some interesting feedback on using this tool for individual counselling… never seen such a big smile on Fred’s face since he shared it with his elderly mother! Helping her make new social connections, and take the pressure of in-home caring off him. 
Pathway to Peace
Pathway to Peace
another classroom Pathway to Peace this week with International students gaining their first steps in English with an unusual experience of poetry.
and…
reconstructing the installation poem in a garden setting to demonstrate the many uses across the curriculum for in-school use
Little Joy: Smile
to send out a smile and have the moon smile back 
Australia Day 2008
I am Sorry
For 220 years of tears
2640 months of ebbs and flows
without departure from the shadows
8008 days of denials
and a further 55 of leaping
to wrong conclusions
when all this time is only measured
on imported calendars
and imported clocks have ticked off
1,257,520 minutes of
192,792 hours of unpaid overtime
out of the Dreamtime.
No lease no rent
(except in each family’s heart)
no time off for good behaviour
no saviour despite the missions’
promises to feed and clothe
through false nourishment
and attempts to cover up
what they could not bear to see.
The worst denial
is never voiced
for at least what is said
can open conversation
but mute is indisputable
when ears are only turned
to hear their own voices.
The earth rumbles.
Didgeridoo draws up
something deep
something that never sleeps
yet keeps the Dreamtime present
Awakening on many levels
non-hierarchical hosts
of two centuries of visitors
speak up
Sing
Reach a new understanding
for healing and reconciliation.
We each need this initiation.
We each need to step through
the grave misunderstandings
within our own clumsy thoughts
of others seeing through our eyes,
feeling our pain.
I am Sorry
I could no longer bear my own pain,
my own lies,
my own silence.
I am Sorry
to share it with you
if it burdens you further.
I am Sorry
I could not see
how my own failings
silenced you further
so I only thought of the pain in me.
I release it
– not from me
but to free us both.
I confess I wished to possess
the unpossessable.
Land of life
I have killed you
carved you up into fields
of diminishing returns
and emotional burdens
where suicide yields.
I am Sorry
I could not feel
killing you was killing me.
Whether caged and forgotten
or stolen and rewritten,
biography will eventually out
all the discrepancies
in falsified accounts.
May I call you Auntie?
I have not earnt the respect
to so call you.
But I would learn your stories
hear your tellings
feel the welling of our hearts
reaching up for a fresh start.
I am Sorry
it has taken so long.
I am longing
for sorrow to go.
Today I am Sorry
that here we begin
to co-create
a new
tomorrow.
I am Sorry.
To Live Another Day
if I must suicide
let it be slow
that I may discover
some reason for not willing it
between now
and then
no other life
will substitute
for the grit of teeth
the sheer audacity
of this
may I re-member it
re-arrange myself
to fit each other’s
appointments
leave no note
but live my reminders
I am better than I have been
will be better again yet
(for “The Writer Who Would Be Re-Membered” rather than famous…)
prose poem
No particular line of poetry inspires me. Rather something about its form, its mood within me, stirs me to respond in ways ordinary words do not stir. It is the life I feel from its touch upon me, which makes poetry the means by which I seek – a purer form for this dull existence, a sweeter touch, a subtle hint. Some say a deeper truth. It is not what is said or delivered. It is not the package of itself. It is both the Move and Mover, the breath between, the expansive reach. No one poem for all time, all rhyme or reason. No antidote but a deeper existence, It is intent and intensity, strife and striving – the conflict of attaining the unattainable for brief moments of disbelief. It is this suspension on a line - which makes all other lines seem mere fishers’ tales. I know I will write a better one tomorrow. But this is my prose poem for today.
Up In Lights
as part of Overload Poetry Festival short poems are currently displayed in feeds embedded in the walls at Federation Square. Look out for ‘diamond words’ by S’hi D’Amour
Live at Fed Square
this Saturday 2pm poets from this Poets Picnic will be reading at Beer Deluxe at Fed Square. Come and join us for some Winter weekend inspiration.
3rd Annual Poets Picnic great success
an evolution in the poets picnic this year as all participants shared their writing. Not only did they bring pieces with them but a group created a piece together about the day itself.
then there was the sharing of food, and other interests, and more artworks dotted around the scene…
what will the next picnic bring?
that’s up to who you bring to the picnic!
appetizers
before we sit down for a big meal it is wise to whet the appetite with some little nibbles. It gets the gastric juices flowing and prepares the whole body for the experience ahead.
