Armageddon Skies (26/12/2001)

Poetry, , ,

The 2001 Boxing Day fires in Sydney were truly frightening, and I din’t think I have ever seen fires get so close to the city. I was at my Mother-In-law’s home in Chester Hill when the burning leaf that inspired this landed in the yard. The skies were a red colour in daylight the likes of which I had never seen before. It was, indeed, like Armageddon come!.

Black leaf floats free
Through Armageddon sky,
Grey, cast in shadow, forlorn,
Then gently down, down,
It rests on ground
Far from its home.
Life cast out in fire, smoke,
Flame of destruction.
Now sitting, judged in time.
Is it still living, now dead?
Is it now dead, still living?

Fire tongues shoot high

To Armageddon sky,
Destroying all in its path.
No animal safe here,
No plant untouched,
No house left standing,
All life cut off,
All memories gone.
Black ash against grey haze,
Green brush against black ground,
Orange sun in misty air,
Red moon in daylight sky.

Surreal light in Armageddon sky,
Day becomes night, all life gone.
A frantic scurry, frightened haste,
Small shape in fiery rush,
Safe at last – screech of tires.

Everything left to time
Only sorrow lives here now
While overhead floats a lackened leaf

Into an Armageddon sky

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Yellow Waters – Kakadu (part 18 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , ,

The Yellow Waters tour of the flood plains of Kakadu National Park is essential for any top end visitors.

Wetland, flood plain,
Waters as old as the dessert that surrounds.
Flood lines in trees, natures litter
Far above our heads.
Floating eye of crocodile drifts quietly by
As birds, unafraid of their awaiting fate
Call to one another, and fly about us.
Giant water lilies crawl along the shores
Flowering in unexpected colour
In the humid air.
We float gently along, low tide of seasons
Keeping us to our path.
Along a gentle flowing billabong
Caused only by the absence of rain
Takes us to places bountiful still,
Feeding generations of natives
Who ventured here to fill
Food baskets, empty stomachs.
We leave a watery horizen behind.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Daily (Or When The Mood Takes Me) Gripe: Breaking the Internet

Article, General Interest, , ,

WTF with Kim Kardashion reportedly “breaking the internet” by showing her bum! My worked fine through the whole episode…and no, I haven’t seen it. Will google it now, and get back to you….*leaves WordPress and googles Kim Kardashion’s fat arse*

Well, wasn’t that interesting! Firstly a photo of her in a thong *shudders* with an inflatable bum..no bull. It’s very. ….fat.. Then a news item on a furore over a Facebook ban…who cares, Facebook, you are run by a pack off pricks anyway…of a photo of a birthing mothers bum (why you would even think of posting this is beyond me! Seriously!) yet allowed the photograph of Kimmy’s fat, photoshopped, oiled derrière! If it was really that size, problems everywhere from buying clothes to booking plane seats! As a gay man, I have one word for it…HIDEOUS!

If it was Hugh Jackman’s, or Ryan Gosling’s…Bradley Cooper’s…Brad Pitt’s…Matthew MacConahey’s, Zac Efron’s…Daniel Craig’s…then I’d say break the internet, as gay men worldwide race to download it

But let’s get to the crux of this “breaking the internet” bullshit…the Cult of the Kardashion’s itself! The hole in the ozone layer above their homes must be huge! If ever a family could lay claim to starting carbon pricing…this is the one! The phrase most associated with them is “a waste of oxygen”.

Now, one could say this sounds like sour grapes – and in a way it is, as I can’t stand any of them – but really, this plague on humanity started in 2007, when a nobody family doing nothing became an E! hit. Obviously a lot of people with the attention span of a gnat or with no taste in entertainment created this moldy snowball! Let’s face it, anyone who names all their daughters with “K” names (Kim, Khloe, Kourtney, Kendall & Kylie) leaves a lot to be desired in the originality sweepstakes! Not to forget the “momsger” Kris, famous only for marrying Bruce Jenner…an athlete and now motivational speaker and television personality, and whose looks deteriorated rather quickly.

But back to the arse – which belongs to the greatest waste of air – Kim. Doing nothing more than cashing in on being the biggest airhead in the series, her mother has now ensured that she has become the families “spokeswoman” and media mouthpiece! Along with her marriage to Kayne West, her shoes, clothing, perfume lines are all she has, and there are plenty around who do it better than her. She is nothing less than an example of how selling yourself on social media, and having the E! publicity machine behind you can make you mire famous than you deserve to be.

