Looking towards the highway in the sky... towards cloud and ice.

The Outlaw from Lightning Ridge

There once was an outlaw from Lightning Ridge,
Captain Tom was his name- Son of Harold and Midge,
The troopers all round from Sydney to Perth knew of Tom’s legend,
They considered a curse,
But the ladies and gentlemen from towns all around,
Saw Tom as their hero and to him they did crown,
To the women Tom swooned with but a single sigh,
And the men saw as dashing- his faintest reply,
To the fact that he needed no pistol to hold up a bank,
Tom just laughed and said- “I give them my thanks”,
But life was bittersweet to this dashing outlaw lover drover,
For when his fame reached its zenith- the troopers would soon see it over,
So on that fateful march day in the bush with the heat,
Tom didn’t see the trooper coming or know he was beat,
As Tom’s small fire crackled with the billy can on the boil,
The trooper jumped Tom with his fellow uncoiled,
“Put ‘em up” said the trooper,
“Turn around so I can see you”,
Tom replied pulling his pants up to greet him,
“Me name’s Tom copper, where shall we begin?”,
“The game’s up Tom, its over, I’m taking you in!”,
And during the second that followed after,
Tom reached for his shooter,
But the trooper was ready with his rifle much sooner,
With the crack that proceeded Tom’s fall to the ground,
The trooper reloaded another round,
“Any last words scum?” the trooper then asked,
“Tell mum that I love her, then go stick it up your ass!”.

Oceans Apart

I have no memory of the past, no identity, I simply awoke to this world fully grown, cold and naked. I opened my eyes, clutched at the distant memory of a face of beauty and sublime, racked with the guilt of innocence. I was lying on a beach somewhere, waves crashed and cantered, my past, my future, all held in subtle balance among the dunes of an unknown beach.
I sat up and looked up into the sky at the dawning sun, it all seemed so peaceful. Blue ocean, beautiful sunrise, quite ethereal. I then realised that I needed to be somewhere, maybe it was part realisation and part instinct but I stood with all the effort of a newborn infant and I walked away from the water, I walked with hope of finding out who I was with each step among the sands.
With the beach behind me I stumbled through dense ferns and new morning mists, without any guidance whatsoever I happened upon a trampled path, my feet dragged through jungle thicket and hanging vines and onto the path I tread. It wouldn’t be long before I would find my identity and clothes I silently confided, and the eternal hope spring in my heart swelled.
I came upon a small village after about an hours worth of stumbling over rocks and naming various plants which I had never encounted before. Everything I saw became a new experience and in its own way become unique to me in my journey. I walked into the village with quiet trepidation as many people of islander decent crowded around me. It was easy to understand on their faces that they had never seen anyone like me, but on the other hand, I was seeing their faces for the first time. I was stepping back into time before the days when an English captain first introduced his ship crew and scientists to the awkward islanders offering their hospitality to the strange white people, and I was afraid, afraid of the unknown and afraid to offend.
