The most recent free verse poems by Mel Irvine.
Endless Energy (6/22/2017) - Jerry my little loop-de-loop from sun to gone, it sleeps but it never stops © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Loop I’m part of Post A Day 2017
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
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 […]
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
Sunlight (11/5/2017) - for weeks our sun lay hidden, inside rain and obscurity fragmented and forgotten she lunged piercing tree leaves penetrating mountain tips and cutting cutting fine each new stem of rice banana leaf torn and palm trees shred like ribbons above the cane inflorescence and tassel all we had forgotten to now simmer in a broken […]
Click here to permanently delete your account (11/12/2015) - Feeling strangely like cyanide The killing of my digital self I am afraid So bold hours ago I made lists So I would do it properly Not miss a thing Kill everything Insecticide myself Yet here I am I am still here Here and here Both of us Still here Corporeal Digitised Is it murder? […]
Helicopters Came and Broke the World (9/11/2017) - “I want to live there” he sees something beautiful in a painted book of peace From a Distance “Helicopters came and broke the world” he shouts upset He can’t comprehend What all this war is for This wonderful book was found in a pile of second hand books in a little department store in a rural […]
Unmoored (5/22/2017) - adrift in the wash bucket he climbed my arm unmoored © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Adrift and Unmoored
Wretched Heritage (5/20/2017) - i am living a tradition my eyes pieces of tin, metal scraps for hands feet (torn nails) just look at my toes! but don’t get too close you don’t want to see all i’ve got © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Weekly Photo Challenge: Heritage
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
Little Wizard (5/20/2017) - you replay crouching behind a tricycle and surprising me with your collected “love potion” swirling leaves and flowers and petals “you will fall in love tita mel!” you shouted showering me in your wish. then once more for you. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine
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).
Calm (12/23/2016) - There are no concepts inside the waves: nothing made up or imagined. Inside the waves there is only truth, fact, here and a deepening calm. © 2016 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Calm
Echo (12/3/2016) - Sound travels differently under the water. The familiar becoming noise, or the nothing become sound. Under the water each breath becomes a bubble, strangely reverberating I am an echo. © 2016 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Echo I shot this video at Wolf Rock off Rainbow Beach (Queensland) Australia in 2007. Wolf Rock is enclosed by a […]
Death in the Open Grasslands (2/28/2015) - death comes as a shock startling and sudden my morose curiosity a sadness a lament for a lifeless form © 2015 Mel Irvine
Bad Me (3/3/2016) - bad me’ i heard his little voice say ‘bad me’ small head turned into the pillow ‘bad me’ i had scolded him for breaking a yellow colouring pencil he stomped it into two pieces discarded for garbage i found it in the dirt covered by grass nga (why)? i had asked him in the tricycle […]
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
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 […]
Early (5/19/2017) - light passing torn clouds palm leaf rags tattered hut poverty a man into rice fields out the window of the bus © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Photo Challenge: Reflecting
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 […]
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
Vanish (12/7/2016) - I can vanish the moon. Oh, it’s so easy to delete moons, sand spinifex grass and old memories. Keeping stuff is much harder. © Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Vanish
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 […]
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 […]
Final (5/14/2017) - There is a courage in final the last stroke the brush lain; there is a courage at final the full stop the send. There is a courage in final the last line the light turned the calling and ending the leaving you gone. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Final
What is Rain? (10/3/2017) - Feeling athletic we scramble down (jackets off, hats on, sun hot) to the popular spot we rest among passing long weekenders and languages we don’t understand. Rain lands on our shoulders rain lands on our hats rain lands on our trail, then up, up, up we go above the rain above the rain we sit […]
What You Don’t See (7/9/2017) - Photographing the top of sugar cane you can’t see a group of kids following me along the hot road running back to a little bridge when I turn around. You don’t see a man under that sun waving in delight as I photograph his poverty, spraying poison on the rice without any mask. You won’t […]
You Do Not Burn (10/9/2017) - When everyone ran, you remained the grim landscape the same colour as your dress and quiet genius as bushfires licked your garters you laughed that same laugh for decades. Old years pass and turn though just your slip remains you do not burn. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine This is my response to the Blogging […]
September 20 (7/4/2017) - It is not what you remember that is surprising it’s what you forget. Only hours later a FB photo emerges, or a video. And the fine details (already forgotten) seem to delight, then shock you. Tiny nuances, the sound of shoes the shriek of an animal or the ridiculousness of really poor young men in […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
I Went Looking for Piglets: a One Versed Mystery (11/2/2016) - © 2016 Melinda Irvine My contribution to the Blogging-U course Photography: Developing Your Eye II (Day 2 Mystery).
New Horizon (12/11/2016) - “I will come back here, new horizons, wildflowers and rest call me.” As I promise to my cousin I do wonder though … … will I come back here? © 2016 Melinda Irvine Weekly Photo Challenge: New Horizon
Truth (9/12/2015) - Speak to me of your truth without words letting your lips pass into silence; show me only in action letting deeds reveal the heart inside of you; speak not today letting the truth be in your quiet. Allowing the sounds of tomorrow when the noise of vainglorious promise is fade; only then let me hear […]
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 […]
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 […]