You are my desert moon
My ochre sand
My wave crashing down upon me
an incandescent light
My Mona Lisa, too
My Eiffel Tower
The Taj Mahal at night
The sound of one hand clapping
My pyramid at dawn
my knight in armour shining
My tiller of the soil
The calling of the dawn.
I want no more than all of this
My heart, already overflowing
Would burst its dams
Would crash down its levees
Would fill to overflowing
Would flood me
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Tuesday, 14 April 2015
Thursday, 26 April 2007
Artist's Statement and Haiku for Exhibition 1
Late in 1998 I entered a large group exhibition under the pseudoname Pam Tsu-Lih. I purported to to have been through the Cultural Revolution and to be living as a recluse on Magnetic Island. The point of the exercise was to deceive one of the local arts aficionados about my identity. It worked. Why I wanted to do that is not important here. What is important is that nothing in the artist's statement is factually untrue. It can be read as the statement of someone who had indeed been through the Cultural Revolution, or someone who had come to adulthood in 1960s Australia. The haiku that follow the artist's statement relate to Exhibition 1 in the pictures of Twogreytoes in Flickr. View the photos in reverse order on:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7899872@N08/sets/72157600111843393/
PAM TSU-LIH
I was born into a society hellbent on repudiating its past, and grew up ignorant of all but a parody of ancestral wisdom and the culture it mediated. While studying science, however, I became aware of the paradoxical nature of the world as revealed by the new physics, and recognised intriguing parallels with various ancient wisdoms. Two particular notions converged: every particle occupies the space of the whole universe; and the boundaries of objects are illusion. I saw the non-sense of forcing naive meanings out of these statements, but chose to experiment with imagery in which more than one object or event appears to occupy the same space.
THE WHOLE YIELDS THE PARTICULAR
1A
WILD RIGOUR THRIVES AND
FINDS ITS VOICE YET THE SILENCE
IS UNDIVIDED
1B
SILENCE YIELDS WHEN WE
REACH BACK AND FIND A STORY
LESS THAN WHOLY FORMED
1C
TO SEE THEN NOTICE
FOR THE FIRST TIME THEN AGAIN
DEEP PROSPECTS BUDDING
THE PARTICULAR BECOMES SELF AWARE
2A
SEEING TWICE AT ONCE
DRAWS ME INTO WHOLEINESS
I DANCE YOUR INCREASE
2B
WHO I AM EXTENDS
THROUGH ALL THINGS BACK TO SILENCE
SINGING WELLBEING
2C
THE MORE I FIND OUT
THE MORE WHOLEINESS BECOMES
THE STORY I LIVE
SELFAWARENESS PUTS THE WHOLE AT RISK
3A
AWARENESS LINKED TO
THE SIGHT OF THINGS NEEDS THE THOUGHT
IT IS I WHO AM
3B
FROM THE SILENCE CAME
WAYS TO ANCHOR AND TO SOAR
WHICH BECAME KNOWING
3C
I NOW SELF AWARE
PUT EVERYTHING AT GREAT RISK
FOR MY OWN BEAUTY
UNSELF REACHES BEYOND THE OBVIOUS
4A
AS THE STORY GROWS
THE WORLD IT GIVES ACCOUNT OF
EMERGES ON SITE
4B
SILENCE UNDERWRITES
OUR CONSTANT RE CREATION
IT BECOMES DREAMING
4C
SUCH IS THE DREAMING
THAT ALL THINGS MERGE AND EMERGE
IN CO-CREATION
CONVICTION OVERCOMES BOUNDARIES
5A
ILLUSION DIVIDES
LIKE A GREAT WALL THAT ENDURES
EFFECTIVE DEMISE
5B
UNIQUE FORMS BLOOM YET
EVERYTHING IS EVERYTHING
THERE ARE NO BOUNDARIES
5C
SILENCE LIBERATES
SO WORDS AND THE THINGS THEY NAME
CAN MERGE AND EMERGE
THE TRANSPERSONAL EMBRACES THE WHOLE
6A
UNSELFCONSCIOUS TILL
BEAUTIFUL AND SELF AWARE
I AM WHO I AM
6B
I AM WHO I AM
SHAMELESSLY SELF RELIANT
TILL FINALLY WISE
6C
WISE TO ILLUSION
FINALLY WE ARE UNSELF:
CONSCIOUSLY AT ONE.