Fortunately my fears were laid to rest when a young man approached me, hand outstretched and a smile in his eyes. I took the hand and he shook his with great enthusiasm, my arm aching to be free of the physical battery. “Welcome to our village” he announced in a proud but stunted English. “We find you are needing help yes?”, I just stood with a helpless glance and nodded at the young native. “Where have you come to?”, I now felt little wary that he may not understand my answer without at least a few attempts, “Uh, from the sea…” I added with hesitation. It then occurred to me that I was right, “You travel on boat?” “Err, no, I washed up on the beach, I have no memory of where I came from or who I am”. He then stood there for a moment and took in what I said, then he turned to the men standing next to him and started hammering out something to them in his own tongue. I felt like a third wheel and after what seemed an eternity of a back and forth conversation between the young man and his elder the young man turned back to me and smiled as if to say he had reached an agreement, “You stay in village with us, we help?” and although it seemed more of an order than a question, I nodded.
I stayed in that village with the polynese and taught English to the young ones and in exchange they taught me as they taught their own. I hunted, fished, and learned their language. The villagers even named me ‘Swahi’ which meant ‘mysterious’, and I also had a young admirer named ‘Jonas’, an eight year old pupil of mine. Jonas followed me everywhere and he seemed fascinated by everything I did, he gave me insight into his world and helped me learn more about polynese than the other villagers were willing to teach. Jonas became my rock it was with Jonas that I felt entirely at home.
Then I started to dream, I saw a woman’s face, it was beautiful and sublime, and would be smiling at me in my sleep. Then just before I woke up, the face of the woman would have a deeply forlorn look, as if she were tragically hurt by something, and after that I would wake suddenly into a bed of ice water. I had no idea why this was happening and after a while I just grew accustomed to this dream, then one day it stopped.
I knew somehow that I needed to find the woman who I dreamed of and I knew that would mean leaving the village I called home. The only thing that held me back was Jonas. I remember one day we were coming back to the village after fishing that day and I was looking at a scar on my arm and suddenly I remembered where came from. When I was little my dad was fixing an old television and he had it open with its circuits showing and he was soldering them with an iron. I waited and watched him with great curiosity and then he stood up and turned to me and said “I’m just going to the bathroom, don’t touch anything!”, I nodded but as soon as he left the room I walked over to the table. I got up onto the stool in front of the table and I looked inside the TV, it was like some sort of miniature city, I was amazed by the little chips and diodes, each like a giant skyscraper. I then turned my attention to the soldering iron and decided to help dad while he was gone to the toilet. I picked it up but it was much heavier than it looked. It dropped till it was dangling by its cord, collecting my right forearm along the way and leaving a permanent and painful reminder never to disobey my father again. I told this story to Jonas and almost immediately afterwards he turned away from me. I pulled his arm and he turned to me with tears in his eyes. “What’s wrong Jonas?” I asked, “I’m worried when you remember where you from, you leave” He looked up at me and defiantly held back his tears. I was surprised by how smart Jonas could be and I knew I would have to lie to his face, but it did not help that I didn’t want to, “Don’t worry Jonas, I’m not going anywhere”.
Nevertheless, I did leave in the end.

