daily tanka

a flooded tanka — July 4

at the grocers
the girl checks her phone
as she scans my veg
feed of house, backyard frontage
their picnic table adrift

Image: People crossing a flooded street at Alexandria, Sydney. Photographer, Sam Hood, 1934 c/- State Library of NSW. As I write, another flood is inundating low-lying areas of Sydney and other parts of NSW.

And music this morning, here’s some pure Appalachian folk with Gillian Welch and her long-time collaborator Dave Rawlings with Boots Volume 1. The Official Revival Bootleg (Youtube)

a daily tanka — July 3

the storm howls about
bucketing trees, snatching hats 
trying doors and panes
— my collie stays close
that sky-dog quails her brave heart 

Image: Wollongong Radar, c/- Australian Bureau of Meteorology. Another east coast low swirls up in the Tasman Sea, so dog and I are on the couch.

For music this morning, here’s vocal trio Voice – with their album Hildegard Portraits (Youtube) – music marking the tenth anniversary of the canonisation of the 12th-century spiritual leader, theologian, mystic, scientist and composer, St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). (Wondering why it took so long for the church to get around to granting her sainthood? The answer is here)

5 variations tanka — July 2

I ask you
a dozen questions
                             — as expected —
it’s not your words
that hold my attention * 

I ask you
a dozen questions
then forget
            every answer
                           — just the sound of your voice...

I ask you
two dozen questions
tho I forget
a dozen answers
               — your laugh a complete snowfall 

I ask you
a dozen questions
tho I forget
a dozen answers
              a plate crashes to the tiles

I ask you
a dozen questions
tho I lose
all the answers
                 — the river in flood

Image: My photo, vacant dressmaker’s shop, Globe Lane, Wollongong. * this line borrowed from Patricia Prime, Eucalypt, 2010, p. 21.

And for music this morning, something from Afrique. Here’s Malian singer and guitarist, Afel Bocoum with his 1999 album Alkibar (youtube), recorded in an abandoned school near Niafunke a small village on the banks of the Niger River. “Alkibar set finger-picked guitar melodies and soulful vocals, in the Sonrai, Fula, and Tamashek languages, to a musical tapestry of lute, monochord njurkle, calabash, spike fiddles, and a three-voiced choir.” 

a daily tanka — 1 July

yesterday’s 

exercise chalked  

on the pavement

keep going ... nearly done ...

good job ... smiley face

Image: Physical culture class at the Bjelke-Petersen School of Physical Culture, Sam Hood photographer, c. 1934 c/- State Library of NSW on Flickr. A very determined quartet of athletes. Nothing profound this morning.

And for music, here’s Tibetan singer composer Yungchen Lhamo with her new album Awakenings (Youtube). I know I get carried away with these musical offerings but this album is one you really should listen to twice then go out and buy. Wonderful music to write poetry to and proceeds support the charitable foundation One Drop of Kindness – assisting people in Tibet, Nepal and India, in the USA, and in Ireland.

a daily tanka — June 30

round here the parks have

harbour buoys and anchor chains

strewn over the grass 

tho plaques explain

unmoored, our past sails on 

Image: Port Kembla Maritime Park, I’ve been wanting to stop at this little neglected park for ages but it’s trapped between busy roads and across from the busy courthouse.

And for music, here’s Canadian world music ensemble Constantinople with kora maestro Ablaye Cissoko with their album Itinerant Gardens (YouTubers)

found tanka — June 29

as he eats

he eyes 

the world

in his spoon

— how might

it end

for this man

this white carton

this suffering ?

An erasure (with a few liberties) of Jane Kenyon’s poem Man Eating, from Let Evening Come, Selected Poems, Bloodaxe Books, 2005, p. 128. (A marvellous collection from a fine poet gone too soon – if you’ve not read her poem ‘Having it out with melancholy‘ take a moment, it’s right here).

And for music this morning, some Indo-Baroque meets alt-folk minimalism from British string duo Balladeste — a collaboration between violinist Preetha Narayanan and cellist Tara Franks. Here’s their 2021 album Beyond Breath (Youtube).

