Time

Time drags like the hem

of a draggled velvet skirt

on the floor.

It seeps up between the floorboards

with a stale, forgotten smell.

It dusts a fine covering over

porcelain statuettes.

Large wooden clocks in hallways

mete out its rhythm.

The trees grow tired, droop, and drop their leaves.

People grow older, and greyer.

Memories of events lose their lustre.

Cracks appear.

Time wafts and degenerates

matter and the animate,

slowly encroaching.

Constant renewal is necessary 

for time to appear

as though it is not there,

that it is not moving forward.

Just because everything else

completes a cycle,

and comes again.

But inexorably, it creeps.

Encroaching upon the domain 

of the living,

who fool themselves

they are not living

on borrowed time.

And it is borrowed – 

every moment of it.

A precious thing.

Because one day 

you look in a mirror

and the laughing girl

with a button nose,

and brown hair

sees though faded brown eyes

a face looking seriously back,

fanned by wisps of grey hair.

And the clock in the hallway

ticks inexorably on.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

William Ricketts Sanctuary © Jennifer Phillips

Poetry

Poetry ennobles the heart and the eyes, 
and unveils the meaning of all things 
upon which the heart and the eyes dwell. 
It discovers the secret rays of the universe, 
and restores to us forgotten paradises. 

by Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell

Little talks

Hey! Hey! Hey!

I don't like walking around this old and empty house

So hold my hand, I'll walk with you, my dear

The stairs creak as you sleep, it's keeping me awake

It's the house telling you to close your eyes

And some days I can't even trust myself

It's killing me to see you this way

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey! Hey! Hey!

There's an old voice in my head that's holding me back

Well, tell her that I miss our little talks

Soon it will be over and buried with our past

We used to play outside when we were young

And full of life and full of love.

Some days I don't know if I am wrong or right

Your mind is playing tricks on you, my dear

'Cause though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Hey!

Hey!

You're gone, gone, gone away

I watched you disappear

All that's left is the ghost of you.

Now we're torn, torn, torn apart,

There's nothing we can do

Just let me go we'll meet again soon

Now wait, wait, wait for me

Please hang around

I'll see you when I fall asleep

Hey!

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Don't listen to a word I say

Hey!

The screams all sound the same

Hey!

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore

Though the truth may vary

This ship will carry our bodies safe to shore.

by Of Monsters and Men

Ship - Copyright Free Images

Lost lyrics

Finally started to sing your song

But now our lyrics run off different pages

And it has taken me this long…

You occupied my mind for ages.

Perhaps it’s time to let it go

We dreamed uniquely for a while

But working just to spin the wheels…

Not enough, we’re ground down low.

Our words met and danced upon the air,

We shared our lives, explored our scars

But there’s a word I know: “untenable”…

Because you’re no longer really there.

One pair of hands cannot maintain the grip

On that old beacon flashing

Potential for probability…

And I think now, we’ve had our trip.

Our light wavered in the gloom

Writing into the void, is 

Something surely to avoid…

Time now perhaps, to make some room.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

Beacon © Daryl Willcox Publishing Ltd

Reductio ad absurdum
Unbalanced

The end

A splendid thing - an end can be

the world in rags, in tears and stilts

The crowds will churn in open graves

and cars will halt to rust like nails

The poets in their somberness

will write of lovers lost and dead

Will mock the sun, the rancid moon

will curse their pens and swoon with grace

A wicked thing - an end can be

when demon hordes run amok

where long ago the angels trod.

by Omukuvah Otido (reproduced with permission)

