Best Production Poems
Dams, mining, extraction and fracking!
Logging, trawling, oops this urban expansion!
Plastic, toxic sludge and fertilisers,
Industrial revolution, Mass production!
Rising pollution and depleting fossil fuel.
Expanding population, you greedy humans!
Squeezing nature and melting glaciers
Chocking gases creating Climate conundrum.
Speeding extinction, your helpless restrictions.
Destructing ozone layers, eroding my very foundations!
The earth in pain whispers to me:
Why are you causing this depredation?
Look at my dereliction!
Please stop this destruction.
WHISPER TO ME Ii CONTEST
Sponsored by: Regina Riddle
Date: 14th June; 2020
I am watching liar
Go from tears to grace
With the same indistinguishable sallow face
And emotional state of fluxed empathy
The frown conceals
Beneath the brow of dirty tricks
Without a flicker
To wake's each day ever slicker
More experienced in the dark arts
His twisted seed imparts
On plundered heart's
Guilt and Shame
While he remains
In an impenetrable bubble
Distanced from the trouble
The court's denied
A jury of one's peers
From mouth to ears
In the defendants chair
And the media glare
As a lie is caught
And the jury can not be bought
Better late than never
But the Devil is clever
And he doesn't accept no as an answer
Ask his victim's
He doesn't adhere to the system
He prey's on it
As his power enabled it
Peanut oil begins from under the soil,
Sunflower oil is distilled by the boil.
We use these to cook,
I thought then I shook.
By gosh! How do they make baby oil?
Bent down blue in prismatic fashion
refracted in reflection mirrored in sight
flames flicker and my mind twirls
round and round with an image seen
dancing with the flight of the flame
absorbed in defiance of the perceived sane
Primitive pictures bringing about motion
fauna at play in the peaceful meadow
the cobalt sea submerged out of focus
and imagination is left to wander about
dwelling through caves of thoughts hidden
a production of an indescribable landscape
Painting colours dipped religiously in red and white
conceive the inconceivable emerging from the light
The midday sun scorches her back
Sweat seeps through her feeble body
As her nerves carry messages from her brain
To make her muscles cooperate
So she could stand and move around
Inside her body a helpless guest with very special needs
Hanging head downwards between cliffs of her bone
Shot with delicate spasms
With hair painted upon his skull
The wretched visitor did not come out until it was ready
The stress of delivery became more and more
In only nine months the single fertilized cell
became a fully developed baby.
An amazingly complex organization of some billions of cells
Undeterred, she kept on pushing relentlessly but fatigued
The midwife held some materials attached to a dinner-plate-size device
Shouting: Push! Push! Push!
Swinging hand to and from across the deep hole
Dropping to different directions and starts digging
With urgent jabs the small head penetrates the hard earth.
Could it be a female?
Could it be a male?
As the hole deepens, eyes were strained for a hint
Suddenly, ears quicken as the high-pitched whistle
Descends to a guttural clicking noise—A sure sign
that the visitor has arrived
After the production, how tired she was!
Behold, I shall celebrate this diligent producer
For she has done the toughest job a woman could do
In pain she produced her replica
In joy should she reap the reward
Sweet mother, will I ever forget you?
A Better Production
The year 2018 is coming soon
Three hundred and sixty five days
Opportunity to write a new story
In the black calendar pages
Reviewing the script of ending year
Some chapters are worth of remember
Another days is better to leave behind
Taking away the lessons enclosed
Looking the horizon in the cloudy sunset
Remember in the darkness of the storm
Shines the sun with great magnificence
With a note of new hope for the future
Resolutions give the fuel to restart
Purpose is the yield of your efforts
For New Year 2018 Poetry Contest
Sponsored by Kim Rodrigues
December 31, 2017
What I never say is
Should be a question on a game show quiz
Did I tell you about the time
Standing in line
Only to find myself most likely declined
Since I did not have the right look
Wanted in the casting book
What I never say is
Should be a question on an audition quiz
There was a reason for all that
Thinking about it where I sat
Dealing with a mentality of a rat
Looking for cheese
Forgetting words thank you and please
What I never say is
This is ‘show biz’
Not seeing any fizz
Loading on a dock
Or industrial block
Only machines going by
Telling a story to make the audience laugh or cry
Using facades having no backing
Issue visual talent do the attacking
Light's camera action
This will be some attraction
Inside a studio owned military hanger ever so cold
Praying production does not fold
Keeping things cool
Asking themselves ‘are they really the fool?’
Swimming in the on-air placement pool
Winners in the interview contest
Thinking they are the best
Looking into a recording device
Having a presentation honest and nice
Enjoying their wedding rice
After being on a roll with the dice
Finding a special day
Romancing on the bay
When opportunity knocked
Timed well just like setting the clock
What I would say was
Those photogenic people do make the buzz
Honeybees in a twenty-four-hour perpetual hive
Keeping us feeling alive
Stage set: Nineteen Seventy-Two
Enter threshold Jolly Jumper bouncing baby girl
toes grazing the shag
Next scene a little quicker
Clad in plaid she's a Big Wheels and corduroy blur
moving the plot along
Intermission (Orange Crush, Pop Rocks and Pixie Sticks)
Action: The games begin
Go Fish your Fisher Price Little People
out of the sandbox
you're too young to play with Matchbox
so cool until that Etch A Sketchy kid
sends your Slinky down the stairs
Plot twist: the corner store Mexican Jumping Beans
were infinitely more entertaining than Pet Rocks
The End
Well not "The End"
Training wheels are off and so is the star of the show
Careening towards the eighties
With her Choose Your Own Adventure collection in tow
18.02.25
Composed for Line Gauthier's
Where were you in the 70's?