No Kim, your arse did not break the internet, however, it dud gain you more publicity. It would seem that being a media whore is something you are very good at,

Tim Alderman
(C) 2014

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Curtin Springs (part 7 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , ,

As time locked as the ancient land
This 60’s outpost confronts our senses.
Iron spears of gate supports, steel boomerang
Announces to all this place.
White painted tires hold rugged desert plants.
Hands held to mouths cover snickers and smiles.
The old building of stone and brick
People within hidden in the old times.
We read the papers on the walls
And wonder how, in a century new begun
Such unpoetic humour can tickle us still
Its brazen bad taste a shock for the new.
A place not of this land
And yet part of a time now gone.
We drive away
And wonder will it last
Or sink into the sands
And become part of another time.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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Sunset #2 (part 20 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , , ,

Rock in ancient sacred land
Ubirr by name
Lost in endless time.
One side, seasonal floodplain
Other grasslands green.
A golden disc sinks slowly
Toward the distant horizon line
Reflected by water
Coloured by clouds
That float like distant shores.
We sink down on knees
Adoration of natures might
Quiet surrounds us as we watch
The sunset become the dark
The dark that is night.
The stars appear from the disappearing rays
We turn quietly for home
A silence most profound
The sun is gone

Tim Alderman
(C)2001

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Trephina Gorge (part 3 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Trephina Gorge is just outside Alice Springs, and is part of the MacDonnell Ranges. Most famous feature is Corroboree Rock

 

Contrasts of startling, vivid colour
Pure white sand of dry river bed
Awaiting the annual rains,
Ochre red of mountain ranges,
Forced up long centuries past.
Bluest of blue sky
Sets a background of breathtaking beauty,
And starkly outlined against all the colours,
A lonely ghost gum sheds its meagre shade, Leafless now
As it fights the unremitting heat.
Footprints in the dry sand bed
Tell of wanderers of times new.
The red dust holds tight the secrets
Of time long ago
Of a people who held
This sacred land to their breast
And gleaned from it
A spirituality of Dreamtime wonder and legend
That we will never touch.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2002

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Ochre Mound (part 4 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , , ,

Uluru is the most overwhelming and the most spiritual place I have ever visited. To climb it was not only a great privilege, but a spiritual journey of humbling proportions.

In the morning light I see it rise
High above the desert in its red glory.
Smooth as glass, glazed like finest pottery
It speaks of eons past, of other wars and rituals
Of times long ago, now quickly gone.
Its base of sacred places where none but the initiated may go
Of waved rocks and spirit art telling tales of rich domains
Of animals, plants and water to feed the many tribes
Who worship here still in the silence, and long ago dreaming.
Heat shimmer in the sun, blackened stains from waterfalls
That form during the rains.
We stand, waiting as if for a sign to climb this holy place
A chain our guide, a line at our feet.
We hesitate, fear can be our greatest guide
To claim only in our memories a vision of this holiness,
We bend and touch with our hands.
A great spiritual journey is about to begin.
We climb.

Tim Alderman
(C( 2001

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The Ghan (part 1 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , , ,

When I travelled on The Ghan, it went from Sydney, then to Adelaide, then on to Alice Springs. Now it goes from Adelaide to Darwin. To travel First Class on The Ghan is to be treated like royalty.

Dreamtime painted ribbon of steel
Flashing through the cold desert night.
Silver rails to destinations known, yet unknown
It snakes its way ever forward.
Past fields of golden Canola flower,
Purple ‘curse’ borders the ribbons of steel.
Night falls as sunset orb sinks low over blue bays
Spreading orange rays to meet the desert red.
We lie to sleep, yet peek through speeding landscapes
Ghostly outlines of trees and abodes,
Speeding us ever onward to sacred places, sacred times.
Our journey nears its end,
The heart of this great land awaits
To overawe us with its wonders.

Tim Alderman
Copyright ©2001

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Kata Tjuta (part 5 of ‘The Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , ,

Often inappropriately called The Olga’s, this natural formation is the ONLY break in the flat landscape from the top of Uluru.

Older than time
These rounded mounds
Virgin breasts thrust forth from the Earth.
Scattered red rubble lines the canyon floor
Huge boulders of Red and white conglomerate
Like leftovers
From some Alien war.
A trampled path of recent times
Through a small belt of green
To a small, warm water pool
Left after the rains
We turn
And through the horseshoe shape
Of the entrance to this sacred place
We glimpse forever beyond
A vast desert landscape
That goes on
And on and on.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2002

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Karlwekarlwe/Karlu Karlu (part 12 of the ‘Northern Territory Suite’)

Poetry, , , , , ,

*Also known as the Devil’s Marbles

Dreamtime landscape
Ancient red marbles.
A game that giants played
Or a joke by the devil himself
According to modern name.
Piled atop one another
Or scattered in the surrounding desert sands
They stand
A testament to natures great work
Three times my height they tower
Glazed like ochre mound
Cleft in two some sit
Sliced by a giants knife
Or a bolt of lightening from the
Time worn skies above
We gasp, are awed
That nature in all its brutality
Can cause beauty to be wrought.

Tim Alderman
(C) 2001

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