JSAR

His hair sultana blonde
& skin cotton soft.
My son with eyes a twinkle
Stares with an innocent wonder
Into my eyes as I say his name.
His nose wrinkles with his giggle;
A new voice harsh with overuse.
His whole hand grips my finger
Such strength from my small boy.
Countless raw emotions fill me
& he smiles kindly as my tears well.
I laugh at his made up words
That infuse me with hope & joy.
Within this bond; a new discovery –
A person inside I had never met.
One who sings, dances & laughs.
A woman focused & calm,
My mothering a mix of trial & error.
One day when he is older
I will ask him how I did
& hope he grades me favourably
My boy with sultana hair & blueberry eyes
With the cherub cheeks & Angel’s Kiss.
I love you with my every heart beat,
My son.
©Violet Ashes 2015

Photo ©Violet Ashes 2015

Sunset Ribbons

Sunset 142 ©Violet Ashes 2014

A crackled orange ribbon floats through a bruised & clouded sky.
As I peer through my camera lens I start to wonder why
With all this beauty at the end of the day
It took me so long to work my way
Out to the balcony to view the sunset every day.
©Violet Ashes 2014

Every night the sky is a constant surprise to me. Even the sunsets under a dark grey sky with barely any colour still hold interest & the emotion it elicits in me is extraordinary.

My Sunset 365 Project (You can visit HERE) is a third of the way through & although almost every day I forget I have got to go out & take the photo I have managed to do it & also enjoy it. I have seen incredible colour in the sky – sometimes I cannot believe it is real & often comment to Corsmor that no one is going to believe I haven’t photoshopped the colour.

In fact, sometimes the hardest part is finding a quote to match the beauty of the sky. I could not find one today, so I wrote one…

A Place Called Nirvana

Like teens all over the world, to me, the death of Kurt Cobain was devastating. I was 14. It was the day after my birthday. 

20 years on as I watched Nirvana inducted into the American Hall of Fame I thought about Kurt constantly. For days sentiment hit me in a big way. I still have ‘In Utero’ (my favourite Nirvana album) on repeat wherever I go. The lyrics to ‘Very Ape‘ spurn me on.

I read Kurt’s journals daily in a sleek black hard-covered book that was published after his death which contains scanned pages from his journals, notebooks, bits of paper, letters he wrote – even his suicide note. I laugh & shake my head at how much of it is filled with his dark humour. Anguish, yes, but he had such a good sense of humour.

Today I looked through my own journals from around that time. The 1990’s were my teen years & Nirvana’s influence on my mind & my writing was clear. I found a poem I wrote which is made up of different Nirvana song titles. I laughed again… & shake my head…

A Place Called NIRVANA

You are like Lithium
& you Rape my Spirit.
Your Apologies Smell Like Bleach
& Buzz from your mouth.

As you Come In Bloom,
I hear your Heart-Shaped lies
Sifting through me like an Aneurysm.

A girl about to Turnaround,
My Lips are Beeswax & Hairspray,
Holding in Tourette like words
That could Drain You
Of the Territorial Plateau.
On which you Sliver.

Nevermind this (New Wave) Downer.
Last Night I Slept with Polly,
Then Sold her Sunbeam for a Gun
So I could Burn Out & Fade Away.

Written by Violet Ashes 1994
© Violet Ashes 2014

Journals & In Utero

I Hope Not.

I hope that I am wrong about God
I hope that there is magic in this world
That when I die I awaken to a splendour
That takes my breath again

I hope that being an atheist
Does not upset God or the Fairies
I hope that they forgive me
When I finally meet my end

I hope that the Circle of Oaks
The chanting & the sacrifice
The stone temples & the statues
Were not bred & built in vain

I hope that underneath the ground
There is a heaven to be found
Where I can see those ones again
Whose hearts refused to beat

I hope the feathers I have collected
Reveal messages & dreams
Of untold stories & romance
From a friend I have never known

I hope through all these faithless years
I have missed out on something special
& when I die I will kick myself
For not knowing life is precious

Written by Violet Ashes 8^th April 2014
Image taken in ‘The Forest’, 14th September 2013
© Violet Ashes 2014

Reflection

We fell in love in an afternoon & the sun set as we kissed.
The beauty of the dimming sky; a reflection in your blue eyes.
We kissed & felt a new forever beat in our chests.
An eternal sunset burning in our hearts each day born anew & ending with a kiss.
A kiss as sweet & warm as that first afternoon.
 
