The Pool

“What is that?”
“It’s a pool”
“Yes I can see that” she said peering over it looking at her reflection in the still slightly blue water, suddenly as she peered into it more another face appeared
“BOO” he exclaimed as he placed his hand on her shoulder

“Very funny ha ha almost fell in then” she exclaimed

She looked back into the depths of the pool, the water was so clear you could see the bottom were fish and tiny turtles gave the impression of swimming around in circles, so close but still so far.
How could this be she thought the water looked deep and mysterious, where they really there, she could only hope as she tentatively gazed into its depths

Maybe if I reach out and try to touch them
“You think they will swim away?” She said
“Will what swim away?”
‘There look in the pool” she said pointing her finger at the water

He laughed and almost fell in himself
“No I don’t think they will swim away, quite disciplined those are I’ve trained them very well” he said laughing
“They won’t swim away look” he said as he put one hand on the side of the pool, the water rippled slightly making the fish dart around even more, he very slowly placed his hand into the water and reached out and touched a fish

“OH! You touched one, let me let me” the girl was almost jumping up and down with excitement
“Ok but slowly or you might hurt something”
The girl gradually lowered her hand down into the water, and reached out to touch the fish.

Good thing she did it slowly too as her hand hit the bottom of the pool very quickly
for you see wading pools are not very deep at all.

130+

The toll might over 130 now but that is just people
I was talking to my Aunt on the phone today had to ring her she lives in the Melbourne outskirts
My aunty shows Newfoundlands (huge hairy black or black and white dogs) and one of the breeders didn't turn up for a show yesterday the breeder lives in Kinglake
This woman has not only lost her home but her dogs and kennels as well

Then there are the native animals the ones that can't get away so fast the koalas and lizards
(no one ever worries about the snakes)
It's not grazing land out there so not so many sheep and cattle but there will be horses and other smaller domestic pets
See it's not just the human lives that are being lost but animals , during Ash Wednesday a lot of sheep where trapped up against fences and unable to get away they were overrun by fire
I wasn't worried about my things when we evacuated only photo albums and my dog, my mothers corgi and our cat all three were secured and in the car before we were
Think I was even more worried about the cat that belonged to the landlord (they moved the cat wouldn't) it was loose wouldn't come near the house because of the dogs it did survive though same as our house because of the apple orchard sprinkler system
Think the worst thing was driving through the actual fire getting away not only the fire but the animals we saw running away as well mainly natives and rabbits
Ash Wednesday was bad but this ..this is worse I lived through Ash Wednesday and today with the smoke haze hanging around I was reminded of it same time of year only over 20 years ago now
The death toll from this one will rise the animals the ones in hospital with burns I know my best friend from High School her father was the last person to die from Ash Wednesday it took months for him to die from his burns it will be the same this time

The smell of smoke is the worst
It reminds me of fear
the fear of being over run of the uncontrollable
of death and devastation
of total black
a midday sun turned red
a totally different world of fear and angst
I hope to never have to live through that ever again


Please if you wish to donate click here for more information - includes a number to call if you are outside of Australia and unable to contact relatives

Cast Away

A wave landed on the shore
A million displaced people
ragged and torn
crawling up the beach
the ship, the craft that carried them slowly trying to sink on the horizon
They sat as they were reborn welcoming those who came later
their open arms hugging and wrapping around more and more waves of the displaced
and still they watched their craft try to sink, never quite going under yet not righting itself either
As time passed they forgot about their ship it became fuzzy in their minds a forgotten relic of the past, hardly any new displaced came now they were not reminded of the past any more.

Yet one day suddenly another wave broke on the shore, a great crash of chattering people
They spoke of a far away land
How they had been thrown out by force, loaded up and corralled
The ships carrying them like cargo
Dumping them off shore then turning around for more
Crying and chattering the waves of people kept coming in more and more and more
This time was different though word had gotten through filtered on the wind that they were coming
This time a million were waiting with open arms with stories of how they too lost their homes
Waiting ready to teach the new survivors how to adapt to this new land
Some just sat and cried, they had arms to comfort them
Others wailed and made so much noise they had to be locked away with bottles of rum
Most just sat bewildered for a while not able to get through thier tortured minds that they were welcome in this new land

A million or more new survivors cast up on the shore
They settled, they made new homes and they Multiplied though just like the ones that came before

not a memory I wanted

falling endlessly
darkness awaits
the stars twinkle and glitter above
darkness surrounds me
no sound
no birds no crickets chirp
only the sound of my own breathing
shallow but even
hard to tell now how far I've fallen
how far into the deep dark pit of sadness I've gone

I close my eyes I see his sleeping face
waxen and caked with morticians makeup
thin so thin
his hands together on his chest still spotted with age
I can't do this I can't see him like this yet I still see him like this
not a memory I want

get on with it!