It was about two years that I spent on the island in French Polynesia, the island didn’t even have a name to the rest of the world or appear on any map. It was because of that reason that my journey to Tahiti was very long and difficult. I sailed for three weeks on a single man catamaran with barely enough supplies to get to Tahiti in weather which was quite foreboding at times and deadly at others. Then the dreams started again, growing more intense each day as I sailed further and further away from the only place I could call home. It was the day I reached the shores of my destination that I almost died, and that wasn’t the last of my worries.
I was lying on my back looking up to the sky, and before my eyes it changed from a brilliant light blue to a dark purple. I then saw two people standing side by side, blurred at first but becoming sharper and sharper. I could then make out a man and woman, the man in a dark suit smiling and the woman in a white dress with a tear streaked face… it was her! My eyes darted back to the man’s face, it was me! He turned and looked at the woman and said “Grace, I will always love you forever, and ever”. I wanted to slip into a coma and see nothing but this vision for the rest of my years.
Life had other plans for me however, and as if it knew I was thinking about giving up it dunked me into ocean. I thought I would have to get back into the boat but I was surprised again because when I dropped my legs to start treading water I found land. And when I looked up I could see imposing mount Ronui looming above me. I looked around but saw no signs of any people. I then dragged the boat to shore and kissed the sand, my first urge was to get sleep but I did not want to sleep on some deserted beach so I packed what I could carry and made my way off the beach.
It wasn’t long before I found a path and a sign pointing to Teahupao (which I assumed was the nearest town) I then gave a sigh of relief, my long journey was over, now it was time to get started on my next.
My new goal from that point on was to find out where I came from, and unfortunately for me the only employment I could find was in the merchant corps as a swab (the lowest of the low jobs on a ship). So I became Swahi the swab, and I travelled from port to port, I saw most of this earth from the deck of a ship and apart from my dreams getting more and less vivid none could compare to my vision on the journey to Tahiti. So as the years passed I sank deeper into malaise, and as I circled the globe on the sea-lanes I felt lost, searching for Grace.
My turn on the wheel of fate did arrive after four years of mindless travel, and in the most extraordinary of place’s… London, a city where people are literally a drop in the ocean.
I was on a pub crawl with some mates and we were coming out of the Prospect of Whitby formerly known as the ‘Devils Tavern’ and just outside the door I knocked some poor lady over, I offered my hand to her but she just froze as if I was the devil himself. “Oh my God!” she cried, I looked behind me to see what she was looking at. It was me… “Oh my God!” she repeated, this must have been some joke my mates had set up, but they were gone. Then I looked at her face again, it was Grace! But she looked so old… “Grace?” was the only thing I could say, I was as dumbstruck as she was. “Joseph? Is that really you?” people were now gathering to see what kind of entertainment we could afford them. “Grace, is that my name? Joseph?” she then looked at me puzzled, and then offered her hand to me. I pulled her up and people began to disperse when they realised there would be no violence, “I’ve been looking for you everywhere, what happened to me?” Grace just looked at me and then directed me to a bench across the road, “I should be asking you what happened, and where have you been? You’ve been missing for six and a half years!”. “I don’t know Grace…” she then gave me another puzzled look, “Why do you keep calling me Grace?” it then struck me that this was not Grace I was speaking to, but a relative perhaps. “Where is Grace?” I asked, but I was not ready for the answer… I don’t think I would ever have been, “Grace… Grace is gone, she was lost at sea with you… you don’t remember do you?” I just shook my head slowly, hope was lost now, hope and Grace.
I went home with my mother in law Sarah that day, we talked about my past and I learned that Sarah was my only living relative left. I was lucky in this respect (Sarah had a room with all my possessions in it), time did return some of my memories, but I only dreamed of the worst ones.
Sarah was as happy as she had ever been in the past six and a half years and she let me stay in the room with all my stuff, but it didn’t help. The more I learned about the past, the more I lamented a love lost and the events of one fateful night. I had all the pieces now, I was a pilot, Grace and me were on our second honeymoon, we were still as madly in love as if we were just married and we were heading from Tahiti Nui to Bora Bora. It might have gone fine if I had checked the weather report that afternoon but I just didn’t bother.
We took off in the afternoon, that was the last time we would be seen. I levelled the plane off at 3500 feet and put it into a cruise speed, then I adjusted the flaps and set the autopilot, it was a small-chartered plane we hired for two days and it would have gotten us to Bora Bora by eight o’clock if it weren’t for the storm. I made the biggest mistake when I started reading a Stephen King novel instead of checking the horizon, with Grace fast asleep next to me neither of us noticed anything until the turbulence hit. After that I tried my best to go around the storm but it was no use, we were doomed. I remember the last words I heard from Grace and that was where my memory stops. “I will be waiting for you”, it was those words that haunted me more than anything now, they echoed in my mind as I woke in the morning and they followed me to bed at night, “I will be waiting for you”.

