The most recent free verse poems by Mel Irvine.
At the Back (6/28/2017)- decades turned this wheel like clothes worn, falling into that place at the back © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Wheel and Knackered I’m part of Post A Day 2017
Navigating the Backroads (10/28/2016)- home is a tangle of paperbarks home is dad’s buckled old ute full of brown dogs home is a black-sanded pathway past the swamp home is an osprey’s nest rebuilt again last year home is the sound of glossy blacks cracking she-oaks not far from the track home is a murky-green forestry dam where dad […]
Choices (12/16/2015)- who do you choose? gifted kids? poor families good grades always in school doctors dentists teachers ‘good’ boys always in school but what about other kids? poor families bad grades never in school laundry-work cleaners begging ‘bad’ girls never in school © 2015 Melinda Irvine It is easy to choose ‘good’ kids for sponsorship. To […]
No Passenger (7/3/2017)- all the day she waits as afternoons roar with no passenger © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Passenger I’m part of Post A Day 2017
Someday (1/13/2017)- We will watch the sunset painting names in bright colours (like a family). © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Someday
Hands (5/22/2018)- His hands opened Her’s holding onto love mine filled with photographs another’s rasping my shoulder for money © 2018 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Awkward I’m part of Post A Day 2018 Location: La Paz, Iloilo (Philipppines)
The words I write hurt (4/29/2014)- sometimes the words i write on the page hurt too much and i cannot look at them then my hand cannot make a shape and i can’t feel anything at all have i written too much? will it just add increase to their pain; to their suffering but how can you write too much about this? sometimes […]
On the Street Today (8/7/2018)- men with an oozing bellies calm fighting roosters water boiled by fire, pours to a plastic bucket duck eggs, grilled corn, peanuts hot, salted by hand flapping tarps and bright umbrellas wet school shoes sirens sounds, and shredded traffic a small boy takes my hand on the street today.
Beneath Us a Poem (6/26/2017)- frayed texture almost silent poetry under foot © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Yarn I’m part of Post A Day 2017
Spring Circle (10/1/2017)- as any great journey spring in the garden is a sunny place to sit watching the changing sky © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine This is my response to the Blogging University course Writing: Intro to Poetry (Day 4 Journey) Daily Prompt: Circle I’m part of Post A Day 2017 Location: Blackheath (Australia)
Lemon Tree Flats (3/28/2015)- driving to the lemon tree flats i am a passenger for the first time in months (maybe longer) laughing more than my body can remember i sit in back while we stop for lizards lizards with beards and long tails (tails longer than our stories) sit inside shared binoculars. gravel dust already dry road covers […]
My Younger Self (10/9/2018)- I saw myself at the bottom of a pink camellia bush stretched out and flailing as my younger self (a perky pink bud) looked away in disdain how could she know? that actually she was looking at herself © 2018 Melinda J. Irvine
New England Harvest (11/29/2016)- displaying all the Australian blues, greens and golds, I am home again. © 2016 Melinda Irvine
Guitar Pic (8/9/2018)- I wonder how many poets have written lamentations of unscratched fretboards plectrums and melodies swallowed? Maybe I should too ///
Ignoring Safety Advice (10/4/2016)- in the beginning i remember thinking … i will never ever board one of those dodgy carnival rides circling fiestas their steel support posts levelled out on rocks and pieces of concrete rubble. but yeh, i did. and yeh, i do. you change your perspective ignoring safety advice you allow yourself to become, to be part […]
Even If They Are Not Ours (10/8/2017)- is it the familiarity of old things not ours? long since fashionable trinkets and jewels not ours the imagined pleasure of an old memory not ours that we find ourselves? in old wooden halls not ours? © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine This is my response to the Blogging University course Writing: Intro to Poetry (Day […]
Finding Myself Again (3/14/2016)- allowing high-tide to wash over my body following dragonflies with sky-turned eyes eating on the sand together balancing on a bamboo outrigger calling two little boys to lunch searching for fresh tree seeds and leaves shaking sand from my swimmer pants watching young island girls dance traditional dances scolding kids for trampling sand all over […]
The Island of Stars (6/29/2017)- to the top we climbed in the sunny shining “ulihi ulihi gid kami” they passed us by going to the down we are so late so very very late © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Sunny I’m part of Post A Day 2017
His last hours (12/10/2015)- “When you receive this letter, I shall be dead by then…. Tomorrow at seven, I shall be shot; but I am innocent of the crime of rebellion…. I am going to die with a tranquil conscience.” José Rizal © 2015 Melinda Irvine All photographs were taken of various artworks at the Rizal Shrine Museum, Fort […]
It’s been a long time since my hands have held my little sister (9/3/2014)- my finger tips are dry but feel well against my cracked lips today they have silenced a whisper parted barbed wire picked wattle and broken a fall cut words from a book older than my mother held a cup of coffee and spilled white, paper-wrapped sugar they have disappointed me in their appearance and stayed […]
