Your use of Tardis took this to a whole other plane for me, David. I love the way poetry, love, landscapes are all part of a narrative that isn't purely literary in any hothouse sense, but SciFi...or whatever it wants to be.
Ah Jeremy. Thankyou! "Tardis" might be lost on those who have never watched DR Who, lol, but I guess they can look it up.
Isn't it remarkable what vast worlds we can hold within the narrow physical confines of our mind?
At the time I wrote this poem, just a few years ago, we were desperately busy building a service to deliver aged and disability care at home for people needing that kind of help. It had become a 7 day a week job with long hours - and we loved it - another kind of adventure together - but M, wise woman that she is, knew that it was coming time to step back from that, and for me to get back to my writing....
Good love is just gonna be like this isn't it? I read this and thought of, I am counting here, five specific women in my life who, If I could gather them all for pancakes (the mother of my kids has passed on, but she could maybe zoom in from heaven or the collective consciousness or wherever) THAT would be a breakfast of champions. Every one of them were All Star hall of famers in their own right who somehow let me tag along (often unskillfully) for a season.
No combustion in nature is perfect, there always seems to be something left over, ash, smoke, memory, Carbon 14, or, if we are lucky, a Sun just stable enough to be a reliable ever ready battery for 10 billion years.
Just woke up, dark here on the left coast of Trumpistan, L warm and unconscious next to me, easy regular breathing. I thought about planning my day and realized that it was futile. Rolled out of bed, because anytime you are somewhere perfect, it's time to leave. Sliced up some strawberries. Coffee. Computer. And then boom. Here you three are again. Feels like home to me.
Haha, well cheers to "we three" (4) all being here. It's becoming quite a unifying and discussion of minds amongst us, isn't it... and I really enjoy it. It certainly is feeling like home to me as well.
Oh absolutely you’re right about the uniqueness, Dave. I think it’s more the connection in recognizing and the mode with which the realizing/recognizing occurs because of the similar depth of feeling…or the language of the words and how they are strung together. It’s good to feel understood or find similar types of understanding in others’ words. The knowing that the depth is there is even enough…even if felt (in words) differently.
I am glad Sylvia is crying some serious tears for you because somehow this thing hit me unsentimentally. I read it and thought, well, aint that just how it always goes. Except the part at the end where you have a partner who encourages you to work less...I am like, what part of Stepford are we talking about here?
Ha!! It didn't get to "serious tears"...light and gentle gliding down the cheek kind of sentimentality and emotion...the kind where the pooling in the eyes started to spill over for a time of 3 or 4 breaths after you truly thought you could contain them...🙃
I'm hopeless when it comes to this. I literally cry over some of my own work, because writing it opens a door to the underlying emotion and out it all rushes....
Back when I was doing poetry readings I quickly learned, the hard way, which pieces I could NOT read aloud. The worst experience was when I won a national award for Lajamanu Morning and they flew me North for an awards ceremony and expected me to read it. Oh no........
A much happier event: a year later I was invited to the Brisbane Poetry Festival. Free accommodation and lots of fun. Meg came along too. I was careful what pieces I read from my desert collection and I got through that unscathed.
Then there was the Festival "Poetry Slam" and - bolstered with several good glasses of red wine - I decided to enter. A ridiculous thing for an introvert like me but I had this wild rush of energy.
I felt my desert poems wouldn't cut it so - with Meg's permission (and with her sitting in the theatre) - I read a selection of erotic poems which had definitely been written for M as an audience of one!!
There is no recording (I hope!!!!!!) but sex definitely sells, as they say, so I sailed through each round and after each reading I went back - with all eyes following - to sit next to M, who sat with a Mona Lisa smile throughout.
Eventually it came down to me vs a fabulous young Poet who went by her initials of JFK. She edged me out for first place on points, but I was proud of my second place - and my wonderful woman!
Yes. That is just how it goes sometimes, though it could have gone another way. The full story was - like any passionate love - intense and overwhelming. Having it all play out in a very small town, which was itself 7 hours drive from the next very small town, made it all the more compressed and crazy. omg.....
