do

affective at any angle

and underwater

 

good night

Cézanne Paul what’s it all for

bringing down the curtain

on all those tricks of the light

the gilt of the salon heavy

heavier than a nightmare

in need of another day release

and Gauguin Paul

tripping to where the day begins

golden again and surfing off the reef

or is that Bonnard Paul

silently setting out the utensils

that washed and cleaned

will in a few hours

return to the landscape of a lifetime

impression by impression

the sea colouring with first light

Impressionism

 

 

It is easier to view the visitors than the paintings, which they obscure to a depth of three ranks before each work. Daylight is glimpsed through a crowd of night clouds dressed in Melbourne black. Daylight is pale blue dobs beside leafgreen jabs, night is someone’s back. Contrasts are irresistible, Impressionist impressions irrefutable. Par exemple, Parisians do not prop their glasses on top of their forehead. Baring forearms in a salon is unheard of. No one during the belle époque drags their lazy handbag behind them across the floor. Where buttons are supplied, Parisians are given to buttoning up, whereas visitors tend to affect the hang loose shirt. While if Parisians do wear rubbersoled running shoes the artist has kept that feature outside the frame, though it be the most common footwear of Melburnians to a gallery. Paris shares with Melbourne a belief in the colour black, in as much as black is a colour, but draws the line at fluorescent pink whether as shoe, coat, hair, or accessory. Jockeys at Longchamp will wear fluorescent pink. Best to rest a while on an accommodating circular divan, not going anywhere soon. Visitors shuffle from one France to the next, like one of the slow marches of Erik Satie. They travelled here at immense speeds using gasoline to spend an hour or two at a dawdle. Pince-nez are out of fashion, but one learned elder inspects through his Giorgio Armani vintage eyewear an interior that almost caused a riot. The hours and weeks spent sitting for Edgar Degas get a second glance in this ambience, at most, but for the two ladies with pepper-and-salt hair talking in high tones the solemnity of the couple in oils staring them down. Horse and carriage, or a flirt with flaneuring, are the means they took to be here. The things visitors say to a painting. Weekend visitors with bills to pay and mortgages express shock at the price tag of a sloppy boulevard. Found a favourite, Charlotte? I want a selfie of me with Renoir. Such heights of enshrined respectability hang demonstrably opulent for artists who wished to make all things new. Preliminary Final Day is not recommended for visiting the Impressionists at the Gallery. Families make a beeline for a still-life with flowers, promises then of an ice-cream. Everyone wants to be part of the revolution, divan or no divan. Grand Final Day is the best option, as everyone in Melbourne has foregone galleries, eyes fixed that afternoon on the oval or a screen. In a few hours it will all be over bar the shouting. Visitors, meanwhile, may spend the entire afternoon in front of Claude Monet, without interruption, soaking up the manmade ponds.

Predictive

 

good morning

my predictive companion

lacking opinions

tirelessly suggesting the next word

as if language were a wind-up machine

knows the right word from the best word

its algorithms from its onions

and may be turned off at will

at the settings menu

 

good afternoon

so original

it might be thought well-meaning

jogs my finger for the best choice

while my mind races with bon mots

yet to enter its vocabulary

with a fanfare of vowels

its music is all the palaver

I’ve heard before

and lacking the personal persiflage

 

good evening

this is no joke

this is the grey that could turn to black

non-person of non-description

its choice is always prosaic

a smorgasbland

menu please

of literally the most predictable phrases

it is seemingly polite, for a cipher

and incapable of a typo

 

good night

predictable I suppose

is what to expect and who? did I?

invite this dull companion on board?

its hints all fail at funny

doggedly it states the obvious

this was going to be a different day

until predictive text got in the way

anticipating my every thought

shadowing the light of the mind

Limits

 

Image: Iso-mandala No. 256 (27^th December 2020)

 good morning

where little by little luminosity

turns every head towards grandeur

where even false starts are true starts

the habit of a serenade

and steps forward carry

irresistible questions of us

 

good afternoon

certainties of sameness

somebody watching

natural breakthroughs

galling setbacks

the limits of everything possible

micromanaging of the present tense

nevertheless contrariwise

what was once intended looks different

our disappointments left on the shelf

 

good evening

resumes our reflections

a lifetime won’t let us forget

reflects our resignation

arranges the handful of answers

this single day has offered for free

whatever the outcome

suppertime restitutions

leave it that way for now

 

good night

collects lost thoughts

best thoughts with least thought

into last thoughts

never feels quite final

the hidden galaxy of our own city

windows stars in the darkness

over the hills and far

dreaming unwritten limitless

Him

 

Image: Real Estate 3: Toorak Highett (Autumn 2021)

good morning

from him disconcerting

unintended he means well

the ways he says it’s the thing

but then what of you

forced from a corner

into a corner

by a salutation?

 

good afternoon

world weary words from him

mind on a slew of commitments

why say it at all, you think

the sun being what it is

only at least him makes an effort

notices you need noticing

between the pings and arrows

of incoming texts

 

good evening

he beat you to it

leaving by the main entrance

another day another douleur

faltering you follow with a sound

similar in intention

but more like a belated sunset

 

good night

from you home at last

work only a thought now

at least amidst family

dinner and mockumentaries

the daily roundup of events

only a nagging inner voice that says

it’s goodnight from him

 

Between

 

                                           Image: ‘Ovid Void 10’ (January 2021)

 

good morning

between straightened pillows

overcome by brain centre dreams

and the plausible adventures

the rest of day embarks upon

contrary to your expert plans,

without your say-so too

the rest of the world

its wants and how-de-do

 

good afternoon

between the other end of the sandwich

bought at survival rates

a meal yours to make a meal of

and the locking of all work exits

as you exit, proof

(paid in full) you are certifiably

not a sovereign citizen

 

good evening

between the chaos and wonder

of a day like no other

brought up to management standards

all too soon

and the routine closure of all

yes all the above

you keep in an orderly fashion

its how-to-does and say-sos

 

good night

between the daylight that gave you

enough to go on, then some

and the featured moonlight

of a night like no other

capable of every mood change

known to humankind

you plumping pillows

resting the restive brain