POEM ~ Lost Dog ~ 29 Mar 2019

Lost Dog

A sunny day

the world was nice

out on the road

I rode my bike

My dog

Buster came

my friend

to play

Screech of wheels

breaking hard

hit the dog

Buster ran far

My heart screamed

to find my friend

where could he go

around what bend

The cubby was empty

by the tree

where we ran

so free

One day the rope broke

where Buster barked

but I survived

another lark

Not in the hay

bales stack

not hiding there

to pat

Great fun to play

castle of straw

kingdom of sky

dreams to draw

I walked the beach

dragged a rope

wondering where

my dog did lope

Where we frolicked

in the waves

in the sun 

we plays

I tried the dunes

a sandy hollow

he was hiding

would he follow

Tears of pain

fell like rain

and happiness

with dog again

He's OK

he can walk

so home we go

for a good long talk

Jaqi

Bluh

Friday

29

March

2019

Note ~   This poem explores a childhood event, when my old dog Buster was hit by a car, and I had to go searching for my friend, not knowing if he was alive, injured, or dead. Mum would always know when I was coming home, from a day up the bush playing at the cubby, because Buster would beat me home. I once put a rope on a tree in the valley there, and swung out on it. Later, on another tree, that rope broke. There were still some farmlands near our house, that were slowly being transformed into a suburb, and in summer, there would be bales of hay stacked, that we would play in. Kept in from school when little one day, two miles from home, two beaches away, I missed the school bus, started walking, and found a rope to play with on the beach of endless distractions. The family went out looking for me, when I didn't arrive home on the school bus. I was found on the beach, dragging a rope along. What was wrong? Buster was found in the sand dunes by the beach, in a wind-blown hollow of the sand. We used to talk.

Doggo Wisdoms volume one

A new board has been put up for Doggo Wisdoms at the Free Range Dog Pound.

This is volume one.

When is volume one complete? When you can't add any more Doggos in the Notecard for Volume One. Then cometh Volume Two ....... Dogs of ambition .......

And the latest Doggo is .......

“Do you talk dog?

I do and do and do.

You sound odd.

Try barking!”

Doggo

Suggestions for Doggos are welcome, which will then be sent through the Doggo sniff filter, to see what comes out the other end .......

It's a dogs world.

Doggo Wisdom

Doggo wisdom has found a home in the Universe ~

https://stargategrid.forumchitchat.com/post/doggo-wisdom-a-spinoff-from-dogggdays-10086450?pid=1308080858#post1308080858

Back in a Dinghy

Back in a dinghy

afloat on the sea

looking around

to see what I see

Free Range Dog Pound

Life took a turn to the east this week, then to the south, then back west, and ended up in the north, with the launch of the Free Range Dog Pound next to the Jaqi Art Explorer gallery near the train station at Pawpaw, where happy dogs can make art, sell bones, and water the tree.

Free Range Dog Pound

We have a dream, and it starts small here, but one day will be really huge.

We dream of a huge region for dogs, where everything a dog could ever wish for, can happen.

Such as sleeping in the sun, and dreaming of rabbits.

What would you like to see happen in a really huge free range dog pound?

You can also go check out the latest entry in Dogggdays ~

https://stargategrid.forumchitchat.com/post/dogggdays-12-mar-2019-10077032

And find the occasional entry in the Jaqi Art Explorer blog ~

https://jaqiartexplorer.blogspot.com

With enquiries about dog art contributions, contact me ~

JaqiBluh

Doggo Wisdom

"I have a Dream

that all dogs will be free

just like the bees

and the flea."

Doggo

"It is a known fact

that half the dogs in the World

are bitches."

Doggo

"If a bark

was worth a buck

I'd be a rich mutt."

Doggo

Check in at the Free Range Dog Pound and grab the Notecard from the board, for the latest instalment of Wisdom from Doggo.

Story Closet launched 15 Mar 2019

The Story Closet has been launched, and also christened with its first story, called ..... A Mouse with Wings. This is a totally true story from the 1980s, so names have been kept under wraps. 

The Story Closet is located in the sky gallery of the Jaqi Art Explorer gallery at Pawpaw in Second Life, under the stairs to the Postcard show.

Work has begun on the next story, which is a bit of an historical drama from olde Van Diemen's Land. It concerns an 1836 bridge with 186 large stone carvings, and on one knows why they are there. It is a hole in the historic record, which means, there is space for an imagineer to get to work and build a bridge in time.

A Mouse with Wings

Jaqi Bluh


"Can you help me?"