I await the setting of the sun each day for the chance to kiss again.
Each sunset on another year together;
a beauty, a reflection, and a promise to each other.
This love is as certain as the sun setting on the day.
 
10th of February; 6 years to the day
a happy anniversary of that first afternoon
I can measure the years of our love in sunsets.
Affection in your eyes that never dims
And a bond which not storm nor rain could break.

  

Beyond

 
 
Sitting on a cold concrete cricket pitch. 2 AM. Vodka – Raspberry.
No one had told me I was clever before
And I began to understand that I could think
I could think what I thought on the page
By writing it down
On the pages you read when we were riding on trains
In the years of late adolescence into early twenties – beyond
Writing & sketching & painting & drawing
Our lives in our broken-girl language that
Engulfed notebooks & scraps of paper on my desk
No one had told me I was allowed to believe before
And I began to understand that I could think & dream
On pages, in notebooks, with pens & with pencils
Sharing echoes of nights & skipping rope ideas
You were the influence & the alcohol & the cricket pitch
That I think about when I am bruised & stuck for material
The idea that I can be clever & totally believe-able
Came from your mind into my hands
To the pen, to the page, to the world – beyond
I wish I could give you something to pay you
For telling me who I was when you could, when you did
But you’ll go to bed tonight empty handed,
Thinking & wondering & painting your dreams
Because you knew what I didn’t when you knew it, way back then
And you’ll live knowing more than I can ever comprehend.
© 2013 Violet Ashes

Patience & Fear

Light many lamps & gather round his bed.
Lend him your eyes, warm blood, & will to live.
Speak to him; rouse him; you may save him yet.
He’s young; he hated war; how should he die
When cruel old campaigners win safe through?
But Death replied: ‘I choose him.’ So he went,
& there was silence in the summer night;
Silence & safety; & the veils of sleep.
Then, far away, the thunder of the guns.
— Siegfried Sassoon: The Death-Bed

The desperation that filled me a month ago is easing slowly every day. I am distracted by the fact that in a month I will leave the job I have been doing for 10 years & training my replacement. A decision Corsmor & I made when we found out about Pip & now I have to accept & live with it despite the fact things have changed. They are moving my job to Sydney & we decided not to go – I try every day not to think about the ‘what-if’s’ & just hope that somehow this will turn out right.
I remind myself that I am not alone. That many women & men have gone through this & so much worse before. I do get comfort from knowing that time may mend this & must be patient. It is an exercise in tolerance & fear all at once.

Wayward

I dream of wayward gulls
And all Landless Loves
Rare moments of Winter Sun
Peace
Privacy, for everyone

~~ William Clare

Ashes You Leave

Never Again Alone in the Dark

Far away from sleep
In a room so deep
With my soul in my throat
The last few tears I weep
I cry to darkest mind
As leaves, in silence, fall
Alone I will perish
Forgotten in this hole
Why can’t I grow wings
To merge with clouds as one
Why can’t I be as others
Unashamed to hail the sun
I cannot love this darkness
But in darkness I will fall
Helpless as a child
By dark swallowed whole
Feelings forever lost
Thoughts so dark and old
Blackness grasps my heart
In a deadly icy hold
Locked alone in a world of mine
Being fed by their poisoned lies Despair
Unspoken lives of leaves
Unspoken lives of men
Never again alone in the dark

Raven Of DispersionII by Lady Dementia

Coal

 

Coal
I
Is the total black, being spoken
From the earth’s inside.
There are many kinds of open.
How a diamond comes into a knot of flame  
How a sound comes into a word, coloured  
By who pays what for speaking.
 
Some words are open
Like a diamond on glass windows
Singing out within the crash of passing sun
Then there are words like stapled wagers
In a perforated book—buy and sign and tear apart—
And come whatever wills all chances
The stub remains
An ill-pulled tooth with a ragged edge.
Some words live in my throat
Breeding like adders. Others know sun
Seeking like gypsies over my tongue
To explode through my lips
Like young sparrows bursting from shell.
Some words
Bedevil me.
 
