I love the colours in the limbs and the way the limbs interact.  This photoblend gives a different colour to the words too. Not sure which version I prefer.

Night Limbs by J.R.McRae

The sense of fluidity and oneness in the movement of  limbs in the wind, even the stirring of an early breeze signal the harmony in nature. Trees are so integral to our existence – they breathe, we breathe – our very life forces are interdependent.  Is it any wonder we name their most visible parts after our own – limbs, trunk?

Storm Light by J.R.McRae 09

Based on a ghastly tale from Brisbane’s early history, this poem highlights the tragic plight of women last century, trapped in violent families and with seemingly no escape. But are thngs that different? There is more awareness, there are more help services, but the fear that entraps and holds bound is still the same.

Library at the Edge of the World

Topics: communication, words, meaning, derivation, books and libraries, contemplation, layers of meaning, reading into or between the lines, J.R.Poulter

Description; This poem looks at words and their ability to impart meaning, what it takes to derive all the meaning intended from a piece of writing. What are the forces that place limitations on our ability to comprehend? How can our words take this into account, can they mean the same thing to all people reading them? Or do we give up, take what we can get and close the door to anything else that could be learned from the text?

Topics: family, relationships, separation, mealtimes, being alone

English: “Breakfast Alone”  deals with family relationships, from the child’s perspective or from a parent’s. To wake up to breakfast alone for the first time, or after a parent’s death, or after separation from loved ones, or when separation has been lengthy and one is homesick is a very desolating experience.  It is an experience all of use face in one or other or all of these dimensions at some stage in our lives.

The Drowning Place

In the poem “The Drowning Place”, sea/water images are used to describe the experience of being carried along by something beyond your control, of being subsumed by something that has overtaken you.

Study of Society: Depression and Addiction are often linked – one ‘pain’ being used to bury, dull, or overlay the other with  a masochistic intensification.

Topics: Afterlife, death, belief, angels, God

English: /Music/Art: “The Drowning Place”  deals with belief  in God, angels and the hereafter.  The works of William Blake artistically and poetically were inspirational. There is nothing more personal than what you believe, it can define you.  Some of the most powerful poetry, literature, music and art in the western world have been borne out of belief – the Psalms, The Book of Job, Handel’s Messiah, the rhetoric of Martin Luther King Jnr, Tolstoy’s “War and Peace”, El Greco’s   religious paintings, William Blake’s illustrations to ”The Grave” or the Book of Job, the ecstatic poetry of Gerald Manley Hopkins, Dante’s “Inferno” illustrated by Gustav Doré, Milton’s “Paradise Lost”. Activity: Take 2 large sheets of paper, swirl ,throw, splash colour all over one to represent what you believe; scatter words and phrases across the 2^nd to encapsulate what you believe– your own or quotes.  Different result, but is the fervour/passion behind it any different?

I absorb the world through your reading of it

page by close writ page of fact and someone’s opinion of it

[does that make it fiction].

Sometimes they colour it in called ‘photo journalism’

And the best of it IS worth 1,000 words…

–…–…

You are so still while you absorb

as if a movement would disturb the universe

or some essential atom at the bottom of it.

–…–…

I am trying to colour in my small part of existence

With colours and lines and camera stills

Like this still life –

I’ve captured you

And what if the facts seep off the page in the recycle bin!

I have coloured you in

And you remain the sum of all that you’ve absorbed

And will tell me over tea

So that I can see beyond your glasses rim the turn of earth

And events that will not feature in my dreams.

–…–…

But you have informed me

And I do not need

The newsman’s version of the world.

–…–…      –…–…     –…–…

[MY COMMENT: My life is so busy, generally,

my husband filters the news to me

whilst I'm in the kitchen preparing the tea. JRP]

Lean Cat Cuisine © J.R.Poulter 22 Jan 04 [in "Imagimals", KBS, 2005]

Late afternoon

The little cats come,

The licketty split, thin as a stick

Cats

Peering and staring from under the bushes

Wary and waiting

For the last tides of late ones

To go,

Leaving them be,

Lords and Ladies,

To pick at the bins

The happy scraps, lush for licking, nice nibbly bits

That tickle the tongue!

The elegant cats’

Lean feline cuisine –

Burger bits, gravied chips, a bit o bun, fried rice –

Nice –

Mmmmm this’s YUM!

Long, Lean Buster

Poetry is colour – how do you add colour to poetry – intonation, volume, body language!

Let’s play

!