That's the kind of thing friends do, but I could have said "No".

After all, I hadn't been writing to this woman, and then invited her to fly over.

What on Earth was he expecting.

So they came around to my little cottage, where I made a meal, consumed in front of an open wood fire, and he went away, leaving me with the guest, and plans to return in the morning to take her to the airport.

I was not impressed.

Alone by the romantic fire, I was asked, "Would you like sex?"

The red pantyhose were bright, but the woman was not my type, and I didn't know her, and may never have spoken with her, normally.

We never know who will fall from the sky into our lives, or why.

My decline of "No" was simple enough, and there the matter sank, with no hassles as the stars and Moon swirled overhead.

Rising early to put on the oats, to let them soak in boiled water for a time, I was puzzled by the sound of a bird.

It seemed to be trapped in the ceiling cavity of the sloping kitchen roof.

The guest fell out of dreams unknown to greet the morning aromas.

And then the friend arrived and we had hot and much appreciated oats, and chatter, until red pantyhose was taken away to the airport.

Alone in the quiet of the cottage, the sound of the bird could be heard, again.

What to do?

I listened carefully for the location, and with hammer began to claw the ceiling board open, so the trapped bird could escape.

But no bird came out.

It seemed to move away from the opening, so I tried to follow the sound of the flapping wings.

Now over by the wall, above the shelves.

Above the cardboard packet of oats.

I listened to the packet, and sure enough, the bird was in there, scrabbling away at the inside of the packet, trying to get out.

Thoughts of repairing the ceiling passed by like a cloud.

I should have looked in the oats packet first, which I now took outside, and emptied onto the ground.

That was when the mouse ran away and into the garden, to vanish in the shrubbery.

The mouse had been scrambling away in the packet with its little claws, trying to escape, sounding for all the world like a bird with wings.

I had wondered what those little black spots were in the oats cooked for breakfast.

I never told my friend.


Wednesday
13
March
2019

Note ~   This story is set in the Writer's Cottage at 1 Kelly Street, at the top of Kelly's Steps. What a neat way to launch the short stories, in a cottage that would later become a writer's in residence with the Salamanca Arts Centre. I also had a studio in the Arts Centre, a rambling complex of colonial sandstone warehouses, with bars on the windows of the ground and first floors. There may be further story fodder in those stones.

Exhibition ~ Leda and the Swan ~ Snow Gallery

Exhibition
Leda and the Swan
Snow Gallery
Verbier

This is a new gallery above Verbier in the alpine regions, built by Starfarer and being filled by Jaqi, with an exhibition of historic images from over thousands of years, of Leda and the Swan, a Greek myth. The Snow Gallery is 12 levels, the size needed for this exhibition, when full. The first 3 levels are now hung, with the courtship scenes. The flurry of feathers follows later. When the show is complete with around 600 images, the time will also arrive to write an essay on the Leda and the Swan myth, and the so many ways the theme is approach by artists over millennia. Inspecting the first 25%, you may also wonder why Leda and the Swan is so appealing to so many generations. I would love to know what you think of it all. My poem ..... Feathers ..... found in the blog, is my take on the myth, with a modern twist.

A place to reflect.

The view from level 12, looking down through the ramp well.

POEM ~ The Painting ~ 11 Mar 2019

The Painting

Crack through the forest
bullet flies
people fall down dead
no lies
in harsh times

The paint was applied with care
of an island by the sea called Clyde's
where the sea crashes round
booming into an ocean cave
a place I have gone to many times

Strokes of the brush made a rainbow
like the Viking bridge to Valhalla
rising from the island and into the sky
when reports over the radio
told of events by some crazy fella

The mood of the Clyde's rock
reflected in the ocean of kelp
fresh salt smell by the shore
people shot at Port Arthur
police racing to help

The final sign of the artist applied
to tell who made this painting
that glistened fresh and oily
a house set on fire by the bay
by a man gone mad and ranting

Crack through the forest
bullet flies
people fall down dead
no lies
in harsh times

Savage dogs once guarded the neck
to lock convicts in and keep others away
but they were long gone from paradise
when bitter tears began to flow
on that mad and shocking Sunday

Cruelty mocked through time
in that old convict country
romanced in pain and drudgery
echo of musket and crack of whip
where prisoners marched in slavery 

How could a land of such beauty
be the home of so much cruelty
but as decades slide through time
memories settle into stone
in the river of our history

Staring at this canvas
with palette and brushes in hand
the pain became stained with the paint
of a mad day on the island
when no soul could make a stand

