Conversations with Victoria

Creation or Destruction. Poets and writers are thieves, designing private worlds which they inhabit. They build houses with many rooms constructed from the bits and pieces stolen from your life. Silently they suck the marrow from your bones and leave you dying in the street.

Not for the Faint of Heart Love is not for the faint of heart. To allow love,  answering its only need takes courage and a willingness to surrender blindly to the journey full of rocks and stony places. To stumble but not falter certain that love is a constant  which will carry us to safety, a straight line to the beloved  our ultimate destination.

Unravelling Time (For my mother lost to Alzheimers) The knot that holds all my days together is coming unravelled and all the roads I have travelled are separating, dispersing and fading into forgotten days; and all the ways of remembering are dismembering themselves like limbs lost in an accident, scattering across the landscape of a forgetful mind.  I wonder if the transition into oblivion will be painless. Will I know how to go  “gentle into that goodnight” and slow the pace, concede the race allowing amnesia to be my blanket? Or will I fight, as the poet directed,  for a reprieve, for more days  to learn new ways to build a wall  and forestall the unwanted invasion of my wandering senses.  It will be a prison without walls or wardens yet when I am finally lost I will still be me. Until then, I will be my own gatekeeper while I am still free -  and I can dream of better days.

Longing Longing slides through my veins - molten lava instead of blood. A slow process that threatens to clog my arteries and, far from setting me free, will cremate me where I stand in fiery bondage.

Take me to the Edge Take me to the ledge of reason. Dance me over the edge of the precipice into the unknown, the danger zone, where love lies waiting. Surely it is waiting and looking for me to cut myself to ribbons on its sharp edges. Caught up in its thrall I might fall -  into that place where there are no prisoners.

Shades of Loneliness Shades of loneliness variations on only-ness, washed out water colours saturating the pure white pages of my story, painting my days in ways I never intended. I search in strangers' faces for traces of tears and smiles earned or lost in the travellers' miles. But empty spaces fill some of the places I have travelled without a map or a guide. Highways and hill ways heavenly days, low ways and slow ways and lanes leading only to hell. No comfort to be found even with the sound of my own heartbeat my lips repeating a silent prayer. My solace comes when the words rage out of my mouth and tumble randomly onto the page colouring the lines with remnants of life. I scavenge, I pick and I piece and it is there that I find the elusive lyrics to my song, incandescent notes indicating that I belong and somewhere under heaven there is a place for me to dance.

The Sentence The words are flung out strung out across the page, readying themselves for an inky assault. They line up in formation, a determined column of ants marching to their destination, the full stop at the end of the sentence. The ending to the love story, Destiny fulfilled.

What about Love What about love - the silent stalker, night walker, weaver of dreams, and fanciful flight melting reason  and blinding our sight. What about love - wielder of nettles and rose petals, teasing us, pleasing us -  with this dangerous dance. What about love - in its disguise, breathing sighs, delivering kisses -  and the ultimate bliss is we believe, we believe ............. and surrender.

Don’t Cry Don’t cry Stop crying Cry-baby - cruelly carelessly callously, not kindly. A reprimand a command in every syllable. Dry your eyes Don’t be silly Nothing to cry about. Waiting tears are silenced, left unshed  to calcify  and turn  my woman’s heart  to stone. A child’s inheritance!

JUST ME -  A BOOK OF POETRY Acknowledgement: I am who I am because of my children who changed me into a woman and fulfilled that most basic of needs; the many friends and strangers who touched me as they passed through my life and to the special influence  of those who still walk beside me even though they are no longer here - my Jewish grandmother for whom I was named and my brave and unassuming mother - who both unconsciously showed me how to be steadfast when chaos reigns; to the ghosts of ancestors, some famous, some notorious and all colourful; and to the unique times that shaped me. Because of them, I continue to enjoy the journey - all of it. 2014. Refugee. Sunlight pierces shadow mingles mellow in the garden, highlighting hibiscus - home for hummingbirds, only yards way from teeming traffic and feet pounding dreams into the debris on the street. Watching from that silent, inner space I wonder then whose plan it was to create such beauty from ...