I'm telling you don't do it, no kidding don't ..oh you did didn't you , couldn't help it could you , you just had to go ahead and do it
Look at the mess you've made now , its all over the place and you are sat in it as well, why do they allways sit in it?

I'm not cleaning this mess up you realise, no not doing it you are going to have to clean this one up all by yourself , last time you did this it took 2 weeks of scrubbing to get this place cleaned up.

Now you have gone and done it again , I'm not happy you know
I want this place cleaned up by tommorrow at the latest , you hear me
What was that ? Did I hear sorry? Don't think I did you know , you do know how to say the word don't you its not that difficult.

Look I've had enough of you, this had better be cleaned up next time I look or you won't play in here agian
What you don't realise, this isn't just your area you have messed up , its not mine either it belongs to everyone and I want to see you down on your hands and knees scrubbing this place clean , not for me for everyone else
You haven't just let me down but everyone else as well , we aren't happy not one bit

Now get on with it!

I'm posting this here as well so it will cross post too blogger/multiply

I'm wearing a bucket

just a bucket
nothing else
its got flowers on it
you can put fish in it
or a sponge for cleaning things


Its 5am here
I need to sleep but can't
I lie in bed thinking
brain going million miles an hour
what can I do next
how can I do that
I sleep for a while then the phone rings
or the snoring wakes me
Shouldn't even be on here now
should be sleeping but I can't
too much to do
too much too think about
Old magazines
New desks
Tattoo's
Elephants and Spawn
Not looking at spoilers of Lost
Want to know who wins American Idol instead
Want to know why that judge on that show doesn't take a happy pill

Think I'll be seeing another sunrise soon
Which is good in a way
means I'm still alive

Not that great

Sometimes I try to write but I'm not all that great my poems aren't good either, I can't just whip one up on the spur of the moment they happen sure but try to sit down and write one nope that doesn't happen, poems appear for me I can't make them appear they just happen

Writing is the same even though a "short" is something I can make happen they unlike poems don't just appear I make notes, I think over them..no I don't drool over them that's silly.
See I'm a popper when it comes to a "short" mostly if I think too much nothing comes out at all, if I'm interrupted which is most times the thought process stops completely that's why most of my stories are short which is amazing as I have trouble with ends ... don't know when to shut up ;)

So for me to be in a group like this one is like being in the "fast tracked" class at school, its difficult for me I'm a bit slow compared to the rest but at least I try
This week was Season of Change it had colours one of which I had to get out the dictionary to find out what it meant and it had to be melancholy or sad something I don't normally do either, most of my stories have a happy or surprise ending.
So here's me looking up the words thinking oh boy I can't make a poem appear and the seasons here are different so I'll have to do something 'left of center'
Anyway this was my thought process
Colours, multicoloured, reds browns blues = opals
Hard shell, reddish brown = the earth
Opals are mined where the ground is white, soooo that's no good **was slapping head at this point**
Gold is mined from dark earth and is found with quartz < -- YaY ... see easy (yeah right only took me 2 days to get to that *doh*)

This is my short..my short that took days

Mosaic of the fall

“I told you to shore that up didn’t I” the older miner said, the red dust mixing with his sweat making his face the same colour as the surrounding earth, he was now a tawny reddish brown from head to foot the only colour visible was his eyes the colour of a blue topaz

“You trying to kill us both?” he yelled at the younger man, he had only taken him on because he was getting older now the mine almost getting too much for him to work on his own, the younger man a son of a friend as he had no son’s of his own.
No wife would accept a miner as a husband clothes sepia like the landscape, his shell his miners shell as hard to break through as the land itself

They used explosives down in the cold hard earth, partly deaf now and going blind his eyes accustomed to the dark the older miner never really saw the seasons he saw rock, he saw gold he saw profit.

His life as it was, was coming to an end and the younger man would be his legacy. The younger man who picked up a rock saw the beauty that the older now did not see; he saw the colours he saw the seasons of eons in the rock. He saw the dust falling from the ceiling of the mine, like tiny pieces of the older man falling away his life his work slowing drifting down, he saw but his shout was too late another slide another fall, fell between him and the older man.
As he emerged dusty, covered in head to toe an almost invisible object on the pock covered landscape a tear rolled down his face turning brown as it rolled across his face he wiped it away with the back of his hand leaving a smear on his face

He muttered sadly “He never saw the colours… he never saw them”