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Thylazine: The Australian Journal of Arts, Ethics & Literature                                                                                                                                     #9/thyla9k-bt
AUSTRALIAN POETS SERIES 9
The Poetry of Barbara A Taylor
Selected by Coral Hull

[Above] Photo of Barbara A Taylor by Barbara A Taylor, 2003


I After the Attack I Oceans of Ethnic Harmony I Dancing Diamonds On Ruffled Eider Feathers I
NEW CELLS OF LIFE AND DESTRUCTION I Light Downunder I


After the Attack

Resting, peaceful
on recycled polished timbers,
embraced by its grains

of age and growth,
in this stillness
gazing out to chameleon rocks

I listened
to birds
sing Spring songs

of warnings
and new birth.
New challenges.

I watched
a lizard's shadow'd silhouette
move quickly up stripped attacked tree trunks.

Lorikeets of rainbow colours fed contentedly
in red flowering funnels of honey'd blooms.
Tree ferns waved. Fresh breezes
swept perfect scents
like incense
or a perfumed candle

bringing light
through some attempt at prayer
for the safety of humanity.

For our strength
such sorrow
to bear.

I glared to the horizon
gave thanks I was not there.
I grieved and cried

for those who died,
and for what is
yet to come.

Published on internet radio at LadyBugLive.com (USA).

Oceans of Ethnic Harmony

There's a sensory picture on my mind:
a red sun sinking behind silhouetted palms,
maybe water fountain trickles and
meditations in a Japanese rock garden,
or feluccas skimming rippled waters on
the great River Nile; sometimes, tapas
flavours and Moorish wails, flamenco
frenzy; jazz and blues, a smoky nightclub,
the didge, dreaming under the Southern Cross sky;
bagpipes, sitar, guitar; bouzouki, or flutes
and strings; gourds - drum rhythms from
West Africa, Indian or Celtic dirge. Folk songs:
all eclectic music. Emotive evocative
sounds connecting souls of nations
from countries near and far;

instrumental visions - one world musical
tribal treats transposed to vivid images
- dreams manifested while listening to
selected tracks of Lucky Oceans on our
treasured ABC. He takes me on a harmonic
journey, from east to west and north
to south, triggering memories and tastes
of distant places in a rich diversity of tones.
I'm subsumed on therapeutic global trips
around The daily Planet. Most afternoons
from three to four, I'm tuned in there,
blissed out, floating easily adrift on
mellifluous auditory waves of celebration
in multicultural music, song and dance.

Dancing Diamonds On Ruffled Eider Feathers
Blue Mountains, NSW

Red sun sinks. Yellow moon rises.
    Velvet sky awakens. Venus winks.
I dream. In an ancient landscape:
    this vast country of diverse tribes and totems,
where intertwined gnarled banksias hug
    and brilliant King parrots squabble.
Filigreed tree ferns gently wave. In wattle and
    sweet boronia scents they dance, mesmeric
before awesome vistas. Humbling perspectives,
    sprawling valleys that sweep to craggy basalt
rocks, with layer over layer of purple-blue shadow'd
    hues: humility highlighted in the mists of time.
And where yes, oh yes, there's the joy of inner silent
    spaces: free to be. Absorbed by nature's gifts.

Listen to dingoes and serenades of birds. Hear
    noisy flocks of hungry honeyeaters, maybe
feel empowered by hovering nectar-loving spinebills
    - the energetic thrust of tiny flapping wings - or
simply, watch warbling blue wrens in bushy grevilleas
    and callistemon trees. Wonder at the double decker
dragonfly. A hiker's haunting coo-ee calls can echo
    clearly from the foot of trickling waterfalls, whilst up
high on sharp rocky ridges you can eyeball a soaring eagle,
    see the struggling prey in a kestrel's scaly claw.

Ah, to feel this close purity, almost reach out, magically
    touch the delicate tinkling of an unseen bellbird. For
here, you can harmonise with notes on the breeze, and
    at sunset, in this sacred space by cool clear crystal pools,
serenity is interrupted only by the fluttering of wild ducks
    taking off, then landings - swishings galore on agitated
waters - leaving ever-expanding circles of fulgent lights,
    reflected dancing diamonds on ruffled eider feathers.

NEW CELLS OF LIFE AND DESTRUCTION

Maria believes in the Goddess. It is her democratic right.
Her faith is The Temple of Her Hallowed Self.
Her planet is Divine. She has no parents,
no partners; never mangled, she.
No siblings. No uncle. No aunt.
Her sacred family unit
is but One. No Thou or Thee. No child.
Not even a DVD.
But she does have

One Big Heart

And an erudite solo mind to understand, to see
the intricate complexity of all living matter: in
crab-crafted mandalas on golden beaches, and
fragile fringed crystals of frosted ice, fragmented
in the venose cracks of crusted earth; in dimples
on your wrinkled face, and mine, and on pollen
dusts around a stamen's sticky tip.
In dancing prisms of lightning bugs on dusk,
and in perfumed early evenings she sees patterns,
each uniquely coded, mosaic blueprints for our destiny.
She sees them again, on the diamond-knotted
skins of golden pineapples; in individual fleshy
segments of the earthworm with its strategic saddle,
and in the worm that also is some replicating virus,
violating us in raging optic fibres.

