December #4

You Should So Ask For Help ...

You should so ask for help

that a wind will rise from the stones

and swirl around you, buoyant:

a soft cloak, a raft of air,

a sweet in-rush of breath.

You should so ask for help

that rain will fall gently, washing

all debris away from your path,

so you walk forth unobstructed

raising your face to be bathed.

You should so ask for help

that the grasses will ripple before you

like waves of an earth ocean,

as they flatten to ease your steps

and spring back straight behind.

You should so ask for help

that the sun and all the stars

brighten and flare at your call,

and people around you suddenly smile 

as you yourself are warmed.

First you must ask for help

to ask in such a way — must ask

for the long slow gifts 

of trust and patience,

humility, strength, integrity.

Or find the quicker way:

pray to be an instrument

of Love, Peace and Truth. 

Create with these a vision so large 

that all you are and do is in its service.

Whether you sleep or wake,

speak or be silent, scratch an itch,

make love, argue, go shopping ...

the vision is more than you; it holds you,

contains and fills you — that one!

Be prepared for your vision to take

if need be, lifetimes, and leagues of angels.

Seek to enrol the whole world

on to your team. Ask for help....

Take heart. You should so ask.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

December #3

Ask for Help!!
A song for those struggling with the concept of equality

(To the tune of I Can Help - by Billy Swan)

If you don't know what to do

if you don't know what to say

if the main thought in your head is 'please make it go away'

ask for help

there'll be someone who can change things

ask for help

It would do you good

to do the things you should

so ask for help.

 

If everything you're doing

seems to turn out wrong

try taking some deep breaths and remembering this song

and ask for help

there'll be someone who can fix things

ask for help

You don't know it all

nobody ever could

so ask for help

 

When you go to bed at night you want to be able to sleep

Treating people properly is something that will always keep

your conscience clear...

 

So instead of trying to hide that you don't know what to do

Instead of fooling yourself that you can muddle through

ask for help

from the people who know best

ask for help

be better than the rest

It would do the world good

if you do the things you should

so ask for help.

 

Michele Brenton 25th December 2014
Merry Christmas!!

December #2

That's Enough Tough

When you break into tears

at Denpasar Airport,

because the pain in your ear

is an octopus-invasion of throb,

you have crossed the line.

Men stare, assessing.

Women don't cry, not here,

not ever.

One man tries to steal your backpack,

for you have given permission

by being vulnerable.

The official you ask for help

wishes to put you out of sight,

for adults don't cry,

and you must expect this sort of thing

as a strong woman travelling.

The airport medical staff

tell you to stop,

because it's not that bad.

No hospital for you.

Get on the plane.

You will be fine.

In the privacy of the aeroplane toilet,

you sag, and flush away all tags attached to you.

With what's left, you cry again,

afraid and alone.

The toughest act of all

is to say “I hurt",

and it's a badge of courage

to ask for help.

— Helen Patrice

December #1

e.g this is enough

Apt.

Beautifully put.

Concise, convex.

Drama dominates.

Everything expires.

Futures fizzle.

Grandiose, giggly, grunting.

Heavy-handed.

Interesting.

Just judicial.

Kitchenware.

Lampooning, lightness, & lexicon.

Magic.

Never? Not now?

Obtuse, obviously.

Patience!  Purity! Passion! Performance?

Quietly querulous.

Rubbish! (Roundly)

Sensible, sound and snappy.

Terrorism.

Uprisings, unguents.

Visual & Vital Verbs.

When?

Xasperating …

You?

Zithering …

That is enough.

Tough.

— Jennie Fraine

November #4

Old Lady with Cat

While my body snores

at last, on these humid nights,

he, my black-haired darling,

prowls the cool outdoors.

Mornings he's nearly always

back, sharing my bed,

accepting an embrace

before requiring breakfast.

If I wake up still alone,

by the time I open the door

he's running up the front steps

calling a greeting.

We remember the others

who were here, whom we loved,

but now they are ghosts, and this

is the end time (may it be long)

when we, being finally only two,

are all-in-all to each other.

In age we learn the true things —
e.g. this is important, e.g. this is enough.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

November #3

To sleep: perchance to dream…

I never know what to expect

each night I go to bed;

the ravelled sleeve of care stays ravelled,

tattered and in shreds.

In fact the action packed

into the theatre of my dreams

frays the fabric of my mind

and soundtracks it with screams.

I've swooped and soared above the clouds

and plummeted to earth,

borne immolation many times

relived countless births

from the point of view of mother

and from that of child,

I've even mothered fox cubs

then released them in the wild.

I've wondered where my husband is

while marrying another,

had long chats with dead relatives,

rowed furiously with Mother;

grieved for people still alive,

partied with the feted,

was once hailed saviour of the world

and simultaneously hated.

The only common factor is

my dreams are never bores;

I'm continuously fascinated

while my body snores.

— Michele Brenton

November #2

The World They've Created Comes To A Full Stop

The day my daughter saw

that I did not know what might live

inside a basketball,

and my impatient reply

of 'I don't know, maybe fairies'

sealed my fate.

