The world ...

The world, or this part of it, hots up.

At the same time, my book launch date

hurtles closer, with so much preparation

still to do. Is it any wonder I’m in a lather?

Now, in another city ...

Now, in another city,

my friend’s funeral begins.

I remember to take my medication.

(This friend advised me to get certain dangerous symptoms checked, which led to the medication which keeps me safer. His own, different condition was not curable.)

*********

Afternoon, and in a city I used to know

the memorial is happening now

for another friend who died – this one 

suddenly, without my goodbye.

Now there is no-one left in my life

of that group of poets I met

in strange circumstances, once

upon a time, in a different reality.

Note: 

I met both these friends many years ago when they were in prison and I conducted poetry workshops there. They had long and good lives since. They did not know each other in life, being in different parts of the prison, released in different years, and afterwards living in different cities – but it happened that they died within a month of each other. They are the only two from that time whom I remained in contact with.

In dealing with ...

 

In dealing with – I assure you, 

very justifiable – frustration, 

do NOT go out and buy a big 

bottle of whiskey, or whatever else 

you regard as excellent tipple. If 

you do – and even if you don’t –

do NOT hurl blunt objects against walls 

with crashing force. Do NOT scream 

your rage so piercingly loud that 

the neighbours call the cops. Take 

Rescue Remedy. Watch something 

mind-numbing on telly. Write a poem.

Write a poem so fierce and sly, it will 

bite the heads off your enemies! Er … 

let’s start again …

Re-reading poems ...

Re-reading poems by people I once knew 

and loved – how sad / how sweet.

Where are they now, those friends – 

those from whom life parted me so long ago?

Not everyone got lost along the way – 

but we are all ageing.

If I am in my end times, still let me savour

those memories, those good words!

My treasured 41-year-old copy of the first edition. Intense editing and proof-reading for a new edition makes me appreciate all over again what bloody marvellous poems are in this book!

We never once ...

We never once kissed on the lips, I remember.

I mentally shrug, thinking it matters little now.

It was forty-odd years ago, I’m eighty-three.

‘That no longer hurts,’ I assure myself, ‘not when

I weigh it against all the lasting things we did achieve’ —

then suddenly I’m engulfed in anguished sobs.

Typing, typing, typing ...

Typing, typing, typing, typing, typing.

I come to some lines of my own

in the book I’m transcribing

and pause to remember the feelings

which prompted them, and

the particular occasion — long ago

and well remembered. Where are you now,

friends who were with me then?

Preparing an old book ...

Preparing an old book for republication,

a collection of poems written from a place of pain,

I confront again the sufferings of those writers, my friends.

I run away often into light-hearted movies on Netflix,

or romance novels that always have happy endings,

or wine, or chocolates, or cuddles with my cat. 

But then I return to the task. If they were strong enough

to live those things and write of them truthfully, 

I can continue to honour and share their words.

Image: cover of an anthology of poems written from workshops conducted in Pentridge Prison, Melbourne, 1981-2. 

As the official publisher (also one of the contributors, as visiting/tutor poets were invited by the prisoner poets to submit our work too) I am issuing a new edition, to be launched simultaneously with my memoir about coordinating those workshops, Breaking Into Pentridge Prison. Because the original volume of Blood from Stone is over 40 years old and pre-digital, with uneven print quality, the preparation has involved retyping every word.

I'm sharing this with Poets and Storytellers United for my own prompt at Friday Writings #72: Writing About Writing. Writing about other people's writing is maybe not quite on topic, but still....