Love is a word another kind of open—
As a diamond comes into a knot of flame
I am black because I come from the earth’s inside  
Take my word for jewel in your open light.

That poem is a favourite of mine & I have been thinking about it as I take the train to uni. Written by Audre Lorde, she was a Caribbean-American poet & feminist essayist. She died of liver cancer when we was 58 after a 14 year battle with breast cancer during which she suffered a mastectomy. To me this poem is strong & I think she would have been a hell of a person to know. She was proud of her heritage, of being a woman & most wondrous of all she was able to put that down on paper so that I might understand her many years later. She said, of herself, that she was “black, lesbian, mother, warrior, and poet.” She consistently fought against racism in feminist thought & I feel she succeeded. Like Lorde I believe feminism is not just limited to having an affect on women, it has an affect on all people, as does racism & if you deny the differences in all women & men you only reinforce patriarchy in a negative way. Suffering is not a condition universal to women, or lesbians or black people. It is something each person undergoes throughout their lives for many reasons. Why add feminism to the list of things that oppress women if you can be inclusive about its affects instead of exclusive.
 
The train is about to get to Adelaide & there is a woman sitting near me trying to read what I am writing.  I am in a good mood today so I will excuse it. But only today.

Spring Midnight

I fucking love days like today. It is sunny & warm, only a few clouds in the sky, love it. 26°C. Although I do love spring, winter is by far my favourite season – but it comes at a price. I start out loving curling up & listening to the rain. My days spent inside by the fire reading & writing. By the end of it all though I find myself so down & my mood so depressed. My writing stops or becomes dark & incoherent. I start getting sick & I fight with everyone. Nothing seems to satisfy me & I start to find fault with everything around me.
 
Today, though, I feel that spring air on my face & I feel strong. I feel like I am able to put the bad stuff away & get on with building my life. Reading that back it sounds like I have overdosed on Oprah but I don’t mean it to sound cheesy. I just want to live & to keep living. No fear, no anger, just life. I don’t want to use the negative to keep a wall around me anymore. When I look around, all I see are walls & it is only me inside & that is not enough. It is lonely in here.

Midnight Vault
Creatures awakening to join the midnight hour
I am but one who slithers in the mist
Like a crypt I am locked beneath the world
Swept under for no one to see or to hear
Your sweet words of benediction cannot save my soul
The night time sounds bring resurrection to the day
From here I will enter the unknown — tomorrow.
I want to be ready.
©Violet Ashes 1998

I wrote that poem some time ago but it is only now I am coming to an understanding of it. Have I got what it takes to start over?

Ratiocination

 
Ratiocination
I had a dream
Dismal dream
Nightmare dream
Scream
Woke to a scream
In the room
Dark room
Bedroom
Felt eminent doom
White walled fear
In the air fear
My fear
Saw death near
Heard the night bite
Flesh bite
Struggled sleep to fight
Fire fight
Time for thought rational
Felt rational
Ration-All
Take pieces & fall
Deep sleep fall
I see a dream
Distant dream
Silent dream
©Violet Ashes 1999
 
I wrote this about a week ago after being tormented for a week by the same nightmare every night. After I wrote it I stopped having the dream. Maybe that was just coincidence, I hope not. I think my poetry is improving, I have been looking back at some of the stuff I have written & I do not like a lot of it. I hope that I keep improving, I would hate to think that this was all I have in me.
 
I have a job interview tomorrow night, I am not looking forward to it but I need the work. It does mean I won’t be able to catch the train back with Riot Grrrl but I am sure she will understand. I might be able to convince Digger to go with her, I don’t like her catching it late at night without me.
 
I feel tired all the time at the moment – I am smack bang in the middle of accepting so many things that have happened to me. Trying to work through them all at once. I seem to have less trouble with some of the things than I used to; trying to understand why MC did the things to me that he did. I still have days where wondering is as far as I can get & understanding seems so far away. I don’t have the nightmares anymore & I don’t flinch when Digger’s hands come near my face. It has only taken 5 years but I am closer to knowing that it is all over & I cannot be hurt anymore.