~~~
When Eve came into the breakfast room she was holding a small book, its cover mottled and tattered. Her brown-framed spectacles were perched on the end of her nose.
Gerry and Rick sat at the oval-shaped breakfast table. Rick’s face was slightly puffy but held a goofy grin.
Gerry appeared shaken and bewildered. He had decided not to tell Eve, and certainly not Rick, about his strange experience in the parlour. The whole incident had been a bizarre illusion, he concluded. He must have been hallucinating. He had been feeling unwell since the previous day. Or more likely it had been some elaborate trick set up by George because of his vocal scepticism about their ridiculous ghosts.
The sound of clattering dishes and the murmuring voices of the Lunds came from the kitchen.
Eve held up the book. ‘This is so interesting,’ she said, failing to notice the unusual demeanours of both Gerry and Rick. ‘I found it in that bookcase on the landing. It’s called The Visitor of Death and Other Ghostly Manifestations. Published in 1952. One of the stories is about a woman called Mary Donnelly who lived in Bayletonville in the 1930s.’
Gerry looked up sharply.
Eve continued. ‘Mary was the wife of the Bayletonville undertaker. Apparently she was feared by the locals because, if anyone was ill, she visited them, dressed in black and stared at them. The sick person usually died shortly after her visit. The word in the village was that she was hastening business for her husband.’
Eve went on, unaware of Gerry’s mounting agitation. ‘She had two different coloured eyes. According to superstition that indicates a person has the evil eye. Since her death her ghost has been seen occasionally in Bayletonville.’
Her eyes widened. ‘She must be the Staring Woman mentioned in the guesthouse brochure!’
Then she saw the look of fear on Gerry’s white face.
None of them noticed George Lund standing silently in the doorway to the breakfast room, holding a laden tray. He was looking at Gerry and shaking his head sadly.
At that moment the sky darkened and the rain that had been threatening all morning began pelting down noisily.
Sunday 16 September 2012
My Plea, My Son
Kai Maddever
Baulkham Hills, NSW
To my Son
and the world,
At about the time most boys learnt to tie their shoelaces into a knot, one boy learnt to write. He wrote in a language only understood by him. This communication was founded within the innermost emotions of his heart, transformed into letters and sonnets reverberating the complex harmonies of life. These letters were smeared with the ink of heaven, yet he did not write a word. It was the rhythm of his fingers that could spark knowledge, love, passion and freedom; for in a pair, his mind and his talent were one in the same. He was not his own. God ruled the mind of this one, for there was no doubt this gift, as large as the world was given ears, would mature to be his greatest blessing and his greatest curse. He was many things, but for the sake of the ink produced by my quill, he was most importantly my Son.
His first three years, his breath ran parallel to ours, his life was ours, he was in our world and he was one of us. Like many, I had developed skills throughout my life as both a father and an arts instructor. It was these skills that I intended to utilise to bring forth the unique character imbedded within my Son. Little did I realise how truly unique he really would become.
On his third birthday, as if the Divine had played a chord, the realms within his cranium erupted with a fascination for music. He would sit, legs dangling, grin beaming at me, in front of his three-legged voice. The black and ivory would be splayed out on the end of the mahogany wood, like soldiers, distinct, and the same. Each one served a purpose, each one a tool for the master of five years of age to manipulate and to serve.
He played, taught by his eyes and ears, educated by watching his sister's fingers. I would have no choice but to sit and soak in the living mood that swept through my house. Like the plague, it was infectious. The pure sweetness of pride that I tasted while I listened came not due to the honey flowing through my ears, but due to the pleasure I received asking him to slow down so that I could transcribe what mysteries the heavens would have flood my house.
This abnormal growth within him trapped his mind and body from venturing outside his comfort and his house. From this seclusion, his talent grew like the plants do from the sun. He would play over hours. Like Shakespeare, time was lost, and every sound became alive and relevant. I would never have dreamt such genius would manifest itself through such small fingers, especially from my own blood, my own seed.