I Am Ready to Fly (4/5/2016)- i am ready to fly and the wind is with me … © 2016 Melinda Irvine The lovely painting was inside an old book called ‘Fairyland’ by Ida Rentoul Outhwaite. I found in the shearing shed at my grandmother’s farm when it was cleaned up for sale in 2014. The book was badly damaged and […]
Buying Fish (6/27/2017)- dodging rain tubs filled with last night my morning begins along mud splatters and shouts of ‘Ma’am! “You buy? Ma’am, you buy!” my green rubber thongs step around two tiny girls in freshly checked uniforms and bits of sun shine where there once was roof the local fish market is alive as I find the […]
I Blinked (1/21/2018)- while your eyes were closed i died blink k blink nk blink ink blink link blink blink blink blink © 2018 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Blink I’m part of Post A Day 2018 Location: Estancia, Iloilo (Philipppines)
My Mother’s Garden (6/29/2016)- my mother’s garden is older than me in places (it has places) i have never stood or seen until now, remembering cedar trees (dad planted them when we were little) and weekends spent collecting bush seeds, saplings and native vines, repotted in the school holidays when the other kids in the street visited the city […]
Stinger (8/17/2017)- running across concrete, catching stinger (the 2pm sun) glaring (that bus driver) driving driving another 5 afternooned hours © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Glaring I’m part of Post A Day 2017
Lichen (8/5/2016)- bold lichen grows. no matter how many ways i look at you, i still don’t know what colour you are. orange, red yellow. who are you? © 2016 Melinda Irvine Pondering the photos from my trip home to Australia last month.
The Magic of Ebor Daisies (11/30/2016)- Tired driving hands turn the wheel exploring white roadside flowers. Calm is their magic and, soothed by their spring arrival, those same hands return. © 2016 Melinda Irvine 
The Rains Are Still (9/29/2017)- the rains are still and the flowers quiet stepping over mid-spring holly and a few eager blooms willing to risk the sun without water my feet crunch a tiny piece of the earth planet focused (old mountain patch) full of weeds and dead and drying drying trees. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Focused and […]
Just Sand (12/24/2016)- Here I am ‘home’. And my passport, driver’s licence and cards all agree. And so I wander the lonely beaches here every day looking for new poems and pictures to discover, and hide from everything like Christmas or old friends or the fact that my heart is breaking because you are my home now and […]
She Was Light (12/21/2016)- I saw a happiness in her, a change in fortune. Tiny pieces radiating colour from inside. And she again heard bird sounds and saw midday sunshine above trees. She felt something and believed again, she was light. © 2016 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Fortune
Public Transport (1/29/2018)- .. stancia ma’am … Estancia . .. ma’ … we both fit inside cooling pizza pressed to knees my head cracks the thin metal roof and the rider (his knees pointing upward) sweep the metal handles connected to the brakes he makes room for two more (side saddled and awkward) gripping plastic bags filled with […]
Unknown Artists (6/15/2017)- city speaks her name lurid voices piss, the stained human shit a siren behind their streets his only triumph © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Triumph I’m part of Post A Day 2017 This is my contribution for the Blogging-U course Photography: Developing Your Eye II (Day 10 Triumph).
Where Hands Fall (12/1/2017)- where my hands fell (a single blade extensive by the wind) as much a knife as the anthropod animals eat their lunch in tiny bites © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Bite I’m part of Post A Day 2017 Location: Beunavista, Guimaras Island (Philipppines)
A Simple Island Life (5/9/2017)- Each morning begins before the sun appears over the cliff raining daylight along the leeward living below our 21st century sun. Monkeys grab at fruit scraps (sometime pets) a few chickens and fecund dogs wander a small shore. Children squeal to the high tide where fathers disappear aft along the rough netted and roped they […]
From the Black Forest (12/5/2016)- Fundraising to adopt Jerry has really binded my family as we all search for once sacred relics to sell. This little wooden bear was handed over enthusiastically with detailed instructions for pricing (which I will strictly adhere to as this little poem illustrates). “DON’T SELL That bear,” shouts mum. “blah blah blah thE BLACK FOREST BLAH to cheap […]
The Colours of Day (12/26/2016)- Wandering the last of the roses, her festive garden colours Christmas days in mountain blues, lilacs and the tiny shades of bees. © 2016 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Festive
Unmoored (5/22/2017)- adrift in the wash bucket he climbed my arm unmoored © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Adrift and Unmoored
A Weekend of Rest (1/20/2017)- a weekend of rest, (I’m still blogging though for fun) back in his country reunited us wandering the festive streets remembering us in bright streets transformed the Dinagyang aesthetic a weekend of rest © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Aesthetic and Overworked