I knew now what I had to do, it was clear to me for the first time in seven years.

I climbed into the cockpit of my loan-bought 172 skyhawk, there was no looking back, I was determined that there would be no return. The engine started and I shuttled her to the runway. Its strange how cleanly she glided up this time, no bumps at all, perfect flight.
I had done my research over the past six months and the conditions were almost perfect tonight. The plane shuddered slightly and I let off the throttle, I put her into the autopilot the same way I did it a thousand other times. I closed my eyes and waited. Thoughts flooded my mind, the happy ones I cherished and kept in the back of my head, the sad ones moved up to the front and one by one I banished them from my mind, this would not be a solemn occasion, this was a time to celebrate.
The plane shook and twisted to port, it gathered speed into a dive.
I looked to my side at Grace, she smiled. “I’m waiting for you”
I smiled back at her and said those two words that I had been waiting to say for over seven years… “I’m coming”.




FINI

Celticdiardan's Refreshing Lime Ninja...

This is just one of my many alcoholic concoctions... my refreshing lime ninja!

First: pour two parts sake.

Follow with: pour two parts extra dry vermouth.

Then add: a dash of lime cordial, and a dash of lime juice.

Garnish with: ice and a slice of lime.

Enjoy with: good company.

Why I Write

Before I start writing about why I write I would like to add a little poem about the beauty of the blank page that dauntingly stares most writers in the face:

It takes an empty page
To tell what cannot be told
It takes an empty heart
To fill that we can never hold
Love.

That tiny spectre of creative thought came to me while scribbling away in my writers journal madly trying to catch up with half a weeks worth of unfilled pages. It was there that I suddenly realised one of the reasons (perhaps the most important reason) as to why I write, and perhaps why many writers out ‘there’ write. It helps me understand me. I know this probably doesn’t sound like much to you or even make sense but since I felt the warm embrace of conscious thought at the age of 3 years, I’ve been striving (at times struggling) to understand why I am who I am and writing seems to me the quickest path to understanding myself.
It has the effect of trapping my random conscious thoughts down on paper and ensuring their existence in our world. I also see it as a means to travel between two dimensions, i.e. the one in my head (some call it the sub conscious) and the one outside my head (some call it reality). Without this little free travel pass to my inner thoughts, (for my thoughts fade quickly) I would be confined to travels in another person’s mind, so in that sense I am a fairly self-centred person.


Another reason as to why I write would have to be the window parable:

There was a young man with a broken window,
When he spoke to the glazier and asked him to fix it,
The glazier told him it would cost 100 dollars,
The young man sighed ‘I can’t afford that’,

The young man asked other glaziers how much it would cost,
They all quoted him the same price,
The young man was upset ‘what shall I do?’,

He then asked his grandfather what to do,
His grandfather then replied,
‘Leave the window, let people see into your world’,

The young man took his advice,
He then opened all the curtains in his house.

I guess I can sum that up by saying that sometimes in life we need to be seen by others (unless you wish to live as a hermit) and writing is just one of the many ways to be seen or heard. It is the quintessential vice of the egoist, to be seen, and in many ways we as writers (published or unpublished) are egoists in our own rights. We all need the pat on the back and words of encouragement, be it from friends or (if your lucky, and I’m not!) from your teacher. It’s the encouragement and approval that keeps most writers writing, unless you’re stubborn like me! I believe that without this encouragement most writers die by their pens. So it is with the outside acknowledgement that a writer asserts himself in his craft and in part asserts his own existence.

How oft often a poet writes what men comprehend lest,
How oft often we question not the constrains we jest,
How lest remarkable we find ourselves in rest,
How lest poetically we quest.

Poetry, my songbird, without which I would not survive. Poetry is the reason I began writing and now we come to the crux of why I write and what I write a majority of. Poetry is also the reason I will stop writing one day, it is where my writing reaches a vulnerability to the critique of my peers. It’s the art that I take most seriously and to have that art dissected and disseminated will most likely crush me.
Poetry has always been a fairly private affair to me and outside of my closest friends none have read my poems and if I’m lucky the critics in this world (by and large) will never get their grubby hands on them.
I think one of the reasons that I feel vulnerable about my poetry is because of its very openness to interpretation, you can read almost anything from a poem, its meaning clouded in a shroud of mostly obscure words.


Whispers in the wind
Leaves rustle
Their struggle unending
Against sky
A backdrop of malevolence
Whispers heard
Like spies on high towers
They watch
Like ancient assassins
Leaves rustle.


The main aspect of poetry and writing in my belief is the trust between writer and reader, the trust that the reader believes the writer and the trust that the writer expects the reader not to hate their work. It’s with this trust that the writer feels a certain comfort to write and continue to write. It is also with this trust that I may one day feel comfortable to submit my poetry to the critique of my peers (as the saying goes ‘kill your babies’).
Lastly on this matter of why I write, I would like to say that before now I never considered one of the main fringe benefits of writing and I do realise by adding what I’m about to say may make me look fairly stupid (that’s fine with me). Nevertheless, I finally discovered that one could if lucky make money out of writing! And I do realise that this is a rarity and those that do make money from their work are either talented or just in it for the money, but this will not defer me from entering my unpublished work into a competition (who knows, I might actually have a small degree of talent?).