I was no longer her goddess,

and she turned to the outside world

to see who might ascend the throne.

Friends' mothers, her grandmother, teachers

all failing that steep set of steps

sooner or later,

so Britney Spears and the Spice Girls

adorned her bedroom walls,

and she chanted nightly:

'Oops, I did it again'

while my bath water reverberated in time

to their backbeat songs.

I was never again offered the throne or sceptre,

but deity light shone upon me briefly,

when she had her first baby,

and I was the only one
who could rock him to sleep.

— Helen Patrice

November #1

Or Any Other Kind Of Pen: a Romance

One word lingers over a blank page

ephemeral, almost transparent, fading

as it wafts away uncaptured.

A second word strays in its wake

vanishes beyond thought, distracted

by a fascination.

There is a mild stir. 

A sentence appears.

For how long? And what was the crime? 

Dragging itself out into the open,

dangling voice and story in front of a jury?

Off the page with you!

Don’t even think of it!

Out!

But: mightier than the sword, a pen 

strides into view, leaps to hand, brandishes

ballpoint, strikes a blow for freedom and

in one frenzied dash crashes across paper

leaving a stream of consciousness

full of mixed metaphors

and darlings needing

to be murdered.

Words tremble as the world they’ve created

comes to a full stop.

— Jennie Fraine

October #4

Diagrams in Felt-Tipped Pen

Or in pencil. Or biro.

Sometimes even fountain-pen —

we used them then, and my parents

gave me a slim one for my twelfth birthday.

The felt tips, of course, came quite a lot later.

But I never lost the habit,

starting in school exercise books.

'You're a great old doodler, aren't you?'

one English teacher said — but tolerantly.

I was always top of the class in English, after all.

It was an aid to thinking.

Don't ask me how that could be;

I only know it worked for me. Between

taking notes, I filled the corners of the pages

with close, elaborate, complex, abstract shapes.

Nothing recognisable —

not at all realist, nor naturalist.

It was all geometric: endless variations

of triangles, rectangles, diamonds, squares,

tempered by circles and coils, arcs and undulations.

After creating the outline

I might then decide on sections

to fill in solid, painstakingly making

new patterns in the old traditional shapes.

Each pattern piece was tiny; the whole, intricate.

When Rorschach tests became

the latest whizz-bang thing, back in

the seventies, some of my (ahem!) friends

wondered aloud what my doodles might reveal

and made rude, amused speculations, with guffaws.

By then, I was doodling upon

telephone message pads, train tickets,

restaurant menus, as well as my own journals

and the edges of any letters I still wrote by hand —

the ones to elderly relatives, who still thought that polite.

Those who knew me well

came to accept this eccentricity.

They seldom even remarked on it any more.

I decided it had to do with the pattern-making urge

and therefore, I supposed, not inappropriate for a poet.

Then the whole world changed.

Now I write emails on computer, make poems

on my iPad, jot down the shopping lists on my phone.

We text each other details we need to remember. No place

for proliferating diagrams in felt-tipped or any other kind of pen.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

October #3

To My Mitochondria

I remember painstaking lines and

careful colouring-in 

punctuated by leaning back

in blissful satisfaction to 

admire the result.

I learned their biochemistry

and their physiology

gazed at slides

from microtomes.

I once knew such a lot of things

and now that knowledge

is long gone.

All I can recall from then - 

diagrams in felt-tipped pen.

Michele Brenton

October #2

The Past Tells Me I Exist

Those genes I sowed years ago

on hard ground

raised dragons of fire and water

who roar at the world

in ways I never could.

They spliced themselves,

and now here come the results,

helixing down the hallway

to scramble onto my morning bed

and feed me cold toast.

They shiver like cells around me

with toy trucks and jam,

insisting on under-the-blanket tents.

Meditation detaches me from the world,

and these two hot, moist little junior dracos

bring me back to it.

They make me live hard
right down to my mitochondria.

— Helen Patrice

October #1

Memories to Gather Later

As if the Past truly exists.

For Auld Lang Syne.

What’s done and said

Arms. Linked. Singing.

The songs of sirens.

Long fruitless journeys.

Shipwrecks. Survivals.

On the rocks. Let’s drink!

To that, and take a break.

There’s no tomorrow

Literally. The future?

Also non-existent.

Trapped here, now.

What? This moment?

This? And this? This

Endlessness of Now?

No! Conjure: artful enemies.

Betrayals. Caesarean.

Lies and tragedies.

My own one-Act plays.

Banish meaninglessness.

Watch commercial TV.

Old episodes and new ads.

All images spark memory.

Spirit of Tasmania.

Access to adventure.

State of beauty. Remember.

Sick trips with two kids.

Retirement. Caravan. Sunset.

Son’s birthday lego pirate ship.

A plank across the towbar.

Blindfolded, walking forward.

Gather friends who teach.

Encourage my reaching.

Voices entertain. Enrich.

Only the Past tells me

“I” exist.

