I’m Doggie minding again. This time I’m looking after the gorgeous Monty, for friends Martin and Jacqui. He’s a bundle of joy, no trouble and a pleasure to have here.
Thank you to Gina of, Singledust, for introducing me to a Pantun, style of poetry this morning.
Pantun :
In its most basic form the pantun consists of a quatrain which employs an abab rhyme scheme. A pantun is traditionally recited according to a fixed rhythm and as a rule of thumb, in order not to deviate from the rhythm, every line should contain between eight and 12 syllables. “The pantun is a four-lined verse consisting of alternating, roughly rhyming lines. The first and second lines sometimes appear completely disconnected in meaning from the third and fourth, but there is almost invariably a link of some sort. Whether it be a mere association of ideas, or of feeling, expressed through assonance or through the faintest nuance of a thought, it is nearly always traceable” (Sim)
I’m not quite sure whether I’ve written the format correctly, but here is my first Pantun. I think I’m a bit light on in the syllable count.
Featured Image: Above, Jing’an Sculpture Park.
Bedroom Fireplace
Oh wondrous lounge-room fire-place
Your winter-time sparkling crackle
Glows upon our old desire’s embrace
Reciting words of lust, beyond our burnt shackles
Oh wondrous bed-room fire-place
Your winter-time warming flame
Narrates tales of our revere and grace
Flickering words of love, beyond our given time
Spark Of The Heart lyrics, Redgum
Album: Frontline
It’s a harsh dry land, breaks your back and scars and gnarls your hands
Now carcasses rot in the sun and dusk silts up the dams
Sacked two men when the postie poked those bluies through the fly screen door
The welfare state dried up ten years before
Its Hobson’s choice, they run this plane flocks melt into bone
You can drove the stock routes for a year and cripple life at home
Still look forward to every day but every days the same
You Wake in a sweat dream of the smell of rain
But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul
My great grandfather pushed his luck beyond the Goutre Line
Now all that’s left are new cloud shears and a gravestone walked with lime
In tribute I still use his Swiss barometer in vain
Lake be damned, the weather hasn’t changed
Fifty miles by river land this pasture fenced and sprayed
Profit margins [chime] and graphed at boardrooms in LA
Absenting landlords meet to match their smiles and fake suntans
In three years they’ll have bleached the soil to sand
But a river runs solid runs deep
I work this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul
Jocie searches salt bush where rain once ran its course
It’s a shock to see a child of twelve grow old upon a horse
The glory box lies locked with memories silent as the phone
Even in the shadows it’s our home
Government relief just might keep breeding stock alive
The agents jump the cost of feed and the export markets dive
And if it rains I’m still in debt until I’m ninety-eight
Will the last one out please shut the bloody gate
On the news it seems unreal
Floods in Cairns the cities just can’t feel
Survivals a story untold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul
But a river runs solid runs deep I love this land it grips me by my feet
Staying until my blood runs cold
Spark of the heart
I’m in soul
Weekly Prompts: Word Prompt, This weeks word prompt: Curiosity. And there’s plenty of curiosity in these odds and ends pieces of poetry that I’ve compiled below. They are all verse comments that I’ve made to some of my readers.
Good morning dear readers, I’m not very well, a chest cough and cold, but I’ve time to recover before I fly to China on Wednesday, and today I’ve written another two Haiku for you. I’ll be fine, Cyndi’s looking after me, as soon as she finishes licking out my cereal bowl ….. I’ll rest up, listening to my music, and I sincerely recommend, you have a look at the Leonard Cohen Tribute concert, In Montreal 2017, on YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSmvvUNTtTc&t=51s
Blue
Today’s deep sky blue
Warming my chest and soul too
Curing cough and flu
True, it’s a dog’s life
Who would kill a lonely cat
Peace to you and you
When I’m floating in the water
And your eyes are lilies all around
When I’m lying sweetly in my bed
The sun plays crystal with my eyes
Then I stop
My body stops crying for home
My limbs stop weeping for home
When I’m peeping in a parlour of trees
And the leaves are winking all around
I’m home, my heart sobs in my veins
But brains they play the softest games
Fingers kiss the string
Mouth taste the blade
Of everglade (x3)
Ivor.Plumber/Poet 