Crack through the forest
bullet flies
people fall down dead
no lies
in harsh times

East Timor was once invaded
half a dozen Aussie news hounds killed
and the land imprisoned in suffering
with deaths way too many
until the shooting was stilled

A poll on liberty was held
setting East Timor free to declare
it's independent nation state
and we sent a gift to celebrate
the Clyde's Island painting to share

When painted pain from Port Arthur
seemed right for East Timor
two tragedies that must be healed
as oceans reshape the shore
finding new ways to restore

A photo flew back from the President
Xanana was holding Clyde's Island
the painting had made its journey
to be with a people now free 
and share the song of their land 

Crack through the forest
bullet flies
people fall down dead
no lies
in harsh times

Jaqi
Bluh

Monday
11
March
2019

Note ~   It was a terrible time in Tasmania when a man went mad with a gun at Port Arthur in 1996, killing men, women and children. It was a terrible time in East Timor when another nation went mad with guns, killing men, women and children, for decades, and more, in war. Having worked toward the freedom of East Timor, in a small way from the far flung island of Tasmania, it seemed right to gift my painting of Clyde's Island to the people of East Timor, completed as it was on the day of the tragic events at Port Arthur, though a far smaller tragedy than had befallen the people of East Timor. The island broods and looks out at the world, and the clouds were a maelstrom before that day, and the rainbow was like a bridge to the heavens. It was strange how all that came together with brushes into oil painting on canvas. I wonder what people see when they look upon that painting. 

Clyde's Island is located at Eaglehawk Neck, between the Forestier and Tasman Peninsulas in Tasmania, which until 1853 was called Van Diemen's Land. The Neck once had a row of large savage dogs, to bark like mad should any convicts attempt to escape from the Tasmanian Peninsula, a prison land for convicts in the 1800s. A bizarre land, where the first railway in Australia ran on wooden tracks, with single cars pushed along by four convicts, who would then ride it downhill. A thrill for the passengers, maybe. Teams of convicts would carry large logs on their shoulders. The coal mine at Salt Water River, further round the Peninsula, was paradise above, and hell down below, where the worst of the worst were sent to suffer and dig. Many children were sent to Port Arthur, where some escaped by learning to fly, off a cliff. It was a harsh time. There is an Isle of the Dead in the bay by Port Arthur, with many fine tombstones, but none for deceased convicts buried there, as their graves were never marked with a stone. Many people from all parts of the World visit this physical forest of memories, which haunts with stones, old chains, and metal man traps that were once set in the forest. Have you been to Port Arthur? Some were sent there for the term of their natural lives, as the sentencing went back in merry old England. Off to Van Diemen's Land. Off to paradise, in ships that sometime sank, and for convicts locked below deck, there would be no escape. The father of Ned Kelly, that rather famous bushranger that made a last stand in armour, spent time in Port Arthur, as a convict.

The oil painting of Clyde's Island, 1996

President Xanana Gusmao holding Clyde's Island in East Timor in 2002

Word Gorian?

The harsh mistress that I am with the word slaves, I looked at the new poem, and could see that the verse boats were drifting lazily. ~ So, out with the whip, and a cutting crack ..... "Row, you lazy word slaves, put ya backs into it, or ya will be left to drift from sight." ~ There is refining to do, to make a better poem. ~ I dance with words, but when it comes to putting them to work, pity the poor sods. ~ They will all thank me later ..... for making far better words of them. ~ Am I a word gorian?

POEM ~ Dreaming ~ 3 Mar 2019

Dreaming


The sand was warm
like sugar and salt
a sweet sea breeze
waves galloping in
like a frisky young colt

What an emotion
a feeling of love
to see the sand castle
with moat and banners
and clouds above

Running wild like the wind
across squeaking sand
when the sound of trumpeting
from somewhere around
was heard like a band

Brightly coloured bandmaster
marching along the waves
followed by ninety nine elephants
all trunk to tale
trumpeting aways

With monkeys on top
clashing cymbals
a huge flock of seagulls
cawing in the air
spreading scandals

We jumped in the air
filled with joy at the sight
and fell on our bums
to watch them go by
as the sun set into night

Stars swirled above
where the Moon sings
where water sparkled
like glittering fireworks
like love that stings

All in a dream
all in a haze
all timeless
all afloat
in a daze

Jaqi
Bluh

Sunday
3
March
2019

NOTE ~   Memories of the beach, of happiness in dreams, of running wild in the wind, of frolicking in the waves, of making sandcastles in squeaky sand that talked where you walked.