There were a lot of tears at the time, for all concerned, but - though it seemed impossible to me then - I have ended up in a calmer, happier place, where I can look back at it and choose to focus on the joy.
M is a remarkable human being. She has been through a lot, and has much wisdom. She accompanied me to several of the launches and readings for my little book of desert poetry, and she has always encouraged me to write.
Isn't it interesting, Jeremy, how we never class writing as work, but it can be sometimes. I guess it's a question of doing the thing we truly love, and doing it well.
I had to look up Tardis, but when I read the definition I though, hell, that was my room growing up...Are we not all on Bill and Ted's excellent adventure?
Sitting here in the front room of a cold English, grey morning, I am imagining this poem 's words living and breathing in other lives. Thank you for sharing, Dave.
Now that's what I'd call a real poem! If I had written that I'd take it out and put it up on the fridge and leave it there until I had to get a new one. Another fine poem, Dave.
I'm so glad that you liked this poem. It is..... of course, of a deeply personal nature, but we all have our versions of joy and grief. As Poets, we share that....
In fact - I have yet to comment on your lovely "Point Of View" poems, but I will get there!
It's early here, just on dawn, and I am up to see the sun rise. I opened Substack and your lovely comment just appeared.
I don't know where you are writing from, but I hope there is Poetry in your landscape too. I like to think that Poetry is everywhere...
However, it is true that the desert lands of my country seem made of Poetry. They are certainly infused with it. I have sat, hour after hour after hour, all through long nights, at ceremony with Aboriginal/First Nation people, listening to their chanting of endless song cycles about the land and the spirits of the land which they have built up over 60,000 years or more of living there.
So sometimes it seemed to me that the mountains and plains and dry sandy river beds were just the physical incarnation of an enormous, infinite underlying Poem....
Thankyou for liking my work. Some of my other desert poems also appear on my Substack if you go looking: Kaltukatjara; Junga Yimi; The Missionary Position; Lajamanu Morning.....
I am in the south of France. I agree with you : poetry is everywhere. "Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir" said Matisse. How extraordinary to live in a time when you can say hi to a poet on the other side of the world, when you can see the dawn of day, and I can see the stars at night! At the same time!!
And I have a love of your beautiful country, especially the south. There is a universe of Poetry in your landscape!
I have wonderful memories of working the Vendange, in small villages west of Montpelier, and also near Carcassonne. Backbreaking work, but the local Farmers treated me like a lost Son.
That was long ago, but my wonderful partner and I returned two years ago, to travel those same roads that I hitch hiked way back then....
This is lovely, Dave. IT's hard for me to pick even one image to rest on, and maybe that is the point--that it is all of a piece, that whole landscape in the Tardis. And I love it that I read this poem of yours, and Jed's coffee poem, on the same day, because I think the same emotion is at work in both of them, a kind of holding out of the hand--offering something almost too delicate to bear.
This hour or two in my early morning, sitting reading comments and replies on Substack while the day dawns over the river outside, has come to feel like sitting down for an early morning Coffee with friends - and a few total strangers who just happened to drop by.
I have a literal espresso sitting next to me too (well - an empty mug until I make my second), and a world of Poetry at my fingertips. Today's actual coffee isn't as good as Jed's poetry coffee from yesterday, but I went back and read that again, so now I have the best of both.
I am, I confess, hopelessly romantic, but I hope what I write is not saccharine. The best memories are like expanding foam compressed in our can of bone. Let them out, and for a moment they fill the world again.....
A lot of your Poetry feels like that to me - a marvellous eruption of something long compressed.
Half-Life - you are correct - is a gentler offering. Here is a voice, there is red dust, this is a pool in the desert with a woman I loved. Once they were fire. Now they are photographs, pressed flowers, polished stones.
Holy crap, what a community you have here (in these comments, wow); what a poem; what a love story; and WHAT A PARAGRAPH:
"So we store them away until the memory eases of itself, slowly giving up over days and months and years, some of the fierce intensity which at first burns at the very thought but eventually calms, revealing new colours, new patterns and new imprints, even as the ache itself dissipates.
