Poetry

dispossession 2

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

dispossession 2

powerless

today a dusty sun slants sepia light
an eerie still scene of a shanty town
on the outskirts of Lima in Peru

monotone brown
ruins rubble rubbish scant vegetation
brown dusty brown

the dispossessed
in makeshift shelters
never ending palette of desolation

here on the outskirts of Lima
like a barnacled mass they cling

one night ten years ago
in india
i lay in your arms weeping for the poor
having seen the sorrow in a mother’s eyes
felt the touch of a begging hand
and i asked why

here they do not look
they turn away
a water truck comes
to refill drums
for those who can afford water
earlier it had freely watered green grass
of our resort with its luxury pool

when i walk away
i do not weep
answers would choke with dust
i don’t even know the questions
just crave your arms around me
against this inequality

dispossession 1

colleen Poetry , , , , , , , ,

 

statue

“Without our land there is no life”

dispossession 1

memories

black marble horsemen
with helmets medals and guns
celebrating the history of conquests
dominate santiago’s plaza des armas

yet i’m drawn by an abstract monument
catching morning light
history’s cry is its caption
without our land there is no life

its massive basalt boulders
circle like a gossip of standing stones
and mounted high
on a roughly hewn second tier
chiselled cracked and cut
as if lightening spilt the rocks
a shadowed noble face
bigger than life
its carved wistful eyes
look beyond the plaza people pigeons
to the mountain
once home of the mapuche people

around its base children play
lovers cuddle adults chatter
while first people still with indomitable spirit
bear memories of dispossession

chance encounter

colleen Poetry , , ,

 

Wild_Kangaroo_In_Outback_600

 

 

chance encounter
my rustling disturbed his place
how long he watched
i do not know
but hopped off to a safer place

then stopped
turned
looked again

our eyes met
both stood still
two of us alone
in the bush

yearning to bridge the gap
i reached out my hand
a divide
like two pots of gold
without a rainbow
held us apart

for a moment
I breathed his fear
our eyes were held
alert . . . focused
a glint of knowing
crossed the stare

this proud grey
the hunted
knowing his place
turned
and bound away

fromelles 2009

colleen Poetry , , ,

A battle in WW1  19th July 1916.

In 2009 – mass graves began to be exhumed, remains being identified and laid to rest with honour: it brings to the fore once again a story of the worst 24 hours in Australian history, july 19th 1916.

5,533 Australian casualties in one night and with no ground taken.

fromelle

fromelles 2009
time
exposes
bones
in no mans land !
stories shout
from mass graves

hell-trap stories
gallant stories
fear-filled stories

failure crawls
through fire
mud barbed wire
piteous writhing mates
drainage ditches
no respite

blinkers of youth
lure of adventure
crippled
nightmared

an emotional cry
will you not fight for land your fathers died for !
and wars roll on
deafened with enterprise

now i ask how can cycles have an end

Colleen Keating from A Call to Listen

hiroshima sixty-five years on

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

Twice a year for just over a decade I had the privilege and exciting opportunity of working for a week at a time in Japan. I was invited by the School of Aromatherapy in Tokyo to give the Reflexology section of the Aromotherapy Diploma.
On one of my trips after the 30 hour course given over 5 days, I caught the Shinkansen, the High Speed Bullet train, to Hiroshima. I enjoyed three wonderful days and relived the sad story I read many times called Sadako and a Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr.
It was the  time of the 65th anniversary.  I headed to the Peace Park where I went each day and was there early morning on the 6th August 2010.

The photo shows Hiroshima Peace Park completed in 1954.  The park contains 66 statues, monuments and buildings that stand as a symbol of the nuclear abolition and the vow of humanity to pursue peace.

 

 

 

slider_dome!
!
hiroshima sixty-five years on

sings a song of hope
cicadas have the upper note
the coo of doves
like tenors ground the sound
cooling water trickles
and children play

incense wafts from beds of sand
people bow as they pass
coloured cranes like prayer flags
hang on trees
and memorials

today is warm balmy
i sit by the river near the epicentre
it is 8.15 am

bells
ring out across the peace park
and around the city

Colleen Keating    A Call to Listen       2014  Ginninderra Press.

going going

colleen Poetry , , , ,

Ringtail possums are part of our night life.  They depend on the trees to get to their food source. After some beautiful old Bluegums were destroyed, cut down by a  horrible noisy roar of chainsaws,  and an even noisier greedy mulcher, that made the gracious bluegums into woodchip, the possum in my poem had to use the electric lines  to travel and the risk is so much higher. You can see I am very angry about the cutting down of the suburban trees and i love our Australian Ringtails and am afraid we are loosing our animals from the cities. On my walk one morning I found the Ringtail Possum  lying electrocuted at the foot of the telegraphic pole lying “like a sacrificial lamb to progress.”