By Pieter Bruegel the Elder - public domain artwork from Wikipaintings.org

Voyager

sailing the sea of an autumn sky

spinning unnoticed in its accustomed path

the great glowing globe that is the moon

never stops to rig its cloudy sails

letting them blow free as they will

untamed curtains that veil but do not hide

its brilliance

heedless of stars that like a school of pilot fish

swim close alongside on this predictable journey

it’s a clockwork procession ordained by an unseen hand

indifferent to all but the susurrous hymn of the sky

but even the moon

cold as it is

weeps to see the coming of winter

© 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

Painting: Veiled Harvest Moon © 2013 RC deWinter ~ All Rights Reserved

When you were young

You sit there in your heartache

Waiting on some beautiful boy

To save you from your old ways

You play forgiveness

Watch him now, here he comes

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus

But he talks like a gentleman

Like you imagined when you were young

Can we climb this mountain? I don’t know

Higher now than ever before

I know we can make it if we take it slow

That's takin' easy, easy now, watch it go

We’re burning down the highway skyline

On the back of a hurricane that started turning

When you were young

When you were young

And sometimes you close your eyes

And see the place where you used to live

When you were young

They say the Devil’s water it ain’t so sweet

You don’t have to drink right now

But you can dip your feet

Every once in a little while

You sit there in your heartache

Waiting on some beautiful boy

To save you from your old ways

You play forgiveness

Watch him now, here he comes

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus

But he talks like a gentleman

Like you imagined when you were young

(Talks like a gentleman)

(Like you imagined when)

When you were young

I said he doesn’t look a thing like Jesus

He doesn’t look a thing like Jesus

But more than you’ll ever know

By The Killers

Arbitrary age-markers

"We set down these arbitrary age-markers for ourselves and others, as if destiny and fate work to the schedule we dictate. Life doesn't change at the turning of each decade. Life wends and winds and morphs itself around the little moments of each day. It's only on looking back that we compartmentalise it all and say, "Yes. That is who I am. It's all so clear and set in stone now." Of course it isn't clear. Neither is it set in stone. It never was.
And it's far more fun to refuse to ever let it be set than to simply succumb."

by Corinne Grant in "Crisis? What crisis?" The Age - August 3, 2013

Spring blossoms

Ornamental cherry blossoms © Jennifer Phillips

Ornamental cherry blossoms © Jennifer Phillips

Ornamental cherry blossoms © Jennifer Phillips

Myth

1

The boy who swallowed the moon

has soft hands, and white.

He must be held against the cold.

Fireflies dim in his cupped palms;

owls flush in his wake.

In the pond rests his full reflection,

perfect and safe.

The bullfrog dark, lit only by his cigarette,

fills with need.

2

With pre-dawn clarity

we discuss ghosts, believe in them

like we believe in the brush of timothy,

the sting of gnats. The creek carries away

our words; falling stars

burn through a shifting mist.

A pale rock becomes

a skunk. A hand becomes wind.

by Kristen Lindquist

Owl - Copyright Free Images

Purple people picture

Inside the mind of my 9 year old daughter! She dedicated this to her friend Joe © Jennifer Phillips

When death comes

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something

precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

by Mary Oliver

Lilium © Jennifer Phillips

Rockland moon

Is the moon

just past full

It is silver like

a rare coin of Greece or China

the surface of the Harbor

is glistening

I wonder where you are

just upstairs

or a thousand leagues away

I look at the dim room

yellow tulips, maple

I hear the voice 

of a lonely woman

who will cry

exactly 52 minutes

are you looking out 

your window

at this cool firework

I have arranged for you

why did God put me here

jotting notes of nature

of the beauty of your mind

You smile

at this nonsense

which keeps me up

past pill time

because I must tell you

of the glow

radiating out from my heart

because life is beautiful

like you

by Kendall Merriam

Moon © Jennifer Phillips

On not knowing until it's gone

"Under the weight of greater or lesser fortunes, I think what happens to a great many of us is that we really don't know what we want or with whom we'd like to have it. Nothing seems real until it's already gone. Until it's sealed up tight, out of reach. Until it's dead. Be it a person or a dream. And then the light comes, and so we mourn."

Barlozzo in "A Thousand Days in Tuscany" by Marlena de Blasi

Steal the light

Sing now muse, I won’t be scared.

She’s wearing flowers, not snakes up in her hair tonight.

And love we’ve been around before...

We washed up on the old shore but it’s new tonight.

‘It’s only light’, she said.

‘But we are liars to be free’.

Ooh ooh ooh, we’ll steal the light to see.

The hour falls, we fall to dance.

The sirens and the marching bands sing:

‘It’s nothing but chance tonight’

The billion ones, and many few

and everyone I never knew, they’re here tonight.

‘It’s only light’, we said.

But we are liars to be free.

Ooh ooh ooh, we’ll steal the light to see.