‘not a tanka’ tanka — June 28

always a fan of

the Brechtian gesture

again I'm pressed

against the wall between us

— seems insurmountable 

Image: from a 2008 performance of Bertolt Brecht‘s play The Caucasian Chalk Circle, c/- Otterbein University Theatre & Dance from USA, CC BY-SA 2.0 , via Wikimedia Commons.

And for music this morning, German composer Max Richter has re-recomposed Vivaldi’s Four Seasons this time using gut strings, period instruments and even vintage synthesisers to create a ‘grittier, more punk rock sound‘ — with Elena Urioste and the Chineke! Orchestra ) (Youtube). You know where to start.

a daily tanka — June 27

at the bird expo
a frenzy of flapping
cash in hand
beautiful plumage this one
hand-reared for wired skies

Image: It was going off at the “Bird Expo” at Berkeley (a suburb of Southern Wollongong) yesterday. Birds, kids, selfies with parrots, the sound of money and stories about seed mix and dried pawpaw tossed everywhere. This young blue and yellow macaw (Ara ararauna) was a long way from home.

And for music this morning, here’s Stockholm, Sweden /Brisbane, Australia country duo Texas Tea with their album Röda Tråden (Youtube) (trs: ‘red threads’ according to goggle)

tanka prose — 23 June

Photographing in Wollongong cemetery looking for worn angels and broken columns, I met a woman who used to be in the ‘industry’ and we start talking. As an ex-funeral director, she pointed to those she’d put in here — one over there, a couple further on. Even family members, a cousin, an uncle. Not her husband tho, he’s buried elsewhere. 

Since he passed, she’d been touring the country with her friend looking at cemeteries. I asked her what she was looking for but all she said was ‘I just like them, they’re peaceful.’ They’ve even visited western australian cemeteries, driving across the nullabor in their white diahatsu with purple wire wheels. 

in the cemetery
some graves ostentatious in black
— lawns and marble squares 
and then the little grass patch
for the stillborn babies 

Originally established on the outskirts, over the last hundred years the city has grown to surround the cemetery. Light industry on one side, new housing and a school on the other. It takes effort to block out the road noise and the clanking of equipment being unloaded.

in the cemetery 
tidied plots with fresh flowers
then Ryan’s pine cross 
10 years and still no headstone
— which will be my grave?

We talk about masonry styles, urns and torches, the broken column of a life cut short. She points to the earliest plots of the cemetery dating back to the 1850s, now an enclave behind the courier depot and the indoor sports centre. Aside from the trees, we’re the only ones breathing in all this crowd. 

in the cemetery
I have no graves to visit
— gave dad’s ashes 
to the ocean off Perth
bloom on dark waves 

Image: Bronte Cemetery, 2016. Today, tanka prose or tanka tale (a bit like a haibun) for you. There’ll be no tanka for the next couple of days as I’m off travelling, so I thought this installment might tide us over.

And for music, something beautiful but appropriate to the theme of this post, American composer Gregory Hutter with Tears (Youtube) from a poem by Walt Whitman. This from a 2019 album of Secular Choral Music (Youtube). You are going to want to listen to this album several times, then go and buy a copy, it’s that good.

a daily tanka — June 22

still so much to do
winter snows, my toes ache
eyes too           I lean back
and it’s you: your perfume
lifts this heavy bloom to gold

Image: For everyone enjoying warm weather, here’s a wonderful photo by Aral Tasher on Unsplash.

I just wasn’t happy with any drafts this morning, so I’ve updated an earlier post and squeezed it through the tanka-matic.

And for music today, here’s the multi-instrumental, multi-lingual, multi-talented Savalises (Jordi, Ferran and Arriana) with Monsterat Figueras and Pedro Estevan with their 2005 album of eclectic Spanish, Catalan & World music, Du Temps & De L’Instant (maybe start with La Salve feat. Arriana.) (Youtube album; La Salve).