It was about the time he was ten when I realised: Where were his companions? His allies? The only ones he wrote, listened or talked to were the ivory soldiers stretched out before him. Conversation was negligible when music was not the primary focus and any mutter of other people or social necessities purged a shiver both down his spine and the music from his keys. As if all social connections were replaced by his genius.
It was not as if we were out-cast by fault of our financial status, in fact, we were drawn in by society because of our wealth and his fame. Fame ... of all the greatness to be hyper-sensitive to … he chooses FAME! There was so much pride in my heart for my Son and for who he was but something wasn’t right. Something I couldn't see.
I took him to see professional people, people who could fix his way of thinking, change who he was. However, something even worse diseased the air that he breathed. I organised gatherings and music groups but like-minded and like-skilled kids were extraordinarily difficult to come by. I forced him to read about fictional characters brought into life by men who had skill with paper and quill, to withdraw the inner adventurer I so desperately wished was not asleep, trapped inside him. But he never woke up, never came out. Was there even one at all?
His unparalleled abilities took him beyond the skies. As he grew up and left home, I couldn't help but wonder how he would get through life without knowing how to relate to others in a way they could relate to him.
Tears swelled and blurred the base of all my sight as I pondered how the world could know him, appreciate him, accept him, yet he did not know, appreciate or accept the world.
He was approached by many famous writers and performers and I occasionally played with him on the violin. I became old, and he kept playing, but it never came through to me why he was not prepared to change to benefit himself, or society.
The interviews were curious things. As if the individual on the other side of the questions had been transformed into a soldier, his communication skills brightened up. Of course, the talk was almost unquestionably music related but there was communication never the less.
It has taken me 68 years, to realise my Son is My Son. He is who he is. If the Supreme Being would have him disabled in the ability to communicate in language he was most certainly compensated with the rare, immortal gift of communication through music.
So upon my deathbed I apologise to my Son, for everything I did to reverse what I was clouded into believing was alienation. When upon actual matter, this seclusion and anti-socialism was his, one seat, transportation into immortality within the music that he created by the quill protruding from his hand.
Leopold Georg Mozart
Salzburg 1787
Kai wrote this ‘letter’ for the HSC when he was just 17 years old. Kai loves literature just as much as he has a passion for music – he feels like they slip together quite well as far as creative writing goes. The challenge proposed for the above asked for a piece with a theme of belonging. He hopes he achieved it.
Monday 17 September 2012 8 am
Dainty Daisies
Linda Callaghan
Bullaburra, NSW
Pretty faces and white petals surround
dainty daisies growing from the ground.
Spring has sprung and the show begins,
flo
wers bloom and a bird sings.
Time to celebrate what we see,
the beauty is there for you and me.
Daisies push and twist their way to the top,
And greet the day, they do not stop.
In all their splendour they put on a show,
and gracefully exit as others grow.
Monday 17 September 2012 4 pm
Becoming Colour
Michele Fermanis-Winward
Leura, NSW
A tinge is seeping in,
the shadow on a veil,
diffuse as mist
that floats and drifts
eludes what can be named.
It flows into a form
where tone can be defined,
builds from a shim,
solidifies, becomes a shade
that ripens into hue.
Flushed delicate to bright,
then blazing as it saturates,
continues into tertiary
devours what had been light
and claims itself as black.
Tuesday 18 September 2012 8 am
Adequate Time
Aaron Carl
Springwood, NSW
When you remember things you have done
And the things you want to do
Admit your failings and success
And to yourself be true.
When the shadow of death calls out your name
As you stand there in the line
Simply say ‘put a hold on that’
You see it’s not my time.
Set your mind on friends that you’ve had
And thank them for all they have done
And as I look around this room
I thank each and every one.
We are all a part in that cog that turns
Helping, others to live
The wealth I quote is not what a person has
But what they are willing to give
When was the last time you
looked at the stars?
Or felt the moon upon your face,
When was the last time you felt brand new
And won that final race.
When was the last time you gave it all you’ve got
And relaxed just feeling proud
Or had a picnic by a river
Making faces out of clouds.
Time is short so live it
And let those troubles be
Believe me; put your heart in it
And each day is beautiful, just see.