 

 

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going going

the chainsaws stop

with night
possums scurry across the fence
over the ivy into the last blue gum

tiger eyes
in the dark glow
white furry tails
curl flashes of light

they scramble
onto swaying melaleuca to feed
before they are off
for their night journey

on my morning walk
at the foot of a telegraph pole
a young ringtail possum lies
in sacrificial pose
electrocuted

in stiff smelling air
standing alone on the street
i look at the bare spaces in the sky
and rage
against the taking of our treescape

Colleen Keating   A Call to Listen  2014 Ginninderra Press

how to love a rock

colleen Poetry , ,

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This poem is part of my beach walking experience

 

 

how to love a rock

 

its a hard thing to love a rock

you need to receive it as gift spend time
commune

gaze
touch and stroke
its smoothness
and grooves
flaws and imperfections
hold and ponder
imbue the magic of its radiating warmth !
wait upon it
allow it to seize your senses
listen for its whisper

consider where it belongs
maybe to spin joyfully back out to sea maybe a memory of a beach walk
or friendship
to adorn your book shelf or garden
or a bonsai pot
for a miniature fig to claim as its own

if it doesn’t inspire
let it go

at the nursing home

colleen Poetry , , ,

 

 

 

 

reflexology-massage-1

In 1998 when I began the double Diploma course on Healing at Nature Care the Health College at St Leonards in Sydney, Reflexology was one of the courses.It is a system of massage and reflex used to relieve tension and treat illness, based on the theory that there are reflex points on the feet, hands and head (ear) which links to every part of the body
It is based on the theory that energy is moving through our body and it can become blocked and this is where health problems can begin. By working the spot that is pinpointed can assistin moving the energy or chi again. We all know what happens to a pond that becomes stagnant . . .imagine digging a channel to allow a flow again. Well Reflexology works mainly on the feet to do this.
One of the experiences was to visit a Nursing Home near by where Reflexology was very popular.

Unknown

at the nursing home

i fill the foot bath
my elbow checks the tepid water

she sits like a goddess at an altar
regal and stoic

her face shows many lifetimes
lipstick defines the line she desires
white wavy hair swept with combs
into a tight bun
gives the air of holding it all together

gently i hold and massage her feet
in the lavender scented water
feel a trembling and look up

tears rundown her cheeks

she weeps the words
I haven’t felt touch like this
for as long as I can remember

august mornings in hiroshima

colleen Poetry , , , , ,

 

Unknown

 

 

august mornings in hiroshima

 

(1)
a summer’s day in august
with measured steps   i tread
once burnt ground

cicadas drum humid air hums
distant streetcars rattle

weeping willows green and dense
line the river’s path
define this park of peace

i join those already at the cenotaph
the fragrance of incense and flowers
cannot ease the stark facts here

at the bronze sculpture
mother and child in firestorm
the mother’s eyes stare with terror
as she hunches like an animal over her young

The tower clock strikes
its hands point to a moment that must not be lost
that mortal moment: eight fifteen a.m.
my eyes catch hot hazy sky
old skin   innocence lost

 

(2)
that summer’s day in August
the enola gay looms onto the horizon
a glint in the sun a blinding flash
a shadow dooming humanity
its foreboding drone
drowned out by the song of cicadas

children chase dragonflies on their way to school
fishermen trawl the tranquil river
breakfast-cooking odours waft
the city bustles into life
supernatural light delivers hell to earth
hell is here
written on flesh without breath

 

(3)

a summer’s day in august
stringed garlands of folded paper cranes
sway like multi-coloured prayer flags
circling the children’s peace monument

a mother kneels beside her young child
she tells a story
the story of sadako
sadako   who died of ‘bomb sickness’
and inspired children
to fold paper cranes for peace

together the mother and child
step forward and ring the bell

above silhouetted against the sky
a sculpture of sadako holds high a golden crane

hope balancing on its wings

escaping with cezanne

colleen Poetry , , ,

cezanne

For me it was a time of grieving after the loss of my mother and there had been a lot of business and a lot of stress and I literally escaped from all that, to spend a few hours at the New South Wales Art Gallery and I had a second escape as the poem expresses.

escaping with cezanne

under his chestnut tree
bathers in naked strokes of light
pose
unburdened
i hear saplings crack in their play
and laughter as they lounge
in lusty rhythms of flesh
against blue
an illusion of reality

here free with the bathers
I am caught
in beauty
immersed
in their unfinished form
suspended from meaning

i am seduced
to linger
for the day
sheltered
under his chestnut trees