Tingling of tongue sent Euripides
Questing a tastier kind of cheese.
"I found cheddar magical,"
Said this poet tragical,
"Sailing the southern antipodes.”
To the casual eye,
autumn gives no cue
in the Australian bush.
No last choke of color
to see off a season,
trees here keep
their clothes on.
Change is subtle,
leaves are shed all year
in a sprinkle of drab.
Here though, trees
can suddenly drop
a half ton limb
on a dead calm day
when there's not
a breath of wind.
everything is a grand illusion
and from far away it's strange to see
the way they interact with cutlery
what phases of the moon influence their neuroses
and the rituals of self-destruction
which in every way resembles ours
they also believe in lowering the sidewalks
in the consumption of vegetables for a better life
nails grow the same
here and on the other side of this lie
we're tired of the same games without wins
trying to unravel molecular structures
not knowing how to tie shoes
there on the other side of the world
are the ones we could have been
subjugated by the same plastic gods
chained to health plans
hateful obese oily
swallowing this life's recycled oil
that we wanted without pain
Is the truth in the east?
or is it in the west?
Could it be in the north?
or the south?
The truth is neither sky nor sea,
neither you nor me
The truth is at the antipodes.
An auld Covent
watches over its town
by shedding grey husk all over
wondering to be once more found
on the antipodes - across
bygone graveyard
not here neither lost
stubbornly lasts
between the stalks of overgrown grass
from the shadows of Bremen's wings
amidst the dreams of Osiris
Mr. James Michael Christopher Fitzmaurice
holds the town in his care
as a bronze god on a marble chair
and if you dare to step
across the horizon
go by the blue ribbon of a steel bridge
as mighty Jason on a quest for a golden fleece
which probably lies
hidden deep
beneath decrepit walls
of an old fort keep
funded by the order of Queen Mary
a town full of hopes
that floats throughout the current of dreams
dreamed with the words
of dozens of languages
with one common expression
Of home - Port Laoise
Mariners in our wanderlust,
We sail beyond the horizon’s curve.
Fearful, we dare the briny deep
Out of faith in the dreams we serve.
Rough-hewn by years of knots and coils,
Our hands hoist up the canvass sails,
In the ways that the ancients toiled,
To cross the many-fathomed deep.
The muted moaning of the masts;
The pitch and the roll and the yaw
Of wooden hulls upon the deep;
The wondrous fear of freedom’s call.
Daredevil dolphins rise and roll,
As fleets of flying fish fin by
Pursued by patrols of petrels
Winging o’er foam and stinging spray.
We plough the mirrored Milky Way,
Bright on the obsidian main,
As pale phosphorescent plankton
Stream by beneath the midnight moon.
Monsters revel in the tempests,
Risen from out the great abyss.
They lurk in misty fjords, off port,
Glowering in the wine-dark sea.
The heartbeats of our bodies blend
The ancient rhythms of our cells
With the rising, falling rhythms
With the siren rhythms of the sea.
Mariners in our wanderlust,
We behave like a swarm of bees,
Spreading the pollen of culture
To the four antipodes.
Has someone cursed our love
or cast a malevolent spell?
Why do the heavens envy our love
and wish us unwell?
The union of our two worlds--
My realm of the angels
where celestial lights light
our eternal pathway,
and yours down in the antipodes
where the deep darkness reigns
isolating the most austere isolation,
the abode of the dreaded Hades.
My cruel maiden
save me from this pain,
my mournful heart is pining.
This smothering loneliness
is driving me swooning insane.
Since you’ve been gone
I dwell forlorn
in a realm of perpetual darkness,
bereft of your love
this pain is least to abate.
Wake up my love, my stilled heart,
Oh, do come back
and enliven this woebegone soul
lest I breathe my last
even as I grow weary of the wait.
~Wake Up My Heart contest by Julie Leigh Rodeheaver
When Juno christened thirty days as hers,
She chose the sunniest month and named her June;
When roses bloom, and summer, spring transfers
A sunny solstice and a strawberry moon.