THE PARTICULAR KNOWS THAT IT IS THE WHOLE
7A
IT'S ALWAYS THE SAME
MY DANCE OF RE CREATION
IS MANY RHYTHMS
7B
THE TAO IS THE DANCE
DIVERSITY'S CHANCE TO BE
FULLY CREATED
7C
THE RITES OF INCREASE
PROCEED TO THE DANCE OF DEATH
WITCH DANCE CONNECTS LIVES
THE WHOLE IN DIVERSE AWARENESS OF ITSELF
8A
ROADSIDE GATHERINGS
KEEP OUR STORIES EVOLVING
TILL SILENCE RESUMES
8B
SPINNING DIVERSE YARNS
FROM THE FIBRES OF DREAMING
WE CLOTHE OUR SPIRITS
8C
OUR STORIES WEAVE ROUND
SILENCE THE SEAMLESS ROBE OF
ICONOSPHERE
EPILOGUE: EVOLUTION AT A GLANCE
9A
SET A COURSE ENGAGE
BE WHAT NONE HAVE BEEN BEFORE
WHO YOU REALLY ARE
9B
WAVES OF HOPE COLLAPSE
TOWARDS UNCERTAIN OUTCOMES
AND CERTAIN FREEDOM
9C
I AM FREE TO CHOOSE
MY RESPONSE TO THE OUTCOME
OF MY ENGAGEMENT
Saturday, 21 April 2007
My Father's Business
This poem is by my friend Phil Ricketts.
My Father’s Business
12 years old and already going about
His father’s business although not
His earthly one’s trade of working wood into shape
He’d found his path. And his parents?
They were left to ponder and shake their heads
And perhaps raise a fist or two for only
god knows what a handful he’d been
and to sit back in wonder at
the life he’d taken to and the
crosses he’d have to bear
until that final one
24.12.91
(dedicated to one Paul Smith who’d rediscovered his earthly sense of humour)
...and this is another
BLACKWOOD (for Raelene)
I see a boy, brain dead, give his life to another
I remember Christian myth of a man who did the same
I wander past some poor mother staring at her child disappearing
Inside a box so small that it hardly warrants the wood
I see my friend go into the ground
While black crows circle and craw
I sit between my parents and my kids
All in decline and full of life
And think. No, that way is pain.
And feel. So sad and scared.
And hope. In the order of things.
As Summer edges Autumn aside.
My Father’s Business
12 years old and already going about
His father’s business although not
His earthly one’s trade of working wood into shape
He’d found his path. And his parents?
They were left to ponder and shake their heads
And perhaps raise a fist or two for only
god knows what a handful he’d been
and to sit back in wonder at
the life he’d taken to and the
crosses he’d have to bear
until that final one
24.12.91
(dedicated to one Paul Smith who’d rediscovered his earthly sense of humour)
...and this is another
BLACKWOOD (for Raelene)
I see a boy, brain dead, give his life to another
I remember Christian myth of a man who did the same
I wander past some poor mother staring at her child disappearing
Inside a box so small that it hardly warrants the wood
I see my friend go into the ground
While black crows circle and craw
I sit between my parents and my kids
All in decline and full of life
And think. No, that way is pain.
And feel. So sad and scared.
And hope. In the order of things.
As Summer edges Autumn aside.
Chincogan Ritual
Gathering
Here we are in body
And nearby is Chincogan The Magic Mountain
So let us gather in mind and spirit
On the slopes of our inspiration
With all the faeries who live there
And admit to them and one another
that we have been less than exemplary
in our use of the gifts we have been given.
