The most recent free verse poems by Mel Irvine.
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 […]
Someday (1/13/2017) - We will watch the sunset painting names in bright colours (like a family). © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Someday
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
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).
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 […]
Decades (1/2/2017) - “your daughter has committed suicide” my brother-in-law said to my 80 year old father “and it’s your fault! tonight” after years of domestic abuse, violence and insults … he rang back of course, crazed, demanding, belittling, meek, puzzling, accusing. we rang the police of course. they were annoyed of course. she rang later of course. […]
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 […]
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)
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 […]
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
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
Time (7/1/2016) - time passes slowly before me each particle every fragment finding its own place finding its own time floating alone not lonely © 2016 Melinda Irvine
Shadows on a Wall OR Fake News (9/19/2018) - like a shadow cast on wall sometimes you have to step back and remove your sunglasses or step forward and adjust your eyes to see what’s real and what is not © 2018 Melinda J. Irvine
Rice On the Road (8/30/2016) - We walk along wet roadside picturing the new sunlight on rice farms, fathers and hardwork. Barefeet turn drying rice as trucks beep confused alarm at the white woman and small brown boy out in unsheltered heat. Flood water rushes through our pictures, seeing all green and green and green until three heads stand staring (like the […]
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 […]
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
Praying for a New Moon (2/1/2017) - This moon has a scent black and pungent a small crack surrounded in smoke. It slashes at your door when the lights are gone, and demands a daughter. She bargained herself for her small sister’s stead (did the little girl see what her sister did not?) while we’ve locked into ourselves. Some of us inside steel […]
Unmoored (5/22/2017) - adrift in the wash bucket he climbed my arm unmoored © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Adrift and Unmoored
Under the Trees (9/24/2017) - below ancient tree roots, where sun light fragments then fades, granite walls (in whispers) recreate these mountains © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Recreate I’m part of Post A Day 2017
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 […]
The Old Steel Gate (7/23/2017) - How many little boys have passed tickets shouting their delight through this old steel gate? © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Gate I’m part of Post A Day 2017
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 […]
The Captain Cook Bar and Grill (9/29/2017) - his face remains the historic statue static our dead at our mercy (us) the lifeless living alive under him remembrance at will and they we are dead still © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine This is my response to the Blogging University course Writing: Intro to Poetry (Day 2 Face ) Daily Prompt: Irrelevant I’m part of Post […]
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 […]
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? […]
Should I be … (7/7/2018) - magnifying bits and pieces of something not mine? When you bring your life into the street, is it still yours?
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 […]
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 […]
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)
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 […]
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 […]
New England Harvest (11/29/2016) - displaying all the Australian blues, greens and golds, I am home again. © 2016 Melinda Irvine
Lady with Orange Flowers (11/2/2017) - paying 10 pesos for photographs and a peek into her life Day of the Dead floral tributes hand woven (her own hands) into little bamboo baskets the hands of the poor in every bunch. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Mystery and Orange Weekly Photo Challenge: Peek I’m part of Post A Day 2017 Location: […]
Maxine’s First Christmas (12/30/2017) - we wrapped it in tinsel green, red paper torn her toy mouse tethered to a lower branch the best present a little boy held © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Cozy I’m part of Post A Day 2017 Location: Estancia, Iloilo (Philipppines)
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 
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.
Waiting for a Tide (4/25/2015) - vacant fishing boats and children’s voices call from somewhere inside. slow slow tide. ‘Filipino time’ admonishes grandmother (not for the last time) ‘no good’ 3 or 4 hours have trickled by while we wait and wait wait wait wait for a high tide to dislodge our transport we sit lunch stands tethered to a bamboo […]
Leaving the Temple (3/28/2017) - wreathed boy spoke limestone or held bird © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Photo: Limestone statuette of a boy with a wreath of leaves