europapoetsgazette195

Tasmanian Europa Poets Gazette No 195 July 2020

Michael Garrad

We’re Back

 

 

Welcome back to the hard copy version of the Europa Poets Gazette. 

 

For those of you who think we might have been in recess, quite the contrary - we have been posting online (as we do every issue) but in this case this has been our only outlet because of the corona virus pandemic.

 

Thankfully, it seems the worst might be over here in Tasmania. Having said that, I make the point there is no room for complacency. We must continue to observe all the health rules, as I’m sure you would well know by now.

 

Be that as it may, we are back for the gazette you know so well, a publication in full colour, that you can see and touch. The July issue is available through all the usual outlets, especially wherever you may be enjoying a coffee now that we can drink in, albeit with restrictions.

 

It goes without saying that we are grateful for the continued support of State Labor MP Anita Dow, who prints the gazette for us.

 

Final word on corona virus - I’ve had my test, even though in perfectly good health. It only takes a few minutes. I was negative, of course! So take the test even if you feel a million dollars!

 

 Michael Garrad

Face, Joe Lake

Swans, Robbie Taylor

Stung

When I was working in the garden today,

I was stung by a bee

And as my hand was throbbing,

It brought back a memory.

It was sweltering in Cowra

And I needed to cool down,

So I rode my motorbike

|Towards the nearest town.

It was on a sweeping bend

That I rode into a swarm of bees.

Initially, I was covered from my head

Down to my knees.

I had bees in my hair and inside my shirt.

I even had bees underneath my skirt.

I turned my bike around and rode back into town.

I had a feeling that I would never live this down.

I felt embarrassed 

As the doctor removed the stings.

From then I was known as Nurse Bee Sting.

Robbie Taylor

Mary KIlle

The Benison Of Books

(or keeping sane in a time of stress)

Browsing through beloved books

Of history and mystery,

Psychology, tautology,

I made without apology

My personal anthology.

Biology, ecology,

Geology, theology,

Doxology, sexology,

Neology, zoology,

And even anthropology.

This was an opportunity

Presented with impunity,

To venture into unity

With friends in my community.

For books have the capacity 

Especially in audacity,

To nurture our sagacity,

When read with perspicacity.

I studied works poetical,

Polemical and ethical

And even hypothetical,

Or physical and quizzical

And some quite aphrodisiacal!

I disregard pomposity

And hate excess verbosity

And overt grandiosity

But value virtuosity.

I cherish works of clarity,

Eschewing all vulgarity,

Love charity, hilarity

And joyous jocularity.

To save me from senility

And cerebral fragility.

My books are the facility

To give me the ability

To face up to the future

With a measure of tranquillity.

Mary Kille

‘What th!’

‘What th!’ the statement, we all know well.

We use it at times when it all goes to hell,

We see something happen and ‘What th!’ comes out.

It means nothing more than an expletive shout!

But what word comes after the ‘Th!’ we express?

I’m guilty, of some words that shock, I confess.

I’ve come up with some, after ‘What ‘th!’ that fit,

But as for their impact, they don’t mean a bit…

Hence I’m creating fresh words that go there

Next to the ‘What th!’… they hand in the air.

Alphabetically and with some luck,

We’ll express our cuss words, so let’s start with ...

Kathnyn Conlin

Kathryn Conlin

A Positive View On Corona virus

Sometimes it takes a picture,

Sometimes it takes a memory,

Sometimes it takes a smile.

A positive outlook, a few words on face book.

Corona virus will not stay long.

Mentally, we must stay strong.

In years to come,

We will share anecdotes about these days.

So shove off now, Covid 19.

No longer will we refrain.

We are going to get on with our lives again.

Phil Harper

Mayhem

In the mayhem of music

the celestial choir, discordant

but exhilarating, strikes

strident notes behind 

the silence of eyes,

Loudly,

As others hear nothing but

soft cacophony of existence,

Deafening a heartbeat,

Mere drawing of breath, 

Inside the boxes of their lives,

Confined in monotonous

renewal of futile hope.

There is no music here,

Just death’s inevitable soliloquy,

Fractured dreams born

on withered stem,

Eternal treadmill, trapped,

As they are, in unceasing motion,

Life’s prize unreachable,

Even with outstretched arms,

Longing for the tangible,

Wasted hours in the 

ever-lengthening chase,

Searching for paradise in the

chill of advancing wither-years.

Maybe they will hear this music,

momentary, in aged fragility,

As undertow tugs, swallows

in whirlpool of misspent eagerness,

Breaching, briefly, the mundane,

To hear purity and passion -

This choir in mayhem,

Tumultuous, at the crossing-over.

Michael Garrad June 2020

Melbourne, Joe Lake

 

Abstract, Joe Lake

 

Judy Brumby-Lake

Michael Garrad

Joe Lake

 

You  Temptress

You temptress with your siren’s craft,

You play a somniferous tune on your lyre,

To lure men from their secure domestic abode

Into your soft-cloaked, camouflage, female viper’s den.

With your skills, you anaesthetise their brains

And reawaken their manly parts.

You temptress with your siren’s craft,

Can you hear the wails of the wife you betrayed?

Do feel her pain?

Do you see her children’s tear-drenched faces,

Do you feel the pain of the children

You have ripped from their father’s heart?

You temptress with your siren’s craft,

With your skilful words, your deceptive-child-like mask,

You play with men and give them the illusion

That you are unique;

Yet when you tire of them,

You act as female viper,

For you smile, as their hearts die,

While you plan to lure other men onto these rocks.

You temptress with your siren’s craft,

Feline predator, who enjoys, like a cat, to toy with your pray.

You destroyer of abodes, just for the sport,

You trophy collector; you betrayer of sisterhood.

Judy Brumby-Lake

Bush. Joe Lake

Eternity

The gremlins of a glorious day

Have always known the joy of soft delay.

They drink from deep within

The sleep of darkness where the dreams begin

And knew that this connection’s 

Worms had Möbius concoctions.

Then never-mind the mystery of God

Or his minions so created and then shot

As they were running towards peaceful sleep

Before and after that’s the only hope they keep

And nearly always ends up in contempt

As we attempt to peek above the firmament.

Yet flowers too, create, like us,

Their software building, copying, without fuss.

So proven by a million years

Have looked into the world without our fears.

And animals who function in their dreams

Reject the notion of exterior schemes.

As I seek God in all this mess

And could have done much better with a guess

Or may have build a bomb that kills us all

So that the sleep-eternal comes before the fall.

My genes were born from immortality

And there they are, still searching for eternity..

Joe Lake

Yvonne Matheson

Their Castle

For forty years 

the loving couple had seven children

And grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

The council wanted to pull down their house

And make a car park.

Terrible.

Their dreams pulled down to the ground.

Yvonne Matheson

Burnie Council Chambers

The Beach

There is no beauty on a beach,

Sand flooded with bright sunlight 

stings unshod feet.

People, half naked and drunk wander exposed.

Waves build themselves up

And force themselves on you.

Roaring, crushing and relentless, 

Surging and thrusting.

I trip over bikini-clad cancer seekers

Lying in the sun

And run.

Loretta Gaul

John Lennon, Robbie TaylorAdd caption