What is the half-life of love? When is it safe to handle again?"
I am burning to a marvelous crisp with the lushest (writer) envy and I can't wait to read more!!!
Dear Leslie...what luminous words to read. I've been out and about getting ready for a flood, and feeling tired after a late night writing. Your words just turned on the light. How strange and marvellous it is, that sadness and loss can also bring joy...
And yes - I have met some wonderful people here - our words and thoughts mingling, generating new meaning and connection. You are right - a community.
Best Wishes to you from across the wide waters of the Pacific - Dave :)
Ah! Yes .... You know - I grew up with Dr Who, so I just grabbed that analogy instinctively. A "Tardis" is simply part of my everyday mental furniture.
It was only after publishing the poem here that I realised - Oh! A large part of humanity has no idea what I'm talking about when I say "head like a Tardis."!
Your poetry makes a piece of me travel in the wilderness. And I say it as something positive because only away from the turmoil of the urban life, one can hear his heartbeat.
Yes - I am profoundly fortunate. This work - and "Spinifex" - and "Two Readings" also - are published with M's support and encouragement. She really did put "Half Life" up on our fridge for a year, and urge me to write more.
Now I am urging M - to do more art :)
We will have some more joint Posts here on Substack.
Meg is so generous and beautiful. I can totally believe she is supportive. Still I’m going to put a prayer on the Mountain here before we leave that Meg makes her Art too! And that we all get to hang out very soon! Thank you:) 🙏 Spirit is very much alive here in Japan!
hey Dave, that was nice, I manned up and read it, all the while placing my self into the narrative, it wasn't too painful, but you must admit, it's hard to have an open mind when it's happening
Haha, me too although I do own a T-shirt that says Oliver Boliver Butt and my good friend, David Ward has one that reads Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face. If you ever find your way over here I’ll get yours printed up.
my head like a Tardis holding
a whole landscape, a life, a brief
history of a brief love which
briefly bloomed like those
purple desert flowers after rain.
Your use of Tardis took this to a whole other plane for me, David. I love the way poetry, love, landscapes are all part of a narrative that isn't purely literary in any hothouse sense, but SciFi...or whatever it wants to be.
"Work less, write more." My God, yes.
Ah Jeremy. Thankyou! "Tardis" might be lost on those who have never watched DR Who, lol, but I guess they can look it up.
Isn't it remarkable what vast worlds we can hold within the narrow physical confines of our mind?
At the time I wrote this poem, just a few years ago, we were desperately busy building a service to deliver aged and disability care at home for people needing that kind of help. It had become a 7 day a week job with long hours - and we loved it - another kind of adventure together - but M, wise woman that she is, knew that it was coming time to step back from that, and for me to get back to my writing....
I can’t bring a more elevated—or even equal—comment than this one. Jeremy says it all. But I will emphatically reiterate your lovely Meg’s words:
“Work less, write more.”
I had tears well up when I read this. I guess they did more than well…sending love. 💕✨
Dear Sylvia
I knew you would understand, but I am truly honoured that the poem moves you.
My experience is not unique. We all of us crest the waves of joy, and traverse the troughs of grief. They are the price - and gift - of passage.
Poetry is shared meaning...
Dave
Good love is just gonna be like this isn't it? I read this and thought of, I am counting here, five specific women in my life who, If I could gather them all for pancakes (the mother of my kids has passed on, but she could maybe zoom in from heaven or the collective consciousness or wherever) THAT would be a breakfast of champions. Every one of them were All Star hall of famers in their own right who somehow let me tag along (often unskillfully) for a season.
No combustion in nature is perfect, there always seems to be something left over, ash, smoke, memory, Carbon 14, or, if we are lucky, a Sun just stable enough to be a reliable ever ready battery for 10 billion years.
Just woke up, dark here on the left coast of Trumpistan, L warm and unconscious next to me, easy regular breathing. I thought about planning my day and realized that it was futile. Rolled out of bed, because anytime you are somewhere perfect, it's time to leave. Sliced up some strawberries. Coffee. Computer. And then boom. Here you three are again. Feels like home to me.