My Life as a writer

Then we see in a mirror
Poorly as we shall see face to face
Now I know in part
As I will know fully
Just as I am fully known.
– 1 cor 13, my favourite scripture.

From a young age I wrote, mostly short stories and flights of fancy. I’ve always been a quiet one, the lost in thought daydreamer the teachers either admired or despised, eg; passage from report year 2: ‘David’s stories do not always reflect his capability. They are often short and lack description but they contain some great ideas. With a more concentrated effort David will be able to produce and publish some well thought out and structured stories.’ And from a year 4 report: ‘David’s writing is well sequenced and imaginative.’ During my school years however writing was not so much an interest but a means to satisfy educational requirements. Throughout my schooling the work I did suffered from the meritocracy of being forced to completion, things were never done at my own pace and when everything went pear-shaped I submitted the work anyhow, to lazy to go back and change mistakes. With the inevitable freedom from the shackles of education I came ill prepared for the dull propensity of real life (work) and so I made little effort towards my creative outlets. Then change was brought about in the summer of 2001 when I travelled to Europe. The change was both physical and meta-physical, my eyes widened to my own prospects and possibilities and for the first time I felt that I could create without the burden of time or criticism. And like a headstrong weight lifter I thought I would start with something well above my bar: poetry. I am however a quick learner and I soon realised the complexity behind the simplest of poems. It has taken me years to reach a stage where I feel slightly comfortable with multi verse poems and it may be several more years before I can write a ballad, but I push on, the writer in me demands this now.
The year is now 2004 and coming up to my twenty-fourth birthday I am again beginning to feel the constraints of time and criticism in school. Only now I see it not as a hindrance to my art but a benefit I cannot afford to refuse, for after this I hope to have the skills and techniques that will bring my work into the world.


Selected writers and their works

(In no particular order)

W.B. Yeats, my favourite poet:
‘I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those I fight I do not hate,
Those I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan’s poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed a waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death’.
-An Irish Airman Foresees his Death.

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, my childhood hero:
‘”It certainly is delicate,” said Holmes, with an amused smile,
“But I have not been struck up to now with its complexity. It
has been a case for intellectual deduction, but when this original intellectual deduction is confirmed point by point by quite a number of independent incidents, then the subjective becomes objective and we can say confidently that we have reached our goal. I had, in fact, reached it before we left Baker Street, and the rest has merely been observation and confirmation.”’
-The Adventure of the Sussex Vampire.

William Blake, a total visionary:
‘O Rose thou art sick.
The invisible worm,
That flies in the night
In the howling storm:
Has found out thy bed
Of crimson joy:
And his dark secret love
Does thy life destroy.’
-The Sick Rose.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez, my favourite author:
‘Macondo was already a fearful whirlwind of dust and rubble being spun about by the wrath of the biblical hurricane when Aureliano skipped eleven pages so as not to lose time with facts he knew only too well, and he began to decipher the instant that he was living, deciphering it as he lived it, prophesying himself in the act of deciphering the last page of the parchments, as if he were looking into a speaking mirror. Then he skipped again to anticipate the predictions and ascertain the date and circumstances of his death. Before reaching the final line, however, he had already understood that he would never leave that room, for it was foreseen that the city of mirrors (or mirages) would be wiped out by the wind and exiled from the memory of men at the precise moment when Aureliano Babilonia would finish deciphering the parchments, and that everything written on them was unrepeatable since time immemorial and forever more, because races condemned to one hundred years of solitude did not have a second opportunity on earth.’
-One Hundred Years of Solitude.

Yamamoto Tsunetomo, samurai scholar:
‘You cannot tell whether a person is good or bad by his vicissitudes in life. Good and bad fortune are matters of fate. Good and bad actions are Man’s Way. Retribution of good and evil is taught simply as a moral lesson.’
-Hagakure, The Book of the Samurai.

neither here nor there...