artless darts pierce heartless hearts
garrulous gnats deafen rancorous rats
rabid foxes beget brainless rocks
we are all dead
when it all ends
there are too many dead ends
I'll deafen my ears before everyone else disappears,
So I can have the most quietest peace of mind that hears their ghosts.
What would I give then for others to be their living hosts?
Spray from the waterfall cascading
Rainbows bright light up the foam
Glistening drops sparkle in the sunlight
The thunder of the rolling waters deafen
As we stand enthralled, gasping with wonder
Oh, how can we deny !
when the poor translations of HIS language deafen us,
while HIS silences make us cry.
(01.03.2025)
"Silence is the language of god,
all else is poor translation" - Rumi.
Holding my temper, I cry
Holding my eyes, I censor
Holding my tongue, I’m muted
Holding my ears, I deafen
Holding my hunger, I starve
Holding my thirst, I dry up
Holding my love, I push back
Holding my zakat, I give
Holding everything Holy;
Holding and shunning evil.
Cicada Dreaming was told to Roland Robinson in 1965 by Julia Charles of the Yoocum Yoocum clans from the area around Wollumbin in the headwaters of the Tweed River, Northern NSW and is used with permission.
Tiny Dreamtime children, imprisoned in the earth,
pierce the little tree roots to sip sap beneath the dirt.
For seven years, cicada grubs, as they scratch and dig,
keep getting so much bigger that they pop off their skins.
The final time they’re off and up: up a fence, up a trunk, up a shed.
Kids collect the shells they leave, stuck with claws on curling feet.
Buzz, buzz, buzz: cicada wings brush past my nose.
Their raucous chorus is a non-stop drone.
A thousand bodies cling on sticks and twigs and leaves.
Above my ringing ears their yellow wee rains down me.
Every year they deafen us. The noise is really bad -
crying for their mothers, screaming for their dads.
But, this year there are - none.
I’m surprised that I feel sad.
Where have the mad things gone?
Yellow Mondays, Green Grocers,
Black Princes, Cherry Noses -
Much as they annoy me,
I hope that they’ll be back.
100 days in captivity
10,000 children killed
who can speak?
who can speak?
the silent cries deafen
tidal wave of suffering
washes over the memory
of lives snuffed out under the rubble
bombs bury the guilt of oppression
there is no extra care being taken
what is true is death
fragile is a disjointed word
how can you say fragile
when they are gone
freedom, release are empty
shells without meaning
do not kidnap babies
do not kill babies
killing their families
severing their limbs
by your superior armaments
that flatten their homes
that is not mitigation
that is a lie
do not uphold a lie
the rabbi intones
God does not distinguish
us vs. them
humans, stop the slaughter
ceasefire now; rebuild
The final breath claws at my lungs
With the final sight of golden tears
All I now see is darkness like none
And silence that could deafen a dead man's fears
Images of my living hover right by
Happiness, gloom, everything I'd gone through
They're unlike those that spark reminiscence
Rather those to sing a solemn requiem to
And soon I forget every inch of myself
My name, what I am, everything I hold dear
All that remains is my tongue
As I linger in an abyss unfamiliar
With no warning or a signal
A shaft of blinding light impales
I hear cheers, I hear an applause
Beckoning me into their entrails
All that remained was my tongue
Until I beheld a scene I'd seen before
What more could I do than cry at my loss:
"It's a boy!" someone said and I knew nothing more
Is your ear corrupted
by what you see
Are the sounds distorted
in blind relief
Do the voices sleep
in images gone
Does a nightmare deafen
—tomorrow’s song
(Dreamsleep: April, 2023)
Your shadow
Haunts me,
My breath grows shallow
As I fall to my knees.
You tear me down
To build me up blindly.
My triggers deafen me,
(Why can’t you hear me?)
Trauma quiets me,
(Throat closed up, can’t breathe.)
Wrap me in your intimacies.
Memories pour through the seams,
Seeping into my soul,
Leaching the life out of me.
Shadows stealing everything I know,
Leaving me alone and feeling cold.
The thought of you
Ignites my deepest fears.
I looked into your soul,
And I knew.
In that moment your rage
Was all that I could hear.
Darkness consumed me,
Your shadow saw my suffering
And refused to set me free,
Memories left hungering.
Please,
Just leave me be.
Grasshoppers on the maple tree,
sitting and singing all day long,
tee tee, trit a tee, trit a tee,
is always their favourite song!
half the plant leaves have been digested,
like fire has swept entire lea,
no grains left, crops devastated,
as they eat and sing trit a tee!
when solitary, are no threat,
it is when they multiply free,
they change to locusts when upset,
then you hear them sing trit a tee!!
a swarm of locusts is like storm,
noisy green cloud is all you see,
unceasing numbers cause alarm,
they deafen you with trit a tee!
from Moses, from biblical times,
this God sent curse made history,
civilisations heard their chimes,
tee tee, trit a tee, trit a tee!!
life is about ‘ live and let live’,
each insect as precious as bee,
so share the world and learn to give,
let them sing their trit a tee, tee!
Written 15/01/2022
Insect poetry contest
Angela Tune sponsored
8 syllables each line, quatrain with abab rhyme sequence
Cursed at life,
Count with me,
Let me introduce you to my demons...
Here's 1, 2 and 3.
Tear me down,
Build me up blindly.
My triggers deafen me,
(Why can't you hear me?)
Trauma quiets me.
(Throat closed up, can't breathe).
Seduce me,
Wrap me up in your intimacies.
I lost touch with everything close to me,
I count myself in
Just to count myself out.
I'm crashing too fast,
Too sedated to slow down.
Cursed at life,
Can't stop,
Can't maintain,
Can't keep a hold on what's killing me.
Please,
Relieve me from this pain.
Help me refrain,
What's life with no gain?
Wasting my life,
One day at a time.
Why's it so hard to get back on my grind?
Take it one minute at a time,
Every day is a struggle,
Learning to live all over again.
I had to take a step back from the game.
We wake up every morning
To the circus we call our existence,
A chorus sung by a soloist and
Marathons to the next galaxy,
We go around in circles
Of never ending light
Panting for air wherever
It may donate itself.
We are paralysed by
Our own greatness,
The music we have composed
May deafen our children one day,
The miracle of technology
Might one day become
Our master and we the slaves,
The seeds we sow are
The blood and sweat
From our very own bodies.
These poor lives we live
Just another civilisation in universe
For there is something greater
Than all of us when we look
Just even an arm length away,
We are surrounded by
Many a splendour things
In this place we call home.
Keeping flippant thoughts in check
Convolutions make a schizophrenic toss
blind paranoia into the catatonic tomb
yelling whispers caught in mind cacophony
Rest the head in a drugged-out succor!
Deafen the sententious words – dead -
Nuke the firing adversary neuron!
No aesthetic can anesthetize the thinking demon
expounding beyond the bliss of ignorance
Stewards imagined become abominable ghouls!
Tangles exorbitant unravel contemplation’s nest…
(3/9/2021)
Take not your sight and blind it
Deafen not the ear and hear it
Touch not the hot but the warm
Taste not the sour but the sweet
Smell not the bitter of fragrance
Use the sense that God gave you
Correct the wrong and make it right
Hinder not those with common sense
Let the left be left and the right be right
Go down the middle of the road,
Win, with God holding your hand.
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