Echo – (a background)

I am sitting on my balcony staring into my laptop monitor, trying to make sense of Kant’s notions of freedom and alienation. I have been in a fug since my Grandmother passed away last week. My mind is struggling to come to terms with nature, and to terms with itself. I should be relating to Kant on a personal level, but Kant is far too professional to engage in an emotional dialogue with me.

I roll another cigarette and contemplate the strings of smoke spiralling randomly toward the spotlight over my head. I have had more than my fair share of Whisky.

A Boobook Owl is calling from the valley behind me.

Mo – poke. Mo – poke. …. Mo – Poke. Mo – Poke.

I transport myself into the valley. I know it well, and I can imagine a light, curious mist reflecting the imaginary moonlight as it weaves around the base of the trees, hugging the ground … carrying the scent of the bush.

A series of terrifying screams ring out from the valley. A possum fight? I really don’t know. I have heard Possum fights before, right outside the window in our garden. Possums don’t sound like they are being dismembered when they fight. Sure.. they sound pretty pissed off, but you know they will get over it.

The screams die away, leaving an echo in my ears. Boobook continues his mating call. I decide that he is not guilty. Boobooks tend to go for smaller prey. Moths, lizards and small mammals like the native hopping mice that my wife and I disturbed in the compost bin last year. You could feel the tension rise in the bush around us as half a dozen mice hopped out and scattered into the undergrowth.

The monitor glows before me. I imagine one of those little fellows finding his way down to the creek … to the silence.

Mo – poke. Mo – poke.

Two verses are born, and a writer returns to his blog with a squeak.

Echo

~~~

Slicks of moonlight kissing pearls
on silver chains of incense swirls ~
Wind a cautious, gentle path
around the valley elders.

From deep within the silent heart
the echo of a squeak departs.
A set of tiny punctured lungs
take flight beneath the hunter.

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

for

Totally Optional Prompts – ‘One-Way’

Silhouette

Silhouette drifted nervously across the stage, in mournful silence, hugging delicate folds of drawn silk.
White light fingered gently over peaks; flowed through the troughs; distracted but persistent.

Silhouette, fearful of being revealed, picked up the pace and slipped through the crack in backstage exit. A failing hinge squeaked as sunlight swept from Silhoutte’s left and fell into step alongside.

Shocked, Silhouette cast his eyes upon sunlight’s rosy cheeks. She smiled and put her arm around Silhouette’s shoulder.

Silhouette began to tremble and quake. He raised a hand to steady quivering lips. Molten glass gushed from his eyes and crystalised as it fell to the gravel and shattered at his feet.

Silhouette wailed as the flood tore his dignity away. Sunlight stood behind, and waited, as Silhouette became flesh.

Grief is

Grief is sticky – stale banana bread crumbs – washed down with hospital coffee. Grief is having to choose decapitated tulips – in cardboard boxes – instead of teddy bears – with pink or blue ribbons. GRIEF is obese
in the presence of emaciation. Grief is shared, but it doesn’t rhyme with anything, because

a)grief is lonely
b)grief is selfish
c)grief is compartmentalised

Blue Periwinkles

~~~

blue periwinkles

safe beneath the shepherd’s star

graze in the valley

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

for the RWP Prompt – Get Your Poem on #40

This photo was taken at Dee Why Beach this week. Hope you enjoy the Haiku moment.

Touched

This poem was inspired after reading an excerpt from Simonne Michelle-Wells’ ‘Beat’. Many thanks, Simonne. I am looking forward to grabbing my copy when it hits the shelves.

~~~

More than once my wrist has pulsed
with aches of sweet temptation.
To prostrate on the public grass
and revel in sensation.

You’d think that touching earth was
tantamount to masturbation.
For the voices in my head provoke
a fear of conversation.

And so I walk in solitude,
free from allegation.
Among the trees and birds and stones;
a momentary flirtation.

I stroke the sandstone facia.
I admire her foundation.
My soft and civil fingers
poorly formed for clear translation.

I press my ear to peeling bark
and pause an inhalation.
Beneath her rough and rugged flesh
I hear her aspirations.

Bellbirds tinkle in her mop
expressing admiration
for beams of sun that dance on mother’s
misty sweet lactations.

My soul leaks out in tears of joy,
my heart forms oscillations.
I turn, restored, to face the gaze
and weep at our castration.

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

Slinky

~~~

stubborn behaviour

recoiling under pressure;

slinkys don’t climb stairs

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

for

Prompt 24 : Stairways

Lego Joe

~~~

white felt cutouts peel away
from canvas by the light of day

Lego Joe eats marbled dates
on plastic grass while children play

he holds his hand up to the lamp
and contemplates his slow decay

when did the cracks begin to show?
how did I come to feel this way?

with sudden omni-clarity
Joe spies the culprit with dismay

my world and I began to stray
the day I turned to poetry

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

Get your poem on #39

and read the other fab contributions too.

Common questions

~~~

most common questions;

stand by, turn off or restart?

but wait … are you sure?

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen

for Sunday Scribblings #23 – Ask

~~~

hindsight reveals

many choices made in haste;

so save – and restore

~~~

Observing life

image by Rick Mobbs – Mine Enemy Grows Older

~~~

rainbowed transfers

speculums

adorn the breasts

of feathered ones

saddled backs

equestrian

constitute

the leathered ones

scaly suits

reptilian

creeping low

the nether ones

bones and teeth

calcium

museum pieces

weathered ones

here i sit

spreading bum

observing life

the tethered one

~~~

by Brad Frederiksen