Thursday, 24 July 2014

I sing moon

Moon,
Your silver is of gold,
Though night robs colours,
Moon.

Cool, you are warm 
To the unwarm night,
Moon.

And that pallor is a souvenir of light
In night and dark night,
Moon.

When day to come
Would fix its sun
On mourners,
Who sings not moon?

by David Singleton
Moon © Jennifer Phillips

Tuesday, 15 July 2014

Blood


Older brother, restless soul, lie down
Lie for a while with your ear against the earth
And you’ll hear your sister sleep talking
Say, “Your hair is long but not long enough to reach
Home to me
But your beard
Someday might be”

And she woke up in a cold sweat on the floor
Next to a family portrait drawn when you were four
And beside a jar of two cent coins that are no good no more
She’ll lay it aside

Older father, weary soul, you’ll drive
Back to the home you made on the mountainside
With that ugly, terrible thing
Those papers for divorce
And a lonely ring
A lonely ring
Sit on your porch
And pluck your strings

Oh, and you’ll find somebody you can blame
And you’ll follow the creek that runs out into the sea
And you’ll find the peace of the Lord.

Grandfather, weary soul, you’ll fly
Over your life once more before you die
Since our grandma passed away
You’ve waited for forever and a day
Just to die
And someday soon
You will die

It was the only woman you ever loved
That got burnt by the sun too often when she was young
And the cancer spread and it ran into her body and her blood
And there’s nothing you can do about it now.

by The Middle East

Friday, 11 July 2014

Eucalyptus in the snow


© Jennifer Phillips

© Jennifer Phillips

© Jennifer Phillips

Panoramas - Mount Hotham

Click on the images to see the wide-screen view.

Mount Hotham - June 2014 © Jennifer Phillips

Mount Hotham - June 2014 © Jennifer Phillips

Now play in the snow

@ Dinner Plain © Jennifer Phillips

@ Dinner Plain © Jennifer Phillips

@ Dinner Plain © Jennifer Phillips

Smoke & mirrors


Oh my one, I'm so happy
That you've got so far
I know the good, the great
Is working you like a charm.

Oh my one, rushing away
With a bag full of bones
I know the place you left
Still won't leave you alone.

The crow, the cat, the bird and the bee
I'm sure they would agree
That my one is falling for tricks,
Smoke and mirrors playing your wit.

A hue and cry waiting to blow
Under your skin, wherever you go
Still I wish that I knew
The taste of something that good.

by Agnes Obel

A life at play

The five stones are in the air,
But falling.

The hand stiffens in its stretch,
Fingers chording the ether.

The head cross-reckons chance with skill,
Ever lengthening the odds.

The heart is in the air,
But falling.

by David Singleton
© Jennifer Phillips

God has gone back to being God

"Sumtyms life itself is a poseshun and a call for healing. I dont need to be at Missus Malones. I dont need to be at the watery tabl or sayin a prare to nothingness or holding a hand or tuchin a joynt. I wil just be warkin or sittin still at home or droppin off to sleep & am engulfed by what feels like the hole world by what feels like the hole wide bluddy yoonivers.
Its like I turn into the world and the world turns into me.
And when its a world of beests and dust & water & fish then its so fine. Its like I am dansing. Its like my fingertips are tuchin the tiniest scrambling insect and reeching to the furthest frinjes of the darkness and the lite. Its like I spin between the dust and the stars and my body & my mind & sole are filld with the byuty & the majic of of all space and all time and all things that have ever been created.
But at other times it is a world of pane & death & war. The bomin of Blinkbonny takes plays within me. I see it clearly. I see things I hav never seen at all so cudnt possibly see agen but yes I see them clear as day.
I see the bom trucks & the bomers with the boms strapped to ther baks. I see the blasts of fire and smoke & the bildings thudding to the erth & the statews scattering & I hear the screeming of the peepl and see them farlin runnin howlin dyin.
I dont want to see thees things nor to feel the flames to smel the smoke. I dont want these things taykin plays inside me time & time & time agen. But ther is no way to close my eres & eyes no way to block it all out.
Mebbe this is how things became for God. Mebbe once there really was a God who loved his world when it was lovabl and new but he did not want his world to be insyd him when it turnd to war & agony & death.
He came to hate & fear the world that he had made but ther was no way for him to stop it just as ther is no way for me. But mebbe as time went on he did find a way to cast the world out from himself. 
He spat it owt.
He vomitted it up.
He carvd it out like carvin out a canser.
He abandond it.
He warked away to another place a place of carm & peese.
And thats why ther is no God for us to see nor hear nor feel.
God has gon bak to being God & nothing but God.
He has gon back to how he was at the very start.
He is back in his wundrous isolayshon in a plase of emtiness and peese.
And he is releevd.
He is happy agen.
And mebbe hes at work rite now making a brandnew world a simpler world.
A world with non of us in it.
So he wons was here in this world but now hes not.
And without a God the worlds just left to its own devises.
And it gets wors & wors & wors & bluddy wors.
O how I wish to do what God did wen the awful poseshuns come. This is the wish of Billy Dean - to take the world owt from himself & cast it owt & wark away or flote down the river over the bluw horyzon to the iland wer he will be himself & nothing but himself. Ha! This does not occur. The poseshuns go on and on. They get wors and wors. It isnt just the bomin of Blinkbonny that I no. I no all Blinkbonnys evrywer. It is like I move across the world with the enjins of destrucshon & rayn down death with them. I see playses I havnt nown & havnt seen so cudnt possibly no nor see. But I do no & I do see & they are in me & I am in them. And evryer is fyr & smoke & topplin bildings & quaykin erth & peple runnin screamin dyin & overhead the byutiful blak enjins of destrucshon blast throu the skuy like things of thunder things of Hell. And alll the erth is crackd & crushd & brout to ruwinayshon & ther are bodys & bits of bodys scattered acros the stones & hid within the stones & the sounds of weeping mingl with the wind & blood mixes with the dust & the gosts of the dead wander evrywer across the erth.
And Billy Dean is forsd to look upon it all.
Billy Dean, the boy that can speak with the voyses of the dead.
Billy Dean, the boy that can heal the bodys of the livin.
But ther is nothing Billy Dean can say nor do with this. 
And nower dos he find a God who crys owt,
O my peepl what ar you doin to yourselvs!"

Extract from "The true tale of the Monster Billy Dean telt by hisself" by David Almond 2011.

© David Almond 2011

A good cup of tea & some cookies

© Michael Leunig 2014

My favourite mug © Jennifer Phillips

Gingerbread people © Jennifer Phillips & L. Phillips

Gingerbread with lemon icing, sprinkled with nutmeg © Jennifer Phillips & L. Phillips