What if I’m lonely?

What if the skies should fall and disappear?

For one night only,

open your eyes and run into the clear.

So if I may, what if I say

‘It’s good to have you here!’

She said: ‘If you lead, I’ll come along

And if you need me there, I’ll sing your song tonight.

And all that glows, and all that shines

and all we leave behind will keep them warm tonight’.

‘It’s only light’, I said.

But we are liars to be free.

Ooh ooh ooh, we’ll steal the light to see.

What if I’m lonely?

What if the skies should fall and disappear?

For one night only.

Open your eyes and run into the clear.

I love you only

until the skies fall down and disappear.

So if I may, what if I say:

‘It’s good to have you here!’

Oh oh oh… 

by the Cat Empire

Awesome show, also featured Tinpan Orange and Animaux.

On old age

"It's been years since I'd remembered how good a castagnaccio can taste, longer even since I'd sat in the fields and really looked at a night sky. I didn't know I'd surrendered all of my mystery and damn near all my defiance. Did you know it's defiance that keeps a man optimistic? Without his secrets, his rebellions, his little vendettas against another man or against the same wild hare who eludes him three days in a row, against hunger, against time itself - if he loses these, he loses his voice. I'm faded, spent, yet I'm young and eager. Or is that only memory? I was born for, built for, a certain life that no longer exists. Oh, I don't mean that all of it's gone. Some of the appetites for life as it used to be still survive but it's not the same. Can't be the same. There's an emptiness that comes with plenty. It's that same sprezzatura, that nonchalance we've talked about before. I feel hollow and dulled most of the time, as though it's only in the past that I can find myself. I'm my own ancestor. I'm full of history but I have no present. I feel like I've lasted too long, while others didn't last long enough."

Barlozzo in "A Thousand Days in Tuscany" by Marlena de Blasi

Castagnaccio © Lemonpi

Done stealin'

If I had the chance to say

Remove the walls, let’s clean the slate

Would it make us new?

Should we find a way to start

Without the mess we’ve made this far?

Would it make us new?

I’ve seen this movie once before

Don’t need to see the end, no

I can’t get away and you will never leave me

Addicted to the game, it’s time to make it easy

I can’t get enough, so I have to do the right thing

And give you back ‘cause I’m done stealin’

If someone looked into our case

And said our files could be erased

Would that make us new?

Just tell me when and where to sign

I’ll check in and do the time

And tell the truth

‘Cause I’ve seen this movie twice before

Don’t need to see the end, no

I can’t get away and you will never leave me

Addicted to the game, it’s time to make it easy

I can’t get enough, so I have to do the right thing

And give you back ‘cause I’m done stealin’

I know that we can make our dreams come true

Is a crime committed? We misunderstood

Oh yeah, oh yeah!

‘Cause I’m done stealin’

If a jury read your mind

You’d go away for quite some time

Would that make us new?

I can’t get away and you will never leave me

Addicted to the game, it’s time to make it easy

I can’t get enough, so I have to do the right thing

And give you back ‘cause I’m done stealin’

I can’t get away and you will never leave me

Addicted to the game, it’s time to make it easy

I can’t get enough, so I have to do the right thing

And give you back ‘cause I’m done stealin’

Truly that is something I believe

by Carolina Liar

Dipping your wick

You've been dipping your wick in some other slick,

so I'll just have to give you the flick.

And I crane my neck to see that old moon, 

but I just get a crick.

Don't hit me with your rhythm stick, 

because I'm not listening anymore.

So you can just wash up on that damn shore,

because our love, it had no core.

No piece, no heart, no rest.

Glad I've got all this off my chest.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

Shore © Jennifer Phillips

Nocturne

I remember, my dear one,

how laughter once rippled through your eyes,

and dreams were ours for the taking,

as we danced on promises

so wildly seducing the night.

We danced among night sounds sweetly

and passion burned within us,

playing naked with the melody of love

while the heavenly rain

played a delicate embrace with the wind.

Now the melting moon no longer holds our dreams

and our promises have turned themselves to ashes

In my mind, I touch your hand and listen

for that lover's tune, still seducing

my jagged heart.

by Roan Scott
(Reproduced here with permission)

Melting moon © Jennifer Phillips

All night loud

Ever since I was 16

I wished that Spring would come to me

and I wished that I could dance up on the isles.

