under a lilly-pilly moon

This was written for the dVerse Razzie prompt, which was to write a poem incorporating the title of a film that has won a Raspberry (worst film) award. It was also prompted by last night’s blood moon, which was red because of the syzygy (alignment) of the sun, Earth and moon. And the botanical name of the Australian native lilly-pilly which grows red or purple berries is syzygium (although I only found that out after writing the poem and googling lilly-pilly to check my spelling). 

 

Under the blood moon

…no, that’s wrong,
that conjures wolves
chasing across snow
hearts racing with fear…
No, not in late spring,
and not here
where the closest thing to a wolf
is the ginger mutt curled at my feet.

So let me start again:

Under the cherry moon,
Earth’s-shadow pinked,
a warm northerly caresses
the swelling berries,
still pale but ready to blush.

No, still not quite right…
Begin again, begin with what is here:

Under the lilly-pilly moon
the ginger-mutt mutters,
paws twitching, ears flicking
at a boobook’s plaintive cry.
Adrift on bloodborne ancestral songlines,
in his dingo dreams he chases the ‘roos,
that thump past
like the slow, heavy heartbeat of the bush.

moon-shadows

tree-shredded moonlight
lies in strips across the path
and drips onto my hair
until, shaking it from me,
it pools on the doormat
where by sunrise it has gone

I’ve resumed my daily walks, but with daylight saving time over my walks are now mostly in the dark.  At least at the moment the moon is near full.

some notes for Selma

Some notes for Selma on orbits, because I couldn’t put all this in a comment.

I can’t add a file other than an image, so here are my notes on orbits for Selma as a bunch of images. If they look fuzzy, just click on the image and it will display as a nice clear version.

lower right cheek

For the dVerse Monday haibun prompt “flower moon“:

Glimpsed for a moment through the thick autumn fog, stubble coloured sheep speckle stubble covered paddocks. A wheel thumps over a dead ‘roo, a fresh bloody mass smeared further across the tarmac by my passing. I turn up the fan to dispel the mist growing, by some sympathetic magic, on the inside of my windscreen.
Watching the car thermometer dip below freezing as I roll down into the valley, I ponder this morning’s poetry prompt: flower moon. In the northern hemisphere anemones, bluebells and lupins are flowering, and corn is being planted.

On the earth’s arse, just
a week away from winter –
no flowers here, mate.