I have resumed linking
smoke rings
a daisy chain of blue grey silver
one after one after another.
I have resumed tying
verbs with conjunctions with adjectives with nouns
a faerie ring with a mirror pool
trying to capture your reflection
cigarette in my left
pen in my right
I have nothing better to do with my hands
in your absence.
3:06am Thursday
7.March.2002
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
- Letting You Go Again And Again And Again
- Stream IV: Raw Intention
- Brink
- Henry Miller – The Ironies Of Desire
- Addict
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I’m six years old and you hand me a loaded rifle.
That’s what this is, isn’t it?
Your talk of love?
Don’t you know how dangerous this is?
I might hurt myself.
I’ll almost certainly hurt you.
What wild impulse had you handing over such power
to this clumsy child?
Why not have me stand on one foot
balancing a Ming vase on my head?
Why not hand me some scissors
and send me pelting down the stairs?
Why not assign me the job
of air traffic controller at Tullamarine Airport?
Why not give me your heart?
Yes. Why not?
11:10pm Sunday
14.November.2004
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Stumble it!
I, with open arms, embrace
Their prescient madness,
Their maps of consequence
I embrace all, open armed.
They build their dream castles,
Their fairylands,
Their Never~Nevers
Knowing
From dust
To Dust
Such erections inevitably
come crashing down
come
to nothing.
They insist on building their wonders
upon my fault lines.
They tunnel paradise
through my veins
Their Utopias
are not well-thought out
They do not understand
an ideal
by definition
is almost certainly
beyond their grasp.
They lay their blame
at my feet
The core trembles
splits apart
swallows the weight of them
blindly
When I am quiescent
They take their jackhammers to me
Pry me open
When I rage
They flee.
They drown in my hot lava,
in my endless oceans,
in the deluge
of my tear filled pain
And they lay
their blame
at my feet.
This is my nature.
This is my innocence
And still
knowingly
They dig their graves in me.
7:12pm Thursday
24.January.2002
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Inspiration only ever seems to find me
when I’m busy changing the sheets
and knowing I won’t need to be doing that again
any time soon
I find myself caught
between relief
and anxiety,
mired in love
for love’s sake alone.
That’s where it leaves me at times,
alone,
and that’s how I handle it best ~
from a distance,
in hindsight.
I am getting closer
every moment
to the glass wall
that separates
my heart
from reality.
Press your warm hands
to the glass
and I will lay mine
against yours
from the other side.
Don’t push, love
because if we’re both
exerting equal pressure
on this isolating wall,
each from the other side,
all we’re achieving
is the absolute surety
that this wall won’t move
an inch
(of course,
if you were standing beside me
on my side of things
we could move mountains!)
12:39am Sunday
3.September.2000
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
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Stumble it!
Science fiction 1930:
by the year 2000 all monotonous, repetitive labour
will be performed by robots
freeing humanity to follow paths
of higher, more subtle learning.
The writers were so wrong,
the prophets, so right
only there is no humanity left
to appreciate it.
The Industrial Revolution
children chained to machinery
from sun up
to sun down
and most of the hours left over.
Slave labour: so cruel
dehumanising.
We’re protected from that now, though
if one is fortunate enough not to be born
in India or Taiwan.
There are laws now
- age limits
- time limits.
Amazing how we choose to circumvent
the latter
we voluntarily chain ourselves
to the hamster’s wheel
we choose to submit ourselves
to the machine.
We work 80 hour weeks
buy the dvd
the x-box
the fastest broadband connection
the latest
and greatest model
of car
(all made to break
in six months
- back to the grind
to buy a new one).
We work 80 hour weeks
convinced
we like it.
Better still, from an employees point of view
the automatons these days
will continue to work
even when broken.
<[>There is no room
no time
no breath
here
for poetry.
Must be thirteen years or older
after four hours a fifteen minute break must be given
not less than ten hours between shifts.
How they fought for the eight hour day
and we celebrate the win annually
calling it Labour Day – ha!
and in the 128 hours freed up
for our own personal use
for the pursuit of pleasure
in our leisure
we finish off the monthly report
write up the minutes from the last meeting
(hours trickling by in the process)
calculate the household budget
over
and over again
trying to squeeze another dollar
out of the stone.
So bemused by corporate double-speak
so lost behind formulaic politeness
that we’ve forgotten how to talk
to our husbands and wives
friends and children
and, even if we could remember how
what would we tell them?
“That meeting with Laverton was a bitch, my love”
“Good things don’t come to those who wait, my son,
they come to those
who take.”
“I left my brief case at the office, dear, back soon”
“I have to work back late again”
“They scheduled the meeting for Sunday afternoon”
“My secretary’s waiting for me
beneath my desk………….my love”
“I’ve been Mr. Richards, Senior Executive for so long, my dear
that I’ve forgotten how to be
your husband”
“I am Mr. Richards and I can no longer recall
my first name”
“I cannot come
when you call”
“If I relax
I’ll fall apart
the walls will dissolve
and the world will fall
from my shoulders
thunder, smash, crash
onto our toes”
“I don’t know what to tell you, my daughter”
“I don’t know what I stand for
so there is nothing
nothing
for you to rebel against”
“If I conscientiously object
to the latest war/s
I simply change the TV channel”
“You will be the formless generation
nothing left to fight for
- here’s the vote, here’s equality
here’s every choice
imaginable
and there’s nothing left for you to fight against
- mediocrity is comfortable, don’t struggle so, my dear”
“Don’t be like me, my child
but I don’t know who you should be
instead
I would tell you
to be an individual
be yourself
but so soon you will discover
that there is no time
no room
no breath
for that.
Science fiction 1930:
by the year 2000
all monotonous, repetitive labour
will be performed by robots
You, my love,
are the robot.
4:46pm Saturday
16.August.2003
© Melinda Chambers. All posts are the creation of the author and, as such, remain the author's property with all rights reserved.
- I’m having one of those weeks (years? lives?)
- Disarray II
- Maybe Because…
- Present: Remember This
- Ghost
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