Confession
I confess on the Magic Mountain
To all the faeries who live there
That I have vandalised the planet
By assuming that it is infinitely resilient
By speaking of it as human property
By actions that degrade its diversity
And by failing to limit my use of its gifts,
And I ask the Faerie Queen,
All her companions,
And you my friends,
To spare me
Our Mother
Our Mother
Which art this Planet
Gaia be thy name
Diversity come
Thy will be done in Earth
That it may be done in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our vandalism
As we forgive them who vandalise us
And lead us not into consumer lust
But deliver us form John Howard.
[And you thought I was being serious! Eh?]
Here we are in body
And nearby is Chincogan The Magic Mountain
So let us gather in mind and spirit
On the slopes of our inspiration
With all the faeries who live there
And admit to them and one another
that we have been less than exemplary
in our use of the gifts we have been given.
Confession
I confess on the Magic Mountain
To all the faeries who live there
That I have vandalised the planet
By assuming that it is infinitely resilient
By speaking of it as human property
By actions that degrade its diversity
And by failing to limit my use of its gifts,
And I ask the Faerie Queen,
All her companions,
And you my friends,
To spare me
Our Mother
Our Mother
Which art this Planet
Gaia be thy name
Diversity come
Thy will be done in Earth
That it may be done in Heaven
Give us this day our daily bread
Forgive us our vandalism
As we forgive them who vandalise us
And lead us not into consumer lust
But deliver us form John Howard.
[And you thought I was being serious! Eh?]
Friday, 20 April 2007
5 poems
Alpha Omega
You know me by my work: my name is Alpha –
cosmic love in which primordial matter,
flung about the blackness, was conceived
in groans of joy, evolving as I speak.
Fixed, my thoughts stir life and presently
You know I Am. You offer sacrifice
Supposing I’ll suspend the span that nurtures
Nature: stuff of me; source of you.
My sign, the science we share, effects its purpose.
Search and know me. Valid inference leads
beyond empiric fact to knowledge –vast
definity – too singular except
in tragic human suffering and love.
You find me in your work: We are Omega.
… and the word was made flesh …
With words I grasped reality and saw
the universe about myself, but thoughts
to nurture my integrity remained
untold. I knew no words for them. Instead:
Thou shalt not kill – except in circumstances
when it’s just. The same for lies and stealing,
but never lust. Lust I learned was blackest.
See! There are no seemly words in use
for prick and cunt and fuck. Yet these exist.
Perhaps they shouldn’t. What then of God? Does He?
Since we speak of Him, indeed, He must.
Introibo ad altare Dei.
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
Till words become reality, and flesh,
made subject, silently consents inveighn.
FOR A FRIEND IN PAIN
When He descended into hell He fell
so near to you that you fell in as well.
Abandoned, truly naked, hopeless, dead
yet breathing, crying why and how, but no,
not when, for none can pluck you from this end.
No Job shall talk you into innocence,
nor God deny you knowledge of His pain -
so dread that even scripture would deny!
This he brought you here to know: not shame.
The just shall mourn the holy innocents
and warm themselves around forgiveness.
But no one burns as God unless they fall
with Him to hell, wherein the candle glows
that knows the darkness to be God as well.
… we are surprised
Once or twice in a lifetime
- no more than three times, four at the most –
the world assumes a mysterious aspect,
such as recently, in the dry tropics,
when La Nina made a rare and lengthy stay,
and all was green for months and years,
and her allure gave nature license
to throw off habitual limitations
so that forms not known to science
confounded eyes
that scorned the evidence
of archetypal shapes
and saw no more than vines
of rampant temper
smothering their hosts
in murderous suicide.
Such, it is said, is the sorry state
of land untilled
- not yet possessed of husbandry –
and therefore
like the savages who once traversed it
coveting the fruit it yielded grudgingly,
condemned to cycles
of diminishing prosperity.