Aaron says he has written about 800 poems, and that 10 of them are quite good. ‘Adequate time’ said quickly may sound like ‘’ad a good time’. Aaron has cancer so on his 60th birthday he ‘donated this little verse’ to a small group of friends.
Tuesday 18 September 2012 4 pm
In My New World
Felicity Lynch
Katoomba, NSW
The moment is lost
The silence resounding
Regrets camouflaging
The heart’s yearning
What of the future?
Thoughts rise and vanish
Like the mists in the Mountains
Dreams lost in daylight
Memories litter
But nobody’s there
No weary heart beats
No passion lurks there
No tension exists
Between what might be and what was
The real and the virtual
Reality lost
This moment. This time. To live in the present
Time’s relentlessness challenges
Wreaking a path of destruction
We drift among the vanishing
Goodbye to the past, the present is now
The self is lost to the future
Silence enfolds
Wednesday 19 September 2012 8 am
Send In The Infantry
Graham Sparks
Bathurst, NSW
A force of foreign soldiers
bent on doing mayhem
has landed on our shore.
But dear oh dear the government
has sold off all our arms,
or gifted them in tribute.
We’ll send in two year olds with popguns
to melt their retched hearts,
and teach ’em not to mess around
with Australia’s infantry.
Graham says this is a joke, but only just.
Wednesday 19 September 2012 4 pm
Diary Of A Meph-Head – An Extract
Mark Govier
Warradale, SA
1. ‘Roads to Ruin’
The Road to Ruin, preordained? Ancestors/
Too many, expiring without a question in
Invisible half way houses, without name
The end of this story? Pause/ I know not/
A red river/ Brains shot out
Birds feeding on suburban pavements/ Again
Peace bomb, blowing the back of my head out/
A silent rain/ The unseen breeze
An elixir called spring/ The scent of decay
The Forest within/ The same in all directions/
Paths without end/ But no way of knowing
If there is a centre/ Pause/ No way
Shaking like a leaf in the chemical winds/
Hands and mind tremble/ Nervous agony
Is this really, another nail in the coffin?
Fingers down the throat/ Helping/
It all come up/ Collapsing on a plastic floor
Please call an ambulance, for I am alive
The Door is open, but who wants to leave?
Life as an Institution/ Being patched up
Watching TV in nursing homes/ Til you’re gone
Free as a Poet/ I can say what I want/
Within the confines of Law/ Nobody listens
No one cares/ No money, no weapons, a cipher
Dope fiend, getting wasted on the latest/
Poisons/ High as a vulture circling his own dying
Body/ He savours, every crumb
Slept on wooden floors or cheap carpets/
For years/ Out of choice/ If he offers you a place
In his dismal realm/ I’d be careful
The witching hour, without witches/
No broomsticks/ Just long lines/ A promised
Land for those without promise/ Here, now
Treble vision/Burnt out before I was born/
The Womb of Terror/ The Masque of the White
Death/ Closer, always closer
Your head in the mirror of this strange/
Design/ The rest lies on a stained mattress
In a distant land/ Rented by the hour
Where’s it going, this world, this/
Whatever it is? Old corpse talking to the Moon
The Silver One listens, but that is all
You opened your mind/ The cat ran out/
Never to return/ You left it open/ Now ghosts
And monsters fill your house
Wandering in a cave of light/ Coming down/
Falling asleep at the wheel/ Passing through walls
Unseen/ For tomorrow is already here
Still life/ An un-arctic wind/ Trees rustle/
Clouds of pointlessness/ Mouldy fruit
Another Miscreant opens his eyes
Chopped down trees/ Dog Waste/
Too many prams/ A paradise for the trapped
Leaves bristling/ An afternoon in, hell
Banal bus commentary, on what passes by/
Floating serenely on a pool of filth
The clotted remnants/ The things, unsaid
Leaving a subway tunnel, not knowing/
That I had entered/ The blast of morning
Light/ Vague hoverings of voices, unseen
You have problems, I have time/
Fields of old brickwork hide in the darkness
Chanting from a church, that never was