Haha, well cheers to "we three" (4) all being here. It's becoming quite a unifying and discussion of minds amongst us, isn't it... and I really enjoy it. It certainly is feeling like home to me as well.
Oh, Jed. How lucky you've been in love!
Oh absolutely you’re right about the uniqueness, Dave. I think it’s more the connection in recognizing and the mode with which the realizing/recognizing occurs because of the similar depth of feeling…or the language of the words and how they are strung together. It’s good to feel understood or find similar types of understanding in others’ words. The knowing that the depth is there is even enough…even if felt (in words) differently.
I am glad Sylvia is crying some serious tears for you because somehow this thing hit me unsentimentally. I read it and thought, well, aint that just how it always goes. Except the part at the end where you have a partner who encourages you to work less...I am like, what part of Stepford are we talking about here?
Ha!! It didn't get to "serious tears"...light and gentle gliding down the cheek kind of sentimentality and emotion...the kind where the pooling in the eyes started to spill over for a time of 3 or 4 breaths after you truly thought you could contain them...🙃
Maybe we need a tearometer scale.
I'm hopeless when it comes to this. I literally cry over some of my own work, because writing it opens a door to the underlying emotion and out it all rushes....
Back when I was doing poetry readings I quickly learned, the hard way, which pieces I could NOT read aloud. The worst experience was when I won a national award for Lajamanu Morning and they flew me North for an awards ceremony and expected me to read it. Oh no........
A much happier event: a year later I was invited to the Brisbane Poetry Festival. Free accommodation and lots of fun. Meg came along too. I was careful what pieces I read from my desert collection and I got through that unscathed.
Then there was the Festival "Poetry Slam" and - bolstered with several good glasses of red wine - I decided to enter. A ridiculous thing for an introvert like me but I had this wild rush of energy.
I felt my desert poems wouldn't cut it so - with Meg's permission (and with her sitting in the theatre) - I read a selection of erotic poems which had definitely been written for M as an audience of one!!
There is no recording (I hope!!!!!!) but sex definitely sells, as they say, so I sailed through each round and after each reading I went back - with all eyes following - to sit next to M, who sat with a Mona Lisa smile throughout.
Eventually it came down to me vs a fabulous young Poet who went by her initials of JFK. She edged me out for first place on points, but I was proud of my second place - and my wonderful woman!
And I still am.....
D :)
Ah well, Jed, I am a fortunate man.
Yes. That is just how it goes sometimes, though it could have gone another way. The full story was - like any passionate love - intense and overwhelming. Having it all play out in a very small town, which was itself 7 hours drive from the next very small town, made it all the more compressed and crazy. omg.....
There were a lot of tears at the time, for all concerned, but - though it seemed impossible to me then - I have ended up in a calmer, happier place, where I can look back at it and choose to focus on the joy.
M is a remarkable human being. She has been through a lot, and has much wisdom. She accompanied me to several of the launches and readings for my little book of desert poetry, and she has always encouraged me to write.
Isn't it interesting, Jeremy, how we never class writing as work, but it can be sometimes. I guess it's a question of doing the thing we truly love, and doing it well.
I had to look up Tardis, but when I read the definition I though, hell, that was my room growing up...Are we not all on Bill and Ted's excellent adventure?
I feel like I am! 😆
'storing you away until
you were safe again.'
Sitting here in the front room of a cold English, grey morning, I am imagining this poem 's words living and breathing in other lives. Thank you for sharing, Dave.
Hey Richard….
This poem sat on our fridge, held up with a magnet, because my wonderful partner Meg - my readership of one - said “This is beautiful.”
She urged me for years to publish again. So now this poem is set free, and it becomes whatever other readers make of it.
Which, in turn, sets me free too….
Best Wishes - Dave
Now that's what I'd call a real poem! If I had written that I'd take it out and put it up on the fridge and leave it there until I had to get a new one. Another fine poem, Dave.
Thankyou Martin.
I just said to Damian…
That poem sat there a long time, just something shared between Meg and I, but she urged me for years to publish again.