Yet they who knew her name
- not that which others use –
remember, still, how long ago
these shapes, that never go away
but show themselves, as now, to those
who cannot hide their awe,
created every living thing, and more
-the not yet named because unseen –
unseen until their time conspires
with space to make a place for them
to thrive though scarcity prevail.
Once or twice in a lifetime
we are surprised.
How mysterious it is to live
How mysterious it is to live.
How little notice we take at first
of things that later make us fear and hope
for answers we cannot supply ourselves –
until we realise we haven’t asked
the question most embedded in our lives:
instead of Who am I we ask Why Me.
But sentience unfolds to lavish each
with opportunities to reach beyond
familiar strategies and grasp the whole
of life as one definitive event
in which our fate is quite beside the point –
the falling of a leaf that must decay
without the benefit of our consent.
You know me by my work: my name is Alpha –
cosmic love in which primordial matter,
flung about the blackness, was conceived
in groans of joy, evolving as I speak.
Fixed, my thoughts stir life and presently
You know I Am. You offer sacrifice
Supposing I’ll suspend the span that nurtures
Nature: stuff of me; source of you.
My sign, the science we share, effects its purpose.
Search and know me. Valid inference leads
beyond empiric fact to knowledge –vast
definity – too singular except
in tragic human suffering and love.
You find me in your work: We are Omega.
… and the word was made flesh …
With words I grasped reality and saw
the universe about myself, but thoughts
to nurture my integrity remained
untold. I knew no words for them. Instead:
Thou shalt not kill – except in circumstances
when it’s just. The same for lies and stealing,
but never lust. Lust I learned was blackest.
See! There are no seemly words in use
for prick and cunt and fuck. Yet these exist.
Perhaps they shouldn’t. What then of God? Does He?
Since we speak of Him, indeed, He must.
Introibo ad altare Dei.
Mea culpa. Mea maxima culpa.
Till words become reality, and flesh,
made subject, silently consents inveighn.
FOR A FRIEND IN PAIN
When He descended into hell He fell
so near to you that you fell in as well.
Abandoned, truly naked, hopeless, dead
yet breathing, crying why and how, but no,
not when, for none can pluck you from this end.
No Job shall talk you into innocence,
nor God deny you knowledge of His pain -
so dread that even scripture would deny!
This he brought you here to know: not shame.
The just shall mourn the holy innocents
and warm themselves around forgiveness.
But no one burns as God unless they fall
with Him to hell, wherein the candle glows
that knows the darkness to be God as well.
… we are surprised
Once or twice in a lifetime
- no more than three times, four at the most –
the world assumes a mysterious aspect,
such as recently, in the dry tropics,
when La Nina made a rare and lengthy stay,
and all was green for months and years,
and her allure gave nature license
to throw off habitual limitations
so that forms not known to science
confounded eyes
that scorned the evidence
of archetypal shapes
and saw no more than vines
of rampant temper
smothering their hosts
in murderous suicide.
Such, it is said, is the sorry state
of land untilled
- not yet possessed of husbandry –
and therefore
like the savages who once traversed it
coveting the fruit it yielded grudgingly,
condemned to cycles
of diminishing prosperity.
Yet they who knew her name
- not that which others use –
remember, still, how long ago
these shapes, that never go away
but show themselves, as now, to those
who cannot hide their awe,
created every living thing, and more
-the not yet named because unseen –
unseen until their time conspires
with space to make a place for them
to thrive though scarcity prevail.
Once or twice in a lifetime
we are surprised.
How mysterious it is to live
How mysterious it is to live.
How little notice we take at first
of things that later make us fear and hope
for answers we cannot supply ourselves –
until we realise we haven’t asked
the question most embedded in our lives:
instead of Who am I we ask Why Me.
But sentience unfolds to lavish each
with opportunities to reach beyond
familiar strategies and grasp the whole
of life as one definitive event
in which our fate is quite beside the point –
the falling of a leaf that must decay
without the benefit of our consent.