— Jennie Fraine

September #4

They Try Again

They try again
to recollect the flavour
of what was,
hunting through trophies
only they can find:
the personal phrases,
the unimportant
yet cherished habits —

but it's thundery cold outside
and they who hide within
are only two now,
who must make new tales
to warm themselves, other
memories to gather later.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

September #3

Harder the second time around

I never thought I'd be excited
to see a divorce
or encourage one so gleefully
and enjoy each severance
witnessed in pixel-dancing light.

Something rises in me, a tidal wave
wanting more and more
until the old is swept away
and change becomes the new
landscape.

I used to shout at the television
when I was young and watching films:
Walk away or sneak away at night
when they are asleep. Get away while
you can!

Too many celluloid sacrifices,
too many individuals subsumed
for the sake of the storyline.

This is real life and the stories
can be better or worse.
I sit through this night
on the edge of my seat.
Please let this be the happy beginning,
the day when it didn't take
death to us part.
Because if there isn't a clean getaway
we all know what happens

when they try again.

— Michele Brenton 

September #2

Create Speak Surrender

Create the space

in the heart

for an incoming love.

Speak the words

that cement it all

in a small diamond ring.

Surrender to the machine

that is wedding and family

and the dress, above all.

Create the space

in the body

for an embryo.

Speak the idea

into silence

and mother's disapproval.

Surrender to the machine

that is pregnancy, baby,

and the pedestal of  motherhood.

Create the space

in the marriage

for two babies, and a breakdown.

Speak the words

that all is ill, broken,

the truth of neglect.

Surrender to the machine

that is divorce, aloneness,

and a sheaf of bills.

Twenty years later,

and the hard work,

the break, the regrowth

is done.

Creation is poetry.

Speaking is unnecessary.

Surrendering is time with grandchildren.

Making love is both easier

and harder,
the second time around.

— Helen Patrice

September #1

All That Terror (grin) Provides the Thrill

And the worst of it

is standing there

knowing you all need to know

that I know you, care.

Larynx glued, immobilised,

breath choking off the apt word—

words big enough to leap

the chasm between us

have tumbled, their syllables

echoing long after

we break eye contact.

This is La Grande Peur

more masterful than Death,

binding lips, sealing off

all possibility of love

for all fifty of you, myself.

This paralysis cannot be

permanent. I must lose

my self now, take that step:

create, speak, surrender.

— Jennie Fraine

August #4

It Only Needs to Win Once — You Think? 

Courage, you think,

only needs to win once.

After that you can relax,

never fear again,

be always brave and daring,

confident like others —

the everyone else

who, you're always being told,

aren't scared.

But it doesn't work like that.

Courage is needy, wanting 

your full attention,

refusing to be taken for granted.

It wants to own you;

catching you with your pants down,

wants to give you a thrill — the biggest.

Courage is a very

demanding lover.

Or else it's a wilful child

that runs away.

You have to chase after it,

find it, bring it home,

settle it — embrace it

all over again.

Every time.

Too bad if you tire 

of the game.

You think you only need

to win once,

but it's not enough.

Each time is new —

new effort, journey, struggle, 

catch of breath.

But then, it's all that terror

(grin) 

provides the thrill.

— Rosemary Nissen-Wade

August #3

Living through the pain

My compatriot urged his dad

to rage against the dying of the light

but my rage is against pain

and blood and tears and sweat

and hope getting stomped

when it peeps its little

chocolate-buttony bright eyes

over the top of the trench

where it very wisely hid

until optimism once more

triumphed over experience.

I watch you living through the pain

and I try to find something positive

in your brave, dogged fight

and I love you for your strength,

your weakness, your quirks,

your failings, your heart

but I cannot find anything positive

that wasn't already a part of you

before the adversary arrived

and this torment began.

I want to scoop you up

in my arms and hold you

until the danger passes

but you see it never does.

That bloody enemy stalks

us all the time and never sleeps

and even if I doze with one eye

open it still sneaks in because

nobody can win against it every time

and it only needs to win once.

— Michele Brenton

August #2

Firm Body Upright

for Amanda Watson and Dani Cooper 

She pounds her gravity-bound knees,

with hands still free.

Her wheelchair, black and silver,

gleams solid in the stage light.

Rising behind her, dark dancer,

jerking the movements she cannot express.

Dancer sinews hip lift to shoulder roll,

as the music clanks on.

"My body is a cage".

The seated one is veiled in black,

legs seen and still,

face hidden.

The dancer does all the woman cannot:

not enough for either

to have only six minutes

of shining to others.

Her body is upright in her chair,

as the dancer leaves the stage.

She is firm, still whole and uninvaded
by surgeon or the harder-core drugs.

Her resolve is to keep living
through the pain.

— Helen Patrice

August #1

Knowing it is right

makes it

legitimate

if it fits

wear it

also sets

you up

for a fight

some call that

civilised debate

the thing is

it pulls you

off centre

you have to

grab hold

to regain

balance

anything

will do as

long as

you get

through,

both feet

firm, body

up right

— Jennie Fraine