In the weapons of mass destruction,
spiraling, imploding, mushrooming
plumes of smoke, unfurled universal patterns,
configured, predestined for one place.
On the python's back, and in artistic
insects' scribblings on the Scribbly Bark.
Here. There. Everywhere.
New Cells.

The world is swamped by talk of cells:
Cell phones, brain cells, blood cells,
solar cells, stem cells, genetically modified cells;
embryonic cells, fuel cells, germ cells.

Al-Qaeda, T E R R O R I S T cells. Good
and evil networks. Some spiritual awakening.
Molecules of isms saturating insanity.

Today, DNA discoveries reveal in mathematical pulchritude,
the guide to the truth of it all. We understand more
clearly the importance of RNA. They are essential rungs
in the ladder of creation, vital in determining specific genes,
enabled to attack any virus; they execute direction
and redirection in a cellular space, imperative to
the future scheme of a tailor-made perfect world
of long and healthy living, unless of course,
only selected tolerated souls can survive
and a life itself becomes no longer precious,
incredulously disrespected and ignored
by powerful vengeful persons who would
themselves believe they are
Almighty Lord, The God.

No Mickey Mouse science of mice and men is this,
for genomes of the regular rodent are ninety-nine per cent
all-human - like yours, like mine, like hers or his, inclusive
of presidents and serfs; the scientists, the killers, the healers,
the teachers; the saints and monks with their compassionate hearts;
the activists and martyrs; the innocent children to the slaughter.
Mighty Mickey is our hero, much revered today.

This tiny pest has now become a surrogate human, a
disposable man, the medical Saviour of our 21st century.
Long live our free world of mice and men!
But how then can we talk of freedom?
Does anyone know true liberty?
We all have an urgent need for answers
to unanswered prayers, a want for
people-caring policies, and
practical plans
for peace.

Our world is dividing, multiplying into new organisms,
the way it is designed, methodically mapped
in colonies and nuclei - M-set astroblemes
across the globe throughout humanity,
living a shaky valence in virgin tissues. In every
swirling grain of tidal sands, we are born
and we die, under attack by activated atoms or
scavenger radicals. Millions of cells in our bodies
waste away.

And the beat goes on. New units daily manifest.
Ancient generations of stars in time and space
become our consciousness; primordial universal forces
- fresh neurons formatting with every new experience,
now feelings, present thoughts. Many old cells disappear.
Ousted. Our opinions switch. Our values convert,
our judgments, shifting in each instant.
Rejection to Acceptance. Destruction to Renewal.
War to Peace. Life to Death. Endings and Beginnings.
E m a n c i p a t i o n.

There's many a harbinger-river of turbulent waters
to cross, into which one can't step twice, can't
exist in the same body again, nor hold identical mind.
Such is the sanctity, the miracle of life.
Every moment we die,
and every moment
our rebirth takes place.

Light Downunder
Mountain Top, NSW
Australia

At last the temperature has fallen
Dramatic visual shifts with the seasons
Make welcome to a different frame:
A new perception.

Humpback hills and rugged ranges
changed today to this perfection:
Calibrated verdigris. Clarified, Autumnal days,
each shadow'd sandstone rocky crack
of dark and light, the pinks to gray.

Delineated on distant tors, silhouetted spikes of trees.
As in flickering fans of a Bangalow Palm,
changed nuances in orchard rows, dance
gracefully in the breeze. Bright King Parrots
screech in flight. The kookaburra's cries are loud.

And thuds of bouncing kangaroos
move quickly now through arid pastures
to hopes of sparkling waters on a dam.
Dramatic visual shifts with the seasons
make very clear the reasons why

my heart and soul
belong right here.

About the Poet Barbara A Taylor

Barbara A Taylor has published prose and poetry and is a regular local reader at Stand Up Poets’ evenings. The natural environment, politics, peace and women are the main interests and themes. Her work has been on several women's literary ezines in UK, USA and Canada, in an anthology of Far North Coast winning women writers, From The Circle of Women, Imago23, Beyond The Rainbow and regional newspapers. She has read her poems on community, local and web radio. Recently she won the Friends of The ABC Far North Coast Region Open Poetry Award with her poem "Oceans of Ethnic Harmony". On International Women's Day 2003, she was invited by Dangerously Poetic Publishers as a feature poet at Persephone's Bookshop, Byron Bay, NSW. Australia. Inspiration comes from the sounds and sights of her own very special Rainbow Country. Barbara aspires to publishing a book of poetry and prose, and is interested in making audio formats of her written works.
   [Above] Photo of Barbara A Taylor by Barbara A Taylor, 2003.

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Thylazine No.9 (March, 2004)

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