What about Global Warming then?
If you’ve read Tim Flannery’s The Weather Makers you probably wonder if we can do anything about global warming. If you’ve read Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion you may or may not agree with him that praying about it won’t help. John Howard, the Australian Prime Minister, has twice in the last three months urged Australians to pray for rain. About a decade ago I wrote a fairly large piece of work that addresses the issue of what kind of disposition (prayer is a disposition more than it is a form of words) might make a difference, not only to the weather, but to a great deal more that threatens the sustainability of the planet. What follows if the prose poem from that larger piece of work that sums up the theme of that work.
The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming
Like Wandjina dreaming, cyclones erupt in space-time, wander erratically, wreaking havoc, and vanish, as unpredictably as they appear, leaving a legacy of abundance: the rain that nurtures our prosperity.
In eras long gone we sought refuge in the hope of divine intervention from the uncertainty and fear of cyclones and the slow pitiful tragedy of drought. In these less poetic times we face the fury and the pity alone, stripped, by a storm of our own making, of any sense of relationship with, or responsibility for, the Earth and the Cosmos beyond.
Like the paradoxical legacy of cyclones, however, the aftermath of the meteoric turbulence of scientific discovery, that shattered and scattered the sacral habits of tens of thousands of years, is a new era of sustainable prosperity, reflecting the recovery of our sense of relationship within the Cosmos, and a new sense of Mystery – the latter mediated by mathematics, but possessing the qualities of poetry.
We are not, it seems, mere objects in the Universe, but unique personal manifestations of the One, undivided yet infinitely diverse, Whole. The dancing Brolga and the flowering Kapoc are indeed our relatives, and our consciousness is intimately implicated, not only in their destiny and that of the Earth, but also in the very way that the planet – indeed, the Universe itself – exists.
What, then, are we to make of the efforts of those who danced the rain in dry season? Did they know, by the power of poetry, how to live in a mutually co-operative relationship with the elements? Is that relationship still accessible by the same means? What might be swept away, should we discover, by the fusion of poetry and mathematics, that the relationship between cyclones and the El Nino (the bringer of drought) is not a one way street, and that we have the power to influence it?
Dare we hope for Cyclone Dreaming to keep our relatives prosperous?
The Celebration of Cyclone Dreaming
Like Wandjina dreaming, cyclones erupt in space-time, wander erratically, wreaking havoc, and vanish, as unpredictably as they appear, leaving a legacy of abundance: the rain that nurtures our prosperity.
In eras long gone we sought refuge in the hope of divine intervention from the uncertainty and fear of cyclones and the slow pitiful tragedy of drought. In these less poetic times we face the fury and the pity alone, stripped, by a storm of our own making, of any sense of relationship with, or responsibility for, the Earth and the Cosmos beyond.
Like the paradoxical legacy of cyclones, however, the aftermath of the meteoric turbulence of scientific discovery, that shattered and scattered the sacral habits of tens of thousands of years, is a new era of sustainable prosperity, reflecting the recovery of our sense of relationship within the Cosmos, and a new sense of Mystery – the latter mediated by mathematics, but possessing the qualities of poetry.
We are not, it seems, mere objects in the Universe, but unique personal manifestations of the One, undivided yet infinitely diverse, Whole. The dancing Brolga and the flowering Kapoc are indeed our relatives, and our consciousness is intimately implicated, not only in their destiny and that of the Earth, but also in the very way that the planet – indeed, the Universe itself – exists.
What, then, are we to make of the efforts of those who danced the rain in dry season? Did they know, by the power of poetry, how to live in a mutually co-operative relationship with the elements? Is that relationship still accessible by the same means? What might be swept away, should we discover, by the fusion of poetry and mathematics, that the relationship between cyclones and the El Nino (the bringer of drought) is not a one way street, and that we have the power to influence it?
Dare we hope for Cyclone Dreaming to keep our relatives prosperous?
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