Still I Reach – Memories of my Father.
My Dad — a virtuoso, once hailed among India’s finest — was one of three English gentlemen credited with bringing Western classical music to India, helping to lay the foundation for a tradition that would echo for generations.
His artistry shaped the sound of a nation, and his influence touched the lives of his students who would one day stand on the world’s grandest stages – L Subramanian (US) Zubin Mehta (Pavarotti’s conductor)and Jerry Fernandez who finished his LTCL (Licentiate of Trinity College, London) with honours.
At 58, he came to Australia, carrying with him not only a large family but the resonance of those concert halls, the applause of audiences, and a burning ambition to let his music speak here as it had across the seas.
But the stages he sought here remained closed. After countless auditions and unreturned calls, the verdict came cold: retire from music. As if the brilliance he carried, the decades of mastery in his hands, no longer belonged.
For a moment, the weight of those words threatened to silence his song.
And yet, as the lyrics say, “Still I reach… still I dream… still I ache for what might be,” he held fast to the stage in his heart – This has been captured in the song.
One year later, the story turned. The same man who had once closed the door called again — this time with an invitation to perform with the renowned Sydney Symphony Orchestra. That moment lit the fuse of a second act.
From there, his music would rise again — with the Russian Bolshoi Ballet, the Kirov Ballet, and in celebrated musicals like Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.
This song is for him… and for anyone who has ever been told their time has passed, only to rise and prove that true artistry is timeless.
Today I think of your
Contributions closing the theater’s door
Putting together toasted bread
Ready for a child to be fed
Youngster wearing grape jelly
Face down to the belly
Laughing saying ‘this is great’
Not showing any hate
But Peanut Butter, it is you
Who makes the mid-day matinee ever so cool
Thank you for coming out of the nutty shell
I would like to tell
About the sandwich where you are
The star
Performing with a backup fruity band
Bringing in all your fans
Grabbing using two strong hands
Not really needing added ham
Applause when going into the mouth
Travelling stomach south
Toddler enjoying the mess
Never will they confess
Instead, go off to sleep
Napping counting Bo and Peep
Lovely sheep
Who once were said
Proclaimed Holy bread
God’s true lamb
Sacrificed when ended up caught in a jam
How much do we love
Our meal fitting like a glove
Getting it all over ourselves
Nutritious wealth
Giving us good health
Being simple as a chair
Lunchtime afternoon’s delightful affair
Always welcome on the stage
No matter what the audiences age
By the afternoon I was back-on-my-toes.
Almost every night my roommates and I sit around a low table in the common room of our suite, crossed legged, on cushions and do our homework. It’s less claustrophobic than sitting in our rooms alone and we usually have some music on, lowkey, in the background.
We’d just heard “Love Story,” by Taylor Swift.
“I like songs that make love sound easy.” I stated.
“Oh, because it IS easy,” Anna says sarcastically, “grab yourself a physicist and make a TikTok song.”
“Hey! I’ve got a beef with TikTok artists, I said. “At first, they release these stripped down, intimate, acoustic songs that feel personal, and then, if a song hits, they put out a new version that’s totally overproduced.”
“Right.” Leong agreed.
“Oh, yeah,” Sophie said, putting her hair back out of her face with a comb, “and some artists' voices are suited to simple accompaniment and the newer versions just don’t hit as hard.”
“I think Phoebe Bridgers is an example of production done right.” Anna said. “Her material continues to sound intimate and stripped down even though it’s no longer just her and a guitar,”
“On Tiktok,” Lisa adds, “when a new song works, I feel a connection, like it could be me recording a song with my guitar - so, I support them.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” I updogged, “there’s a place for overproduction but sometimes the instruments don’t even sound real, like when they go all out electronic - then they lose me.”
“The big-music might drown-out the artistry we liked,” Anna opined, “but maybe that’s how they heard it, as songwriters, in their imagination, but they couldn’t afford it - the new version rectifies it.”
.
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slang...
back-on-my-toes = feeling back to normal / back in the game
updogg = when you add your two cents to an ongoing dialog.
A Better Production
Broad way’s wayward journey fares well this coming year
The program a blank sheet but for turning tides to and fro
a logo free to script amend and cherish from the straight
and narrow swishing crested waves yet full of hope and love
Protagonists cascades and whirl pools anticipation riptides
An epic voyage or child play in the eye of any maker taker
shaker with a pinch of ocean salt’s undercurrent backdraught
Overcoming slipstreams avoiding snarling sharks and razor
sharpened corals if the sailor’s leaking boat licked wounds
An adaptation of the drama might well play high up as a
mountaineering feasting feat because prescribed performances
dislodge from poet’s fingers getting out of seaman’s hands
‘Slip freely’ says the dolphin ‘the flow and surge are broad for sure
Take these oars and rudder the mountain goat explores no less’
Time to make that New Year's resolution,
it won't be revolt or revolution,
so while I think out loud
my friends will be so proud...
trying to end my talk convolution!
Farmers reaping from their fields
Brexit Sonnet No.14
‘One Tragic Production’
Witness now this Carillion carry on;
Be it victim of its boundless chiming debt,
Or government multi-tasking gene now gone.
One tragic production awaits, our stage quite set.
A flying crown of fifty years brought low,
A treasured cat now eyeing Ireland’s shores.
Our EMA jobs and funds to Holland flow,
And no seat of comfort in Yorkist sofa stores.
So as director primes the nervous cast,
That padding beast ‘Uncertainty’ stalks the wings.
He knows his lines, for prompts he’s never asked,
But others falleth by his hand, like kings.
So slay this beast upon the Nation’s stage,
And acteth not from Brexit’s tragic page.
©Keith Murphy