Now it is set free, to become what other readers make of it, and that - in turn - sets me free too….
Best Wishes - Dave
Yes, but keep it on the fridge also, among the great trophies from a life!
All the best stuff eventually migrates to the fridge.
coming from the places
empty of me but
full of so much else. - this struck me... it could be a reference to the physical location or the person...bittersweet.
Dear Rajani
I'm so glad that you liked this poem. It is..... of course, of a deeply personal nature, but we all have our versions of joy and grief. As Poets, we share that....
In fact - I have yet to comment on your lovely "Point Of View" poems, but I will get there!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Half life continues. Keeps dividing. Never get to end. Photos Australian delight, clearest sky ever seen. Pure air assume . Fresh water. Delighted.
Yes.... keeps dividing, but never forgotten.
Pure desert air indeed, my friend. Clean fresh water too - if you know where to find it!
Dave :)
When l look at these landscapes, I think that it is impossible not to be transformed by them, and not become a poet.
Good morning from Australia, Félicia.
It's early here, just on dawn, and I am up to see the sun rise. I opened Substack and your lovely comment just appeared.
I don't know where you are writing from, but I hope there is Poetry in your landscape too. I like to think that Poetry is everywhere...
However, it is true that the desert lands of my country seem made of Poetry. They are certainly infused with it. I have sat, hour after hour after hour, all through long nights, at ceremony with Aboriginal/First Nation people, listening to their chanting of endless song cycles about the land and the spirits of the land which they have built up over 60,000 years or more of living there.
So sometimes it seemed to me that the mountains and plains and dry sandy river beds were just the physical incarnation of an enormous, infinite underlying Poem....
Thankyou for liking my work. Some of my other desert poems also appear on my Substack if you go looking: Kaltukatjara; Junga Yimi; The Missionary Position; Lajamanu Morning.....
Have a wonderful day/evening/night.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I am in the south of France. I agree with you : poetry is everywhere. "Il y a des fleurs partout pour qui veut bien les voir" said Matisse. How extraordinary to live in a time when you can say hi to a poet on the other side of the world, when you can see the dawn of day, and I can see the stars at night! At the same time!!
Yes! It is indeed remarkable....
And I have a love of your beautiful country, especially the south. There is a universe of Poetry in your landscape!
I have wonderful memories of working the Vendange, in small villages west of Montpelier, and also near Carcassonne. Backbreaking work, but the local Farmers treated me like a lost Son.
That was long ago, but my wonderful partner and I returned two years ago, to travel those same roads that I hitch hiked way back then....
Dave :)
This is lovely, Dave. IT's hard for me to pick even one image to rest on, and maybe that is the point--that it is all of a piece, that whole landscape in the Tardis. And I love it that I read this poem of yours, and Jed's coffee poem, on the same day, because I think the same emotion is at work in both of them, a kind of holding out of the hand--offering something almost too delicate to bear.
Good Aussie morning to you, friend Rebecca.
This hour or two in my early morning, sitting reading comments and replies on Substack while the day dawns over the river outside, has come to feel like sitting down for an early morning Coffee with friends - and a few total strangers who just happened to drop by.
I have a literal espresso sitting next to me too (well - an empty mug until I make my second), and a world of Poetry at my fingertips. Today's actual coffee isn't as good as Jed's poetry coffee from yesterday, but I went back and read that again, so now I have the best of both.
I am, I confess, hopelessly romantic, but I hope what I write is not saccharine. The best memories are like expanding foam compressed in our can of bone. Let them out, and for a moment they fill the world again.....
A lot of your Poetry feels like that to me - a marvellous eruption of something long compressed.
Half-Life - you are correct - is a gentler offering. Here is a voice, there is red dust, this is a pool in the desert with a woman I loved. Once they were fire. Now they are photographs, pressed flowers, polished stones.
Here, take one.... they are beautiful....
Sanguine, not saccharine...
I think Rebecca is saying that I should have a place in the fridge too ... Maybe back behind that half finished sixer of Fosters?
Aha!!!