Sweat rivers on a stage of steam,

I let my thoughts begin to dream.

I held my breath and ran into the wild.

And each night a horizon grew

in all of us, or just a few

'Til morning’s gold would make it disappear.

Yet somewhere in my treasured chest

is not forgot what must forget

but that’s a feeling for another year.

And movement has a way like words - 

you’re there before the rhyme is heard

And all that one can do is shape the ride.

The miles of a forgotten dream

are yours my love - it’s where we’ve been

and maybe one day soon we will arrive.

Playing all night loud.

Playing all night loud.

Sing it all night with me,

all night loud.

And we went on a whirlwind trip

The nights unwound, the records flipped

And stillness came like chaos in the lights.

And voices like devotion flew

across the sea from me to you

in music that I still cannot describe.

And there were ugly times, it’s true.

Some from me and some from you, 

and devils have a way of digging down.

But a friend is not a friend for life

Unless your life is worth the strife

So hold on, we’ll be allright.

Playing all night loud.

Playing all night loud.

Sing it all night with me,

all night loud.

There’s a speech that I know well

was told by Henry V. I’ll tell

A version that relates to us not war

‘He who sheds his sweat with me,

will be my friend eternally

from this day to the ending of the world!’

No matter if we’re young or old, 

or in the sun or in the cold, 

I hope I can remember your bright eyes.

'Cos I know you, and you know me

At least somehow mysteriously.

So thank you my dear friends

and, that’s goodnight.

I’m much obliged.

I’m much obliged.

So thank you my dear friends, 

and that’s goodnight

I’m much obliged.

I’m much obliged.

So thank you, my dear friends, 

and that’s good night.

by The Cat Empire

Moon © Jennifer Phillips

Being here

"Because being here is much, and because all this that's here, so fleeting, seems to require us and strangely concerns us. Us the most fleeting of all. Everyone just once, once only. Just once, and no more. And we too, once. And never again. But this having been once, although only once, to have been of the Earth seems irrevocable."

by Rainer Maria Rilke

A visitor to the garden

Common ringtail possum Pseudocheirus peregrinus © Jennifer Phillips

Last night I was outside just breathing in the scents of honeysuckle and jasmine combined on the gentle breeze, as the crescent moon glowed above. Stars twinkled and wheeled in the caress of wispy clouds across the darkness of the sky... then a little visitor leapt into the Crepe Myrtle tree, and investigated me!

Common ringtail possum Pseudocheirus peregrinus © Jennifer Phillips

Common ringtail possum Pseudocheirus peregrinus © Jennifer Phillips

Sonnet XVII

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,

or the arrow of the carnations the fire shoots off.

I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,

in secret, between the shadow and the soul. 

I love you as the plant that never blooms

but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;

thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,

risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.

I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;

so I love you because I know no other way

than this: 

where I do not exist, nor you,

so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,

so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

by Pablo Neruda

Ornamental cherry blossoms © Jennifer Phillips

Wisdom

© Leunig - The Saturday Age - August 24, 2013

New oceans

“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore.” 

by  Andre Gide

Melbourne International Tall Ship Festival 2013

Tall ship - Williamstown Harbour © Jennifer Phillips

Sea plane - Williamstown Harbour © Jennifer Phillips

Tall ships - Williamstown Harbour © Jennifer Phillips

Fold me in 2

I dream... I am as fragile

and as malleable

as a piece of origami paper.

Fold me neatly, tear me in 2.

The blue moon smiles

and the cat's shadow leaps

across the wall, 

as darkness falls into night.

Take one half:  

Copy these hyperbolic words.

Fold carefully into a paper crane

and launch, fly free across the sea.

Leave half behind:

Fold into a plain paper plane

to follow flight paths ordained 

across familiar skies.

The cat's whisker

is a hair's breadth out of synch

between a whisper and a whistle 2

call the dogs of night.

On paper cranes, or paper planes

draw an ellipse - your breaths and mine

across the blue silhouette

of that crazy moon.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

© WallSave

Some like poetry

Some –
not all, that is.
Not even the majority of all, but the minority.
Not counting school, where one must,
or the poets themselves,
there’d be maybe two such people in a thousand.

