The most recent free verse poems by Mel Irvine.
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)
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)
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 
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 […]
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 […]
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)
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?
The Mental Health Section (6/19/2017)- Thumbing the sketchbook I find the mental health section Volume 1: “She Thought She Might Implode:” In Blue Biro. Volume 2: (Out of Print) © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Detonate and Volume I’m part of Post A Day 2017
What I See (1/15/2017)- You see what I see. See my world in my poems. Though you, you are unseen. © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Unseen
Cloaked Wheelbarrow (10/18/2017)- grass climbs old black wheel two handles rusted, never again held but hold you, little garden © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Cloaked I’m part of Post A Day 2017 Location: Nambucca Heads (Australia)
Botanical gardens sprinkler (3/2/2015)- you 3am stalker thrusting your jets upon my wide open windows GO TO SLEEP! © 2015 Mel Irvine
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
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.
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. […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
No Extra Charge for Ants (8/20/2016)- i know we think our medical system is flawed (most likely it is) BUT have you ever seen an australian baby in our hospitals fanned by an old piece of cardboard, their IV drip hung on a window latch, and ants crawling over their little body while their tired mum wonders how she will pay for […]
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 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 […]
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
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 […]
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
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 […]
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
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 […]
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
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
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 […]
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 […]
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
Christmas in Retreat (12/27/2016)- 3.30am neighbours finally silent, interstate plates homed. the street has wound down to wind and a few last lights: Christmas in retreat. © 2016 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Retreat
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).
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 […]
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 […]
Rain on Leaves (9/22/2018)- looking for something familiar in a dark place anywhere you can see rain on leaves and your own quiet reflection © 2018 Melinda J. Irvine
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
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 […]