The most recent free verse poems by Mel Irvine.
Into his direction (12/9/2015) - i saw a woman hurt today inside a crumble of people staring as a man and security guard grapple toward a woman LOUD and voices indiscernable security guard LOUDER as man rushes at her, young woman his hand raised, fist clenched white knuckles and elbow high only stopping suddenly before her face. and i stand […]
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 […]
One Sunset (1/14/2017) - She warms us, lights us. Of more is she capable, our centre, our sun. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Prompt: Capable
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
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
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
A Stranger (7/8/2017) - “Jerry!” I called loudly, a fist filled with branches a cell phone camera in the other, awkward under the mass of white flowers trying for a picture. But it was a stranger who turned around walked back smiling and held the branch still. © 2017 Melinda J. Irvine Daily Post: Tether I’m part of Post […]
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 […]
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 […]
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
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 […]
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
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
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 […]
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 […]
Black Rock Swamp (3/12/2015) - dirty old swamp transformed to a mirror i ran little in you once long before the rain came dark green river grass flower filled stamens and tangled paperbarks. now sunset fragments sparkling stagnant water decaying long rotting log lumpy water i found my bridge and reached it will you? © 2015 Melinda Irvine
Someday (1/13/2017) - We will watch the sunset painting names in bright colours (like a family). © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Someday
Over This Wall (6/22/2018) - Over this wall is a shopping centre aircon and security guards thousands of people over this wall Over the wall is a gasoline station aircon and fancy cars thousands of drivers over the wall Over that wall is a man washing his t-shirt in a puddle near a family on cardboard behind thousands over that wall […]
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? […]
Inside a Tree (8/22/2016) - i wish i could give you the beauty of this tree how (even in all this) rusted bars dirty glass framed with grime and plastic tubes roaring air-con dust clad window noise little pieces of wire strung bits of stuff tied around frayed man-made edges and old broken pipes, yet remains a life. half-way up […]
New England Harvest (11/29/2016) - displaying all the Australian blues, greens and golds, I am home again. © 2016 Melinda Irvine
Rust (8/20/2018) - bawal = prohibited umihi = urinate diri = here !!!! = please
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 […]
Layers of a Tree (1/9/2017) - Infinite layers of years, of bark, of living. Yet he can be told. © 2017 Melinda Irvine Daily Prompt: Infinite
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
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?
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.
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 […]
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)
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 […]
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).
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 […]
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 […]
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
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
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)
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