Bedecked with peacock feathers, throned in pearl,
The gods’ true queen o’er marriages presides;
Her faithful blessings lovers’ hearts encurl,
Within her ring, united happiness resides.
But in the Antipodes is June reversed,
And sun’s delights are turned to winter’s sadness;
Across the ‘quator, joyous light’s dispersed,
One month, two sides, divorced with utter madness.
That good and bad inhabit all’s foregone:
Without the darkness there could be no dawn.
Villanelle: The Dilemma of the Non-Violent – 36
All day long we kill to keep the home clean
Insecticides aerosols rat poison
The killer instinct makes us bold and mean
Down by the pond mosquitoes wake and preen
Time to send fighter jets by the dozen
All day long we kill to keep the house clean
Peeled apples for veg flies succulent wean
We spend week-ends choking every last one
The killer instinct makes us bold and mean
Kids we love but not the kind who boil spleen
So we sock the wife more than hard in the bun
All day long we kill to keep the home clean
At Antipodes some guys flex muscles lean
Call that homefront affront to smite them down
The killer instinct makes us bold and mean
What counts home comfort by all overseen
Secure society to foist nation
All day long we kill to keep the house clean
The killer instinct makes us bold and mean
© T. Wignesan – Paris, 2015
And there...
unlikely as in our world
cold mountains peaks
are grab by top
towards the foot of vale
where springs are flowing
from oceans depth
In to the rivers lair
no bird can freely fly
without the wings wide spread
theirs haven is liquefied
in kind of melted lead
they pulled their eyes outside
and underneath of deepest gulf
they hid...
theirs sins beneath the eyelids cut
instead of hairs they bred
subcutaneous larvae
lice have eat their lips
burned to dust
by meaning
of an imposturous act
their children are as old as oaks
already turned in to a fairytale
and mothers so bravely young
that all their tears
where shed at once
before almighty set aside
a hem of brittle sky - tornd apart
they done such things
that we shall never dream
they fetch such truth
that is unseen
by holiest of the holly books
they do prevail upon
nor love nor death
or madness all along
they stayed as wild
as we consider ourselves
so rapt and not enough to state
- so civilize
Side stepping love's starfish sun bathing about, time's shores....
While amoeboid parasites these sponges in resilient, take up residence
Atop her capital hill; residuum's resonant evil kismet's, true, liverwort lobbyist
Waterspout gargoyles autism's algae tortuous angleworms this, immoral's realities ?
Shuttered truths antipodes their view; his shad's tenement tete-a-tete's, voodoo virtuosity.
Listening unto their Fray's How to Save a Life: you stare politely
Right on through; and you'll begin wonder, why you came ? Where
Did we go wrong I lost a friend, somewhere along in this bitterness ?
Knowing somehow a smoke-filled glass be it not strange the fiery trials..
Crazy her zoo when their birds catch sight chitter chatter his monkies at play
Greeting another antipodes crowd ? Surreal, they must think ironic, truth's cage
Maximus time's lioness anxious, she awaits; ten thousand years, we gaze; descending
Zion, upon these ranks of tears ? Encroached the valley a carcass sleeps; flesh and blood
His vultures dream in circling skies metallic wings; black love's cloth as her moon so draped....
Borne to be wild their daemons famished of wombs, that weep ? Angels, with open arms they run.
Wonder and Despair,
Twin brothers born of our need to know;
These the tainted fruits
These the light and dark
Born of laboring knowledge.
Learning's vanities
Illuminate the limits.
The hard currency
Of humility,
The price of Nature's secrets.
So we find ourselves
Hung amid infinities...
Below, Forever.
Above, Forever.
Grains on a beach, we between.
We explain the world
As it defines us, laughing:
Creatures of a day,
Playing at Godhood
See our insignificance.
Less than angelic,
More than bestial, we strive,
Sailing on our thoughts
To the antipodes
Of Being, on the ship named
Novum Organon,
Sails full of a wind of words
Towards those pillars
At the narrow strait
Of wisdom: Wonder, Despair.