Antipodean

Antipodean

-“I get a sense you are anti-Podeon. Am I correct, Sir?”
-“Awww…I wouldn’t know anything about that, Mate.
Didn’t know the bloke.
He died long before my time.
I got nothin’ against the French, but.
Although I didn’t much like his hat....now that ya mention it.”

© Strauss
14 March 2007

Very, very silly indeed.
This week’s completely and totally optional idea for Poetry Thursday was noted as “defined”. Contributors were asked to scour their dictionaries in search for interesting words. We were not to look at the meaning, but define the word based on our own impressions. I nearly didn’t do this one. I tried earlier in the week, but it didn’t really work for me. Then I remembered, that I was asked the above question, soon after arriving in Canada. Was I Antipodean? The inquirer was met with a blank glaze-eyed stare, as I answered in a rather ambling monotonous voice; "I am Australian". He replied that he “thought so”, and then he left.

In response, I scurried off home in search of a dictionary, for I had never heard the word, antipodean, in my life.

**Just so you know, Antipode refers to any two places or regions that are on diametrically opposite sides of the earth. Anitpodeans are the inhabitants.

The Red Walk

Spike-heeled stilettos
roam the streets in wait.
Red Light District,
in the dark corners of the night.

Shiny leather boots
march defiantly as one.
The world's Red Armies
Unite the Communist front.

Winter pale toes
stomp the season's first fruit.
A silky red wine
born from luscious juice.

Bare Indigenous feet
dance The Brolga with precision.
Dry red dirt
swirling with the movement.

Dorothy's famed shoes
click at the heels.
Ruby Red slippers
Just want to go home.

Swollen ankles - mine,
throb from standing.
Red woollen socks
With a hole in the toe.

© Strauss
6th March 2007

The Unsuppressable

We try to hold it together;
a finely orchestrated deception.

Believing no one will ever learn our secret
or our pain.

But the body knows.

And soon enough
weeds force and intrude between the presenting cracks;
A pestilence of pain
nurtured by a well manured inner self.

We begin to resemble an untended garden;
choked with wild plants and tangle bush,
a mood of rotten fruit;
prickly,
hardened and woody
like forgotten parsnips.

Even the birds avoid our slowly wilting selves,
preferring more joyful sanctuaries to linger.
.....And we no longer care
or notice.

So while we try to hold it all together,
to keep the secret of our discontent,
the body knows.
And screams it to the universe.

In the end,
though no words may depart our lips....
Everybody knows.

© Strauss
20th February 2007

Solar Flares

Solar plexus swells and radiates.
A throbbing, scorching sun, burns the centre of my being.
Intense.
I am left, feeling blistered and tender.
Oh! The pain.....
Had I known before,
I would have protected my heart under a hat;
Wrapped my soul in dark glasses
And drunk a cocktail of Mississippi Moonshine and SPF15 Plus.
One can never be too sun smart.

© Strauss
16th February 2007

The Tulle Cloaked Bride - a Prose Poem

A ghostly apparition of I, drifting within the now familiar fog. Her gauzy veil silhouettes a softened landscape, leaving a world of vague shapes, lingering like enigmatic shadows.
Conifers spire toward the heavens, like renaissance towers shrouded in the lost world above.
Tiny birds bolt from nearby cedars; feathered darts shooting through her tranquil haze.
I breathe the dawn enchantress, knowing her to disappear with the heat of the day. I know not when she might return, to slink across my lawn with dewy steps, lick my eaves and caress the naked branches with a thousand gentle tears.
Tomorrow, the rains are set to lavish these whisper-soothed lands, like an insistent groom ravishing his tulle cloaked bride. The fog, she will succumb.

© Strauss
12th February 2007

Frozen Lake

You say I am a frozen lake, like its a bad thing.
Perhaps I am…..
On the surface I am strong and sturdy
While there remains an undercurrent
An unseen force, ebbing and flowing.
Change taking place slowly, away from prying eyes
Life stirs hidden,
below an impenetrable icy crust.
Privately.

But….
My veneer would be so thick that I could not feel
Numbed to the sensations of an outer universe
Paralysed to respond
Unmoved
Aloof
Motionless
Dead.

If you think I am like a frozen lake.
Then help me thaw.
Be there when the cracks appear.
And my hardened shell liquefies
Encourage the light to dance and play upon my glistening surface
Tell others to peer into the depths of my soul
They might even see themselves in my reflection
I do realise I might appear unstable.
It matters not.
I am alive.

© Strauss
5th February 2007

Savour the Process

Crude graphite scratches a harmony onto paper;
A tattoo of thought and ideas
A scarring of images; internal rage and pain
A lingering kiss filled with joy, humour and love
Or perhaps, an etched still of lingering observation.

Fibres entwine here.
Graphite smudging a perfect surface.
A trio of essences collide;
Mineral, mind, material.
Creation.

Words are formed within the sacred bounds of my notebook.
Their decisive combination develops into meaning.
Spidery scrawls lumber across the manuscript.
Dark retractions blemish the page,
They symbolise process, not mistake.

Tear not a page.
Do not scrunch nor discard it.
Savour the process.
The pendulum stops swinging at centre,
When energy no longer swirls...

Only then is the process complete.

© Strauss
4th February 2007