Little Aussie secret here, Jed. Now don’t tell anyone, but….we only export the stuff. We don’t drink it ourselves! !
It’s horrible. Omg…. Trump can whack a tariff on Fosters and just be doing everyone a favour.
If you get here - it’ll be Coopers Pale Ale..🍺
D :)
Loved all of this.
Thankyou, Jane. Love is still the endless subject for Poetry, and life....
Best Wishes - Dave
It all comes back to that.
Put the poem back on the fridge! It is beautiful. 💜
Oh Nazish!
Thankyou!!! It delights me that you see beauty here above sadness.
That is the gift of time and healing, and it is my truth.
Sincere Best Wishes - Dave
Holy crap, what a community you have here (in these comments, wow); what a poem; what a love story; and WHAT A PARAGRAPH:
"So we store them away until the memory eases of itself, slowly giving up over days and months and years, some of the fierce intensity which at first burns at the very thought but eventually calms, revealing new colours, new patterns and new imprints, even as the ache itself dissipates.
What is the half-life of love? When is it safe to handle again?"
I am burning to a marvelous crisp with the lushest (writer) envy and I can't wait to read more!!!
Dear Leslie...what luminous words to read. I've been out and about getting ready for a flood, and feeling tired after a late night writing. Your words just turned on the light. How strange and marvellous it is, that sadness and loss can also bring joy...
And yes - I have met some wonderful people here - our words and thoughts mingling, generating new meaning and connection. You are right - a community.
Best Wishes to you from across the wide waters of the Pacific - Dave :)
I had to smile at the reference to a TARDIS. 🙂
Ah! Yes .... You know - I grew up with Dr Who, so I just grabbed that analogy instinctively. A "Tardis" is simply part of my everyday mental furniture.
It was only after publishing the poem here that I realised - Oh! A large part of humanity has no idea what I'm talking about when I say "head like a Tardis."!
Which is a shame, really - everyone should know! 😆
Your poetry makes a piece of me travel in the wilderness. And I say it as something positive because only away from the turmoil of the urban life, one can hear his heartbeat.
Thankyou, friend Nikos
I hope to run into you on a mountain top somewhere!
Best Wishes - Dave :)
Beautiful as always. You found a golden match with divine Meg.
Thankyou, dear Bernadette!
Yes - I am profoundly fortunate. This work - and "Spinifex" - and "Two Readings" also - are published with M's support and encouragement. She really did put "Half Life" up on our fridge for a year, and urge me to write more.
Now I am urging M - to do more art :)
We will have some more joint Posts here on Substack.
Hey - your "spirit In the Snow" post was fascinating! And gorgeous... https://bernadettegeraghty.substack.com/p/the-spirit-in-the-snow
Love from us both
D :)
Meg is so generous and beautiful. I can totally believe she is supportive. Still I’m going to put a prayer on the Mountain here before we leave that Meg makes her Art too! And that we all get to hang out very soon! Thank you:) 🙏 Spirit is very much alive here in Japan!
hey Dave, that was nice, I manned up and read it, all the while placing my self into the narrative, it wasn't too painful, but you must admit, it's hard to have an open mind when it's happening
Yep. Things happen. There are choices we make that don't feel like a choice at the time....
D
Lovely photos!
Thankyou Nevena!
Best Wishes from Australia - Dave :)
And here is yet another Dave who loves this poem. Beautiful words 🙏
There can never be too many Daves, my friend.
I’m so glad you like it. All my poetry is from the heart. This one contains a chunk of it.
Thankyou for the restack mate.
Best Wishes - Dave
I’m afraid it’s my solemn duty to inform you that you are wrong…https://allpoetry.com/poem/11575842-Too-Many-Daves-by-Theodor-Seuss-Geisel 🤣🤠
OMG!!!!! I had no idea.......
I guess I could change my name to Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate....
but I'm kinda used to "Dave."
:)
Haha, me too although I do own a T-shirt that says Oliver Boliver Butt and my good friend, David Ward has one that reads Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face. If you ever find your way over here I’ll get yours printed up.
Fabulous!!!
We might just get there....
Dave :)
I look forward to it 🤠