Like –
but one also likes chicken-noodle soup,
one likes compliments and the color blue,
one likes an old scarf,
one likes to prove one’s point,
one likes to pet a dog.

Poetry –
but what sort of thing is poetry?
Many a shaky answer
has been given to this question.
But I do not know and do not know and hold on to it,
as to a saving banister.

by Wislawa Szymborska

Lonely moon

Girl in the park one day

Killing all the bugs on the pavement

Seems like she got a nasty streak

But she does it in a beautiful way

Like a bullet from a gun

She sparks and then she runs

The only thing she's sure of

Is that no one really understands

Sometimes ... talking about

Things just seem so strange

Lie awake in the lonely night

Things just seem so strange

Maybe it's all prearranged

Tears on an empty page

Look out the window see the full moon bloom and

This is what he says, Baby

Don't you worry

When you feel so lonely, cos

Everyone's lonely

They're all crazy too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's crazy

Under a lonely moon

Sometimes she gets this way

About her when she sways

Slips into a liquid tune

And vanishes away

And it's only for herself

She can't bring anyone else

Everyone's got a special box

That they keep on a dusty shelf

Such a beautiful dangerous thing

Beautiful and strange

Making love to the night itself

Beautiful and strange

Maybe it's all prearranged

Tears on an empty page

Look out the window see the full moon bloom and

This is what he says, Baby

Don't you worry

If people call you crazy, cos

Everyone's crazy

They're all lonely too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's crazy

Under a lonely moon

[Musical interlude]

Don't you worry

When you feel so lonely, cos

Everyone's lonely

They're all crazy too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's lonely

Under a lonely moon

Don't you worry

If people call you crazy, cos

Everyone's crazy

They're all lonely too

Like their mothers

Like their fathers

Everyone's crazy

Under a lonely moon

by the Cat Empire

Lonely moon - Copyright Free Images

Spring has sprung

"Red Haven" peach blossoms in the garden today © Jennifer Phillips

We'll be fine

The great heart wind
has blown its course.
Lost Elysium Isles, 
and all that.

Once a moon, cold soot eddies
from the furnace which once
housed the heat of our hearts
and blew smoke screens on the sky.

Covered in Southern garden ash
moonburned and thirsty, 
no longer can we see
to kiss the stars
and universe goodnight.

This is the tale 
that ate its snake.
So, dust off the pages
and move on. 
We'll be fine.

© Jennifer Phillips (All rights reserved)

Islands © Globe Images

Reductio ad absurdum

Smoke screens
Burn the garden

This Thing
Stardust

Balance spring

The ebb and flow

of lunar dancing 

in the secret garden

wound our clock

and wounded hearts

around and within

our circles entwined.

The balance spring

tore between hemispheres

half-loves and partial vows.

Your winter and my summer,

shadow and puppet-

not before sunrise.

not after sunset.

What was that promise that you made?

I’m

going

to…

All of her meter and couplet,

and his free verse could not let

the clockmaker re-pair

what hands out of phase kept apart.

Till time does cleave

the water and the wild

drown in calm waves

of bored contentment?

The stars and the moon

unwanted now?

Fickle tongue

tasting words

and flesh.

On what will the

soul feast

tomorrow?

© "Neon Veil" (All rights reserved)

Watch works © PinholeGirl (deviantART)

She walks in beauty

She walks in beauty, like the night

   Of cloudless climes and starry skies;

And all that’s best of dark and bright

   Meet in her aspect and her eyes;

Thus mellowed to that tender light

   Which heaven to gaudy day denies.

One shade the more, one ray the less,

   Had half impaired the nameless grace

Which waves in every raven tress,

   Or softly lightens o’er her face;

Where thoughts serenely sweet express,

   How pure, how dear their dwelling-place.

And on that cheek, and o’er that brow,

   So soft, so calm, yet eloquent,

The smiles that win, the tints that glow,

   But tell of days in goodness spent,

A mind at peace with all below,

   A heart whose love is innocent!

by Lord Byron (George Gordon)

© Jennifer Phillips

Puffing Billy

Puffing Billy train ride - Dandenongs, Victoria © Jennifer Phillips