Grief – say no to clowns

No One is Around, pt 1 of 2

(Revisited with audio of my reading)

"Can we just lie here for a moment? She knows what 
to do and it's so much easier to make out the words 
if you press your ear against the stone." 

He hated this place. But she promised it would 
be the last time. And it had started to snow. 
It would hopefully slow the others down. 

They needed to leave. He was too scared to look 
at his watch and now he was struck by how beautiful 
she looked in this light. That pink light, reflecting 
from the tears frozen on her face. 

He pulled her gently up from her mother's grave.

Lyrics:
 mother they are coming again
 they come to shoot what we already lost
 mother they are coming again
 our silver covered by their rust

father they are coming again
 they come to jail the things that i have seen
 father they are coming again
 burning minds to keep the ruin clean

no one is around

„little girl there’s safer ground
 follow the sea and you will find that place
 little girl there’s safer ground
 come take your years and put them in their hands“

Safer Ground, part two

April 19, 2018May 19, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: Fiction, proseTags: Fiction, fugitives, Grief, love, Music, surreal 60 Comments

Safer Ground, pt 2

(Revisited with audio of my reading)

no one is around (part one)

She didn't say anything. Why wasn't she saying anything?

But she had. She just couldn't hear her. She had always 
heard her through her heart, and now it was frozen 
to her cheeks.
He lifted her up as her chest was caving in. He sang 
instead. The words she had taught him when they met, 
years before.
The ones she had heard from her mother's friend. Before 
they never saw him again.
 "Little girl, there's safer ground..." 

That ground. Rising up out of the sea of him.

Lyrics:

Continue reading →

April 17, 2018May 19, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: Fiction, proseTags: Fiction, fugitives, Grief, love, Music, surreal 41 Comments

Center of Night

💔

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I remember everything, a curse in

center of night,

when cat stares through me, and

clock tick-tocks

witching hour is nigh

I wait cos I remember every scene

unseen with eyes mine, a curse in

center of night

I miss you most

(image: Pinterest)

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December 3, 2017December 27, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: reblogTags: death, Grief, mourning, reblog 16 Comments

For Dear Gina/Singledust

I wanted to take some time to honour Gina’s grief, in the loss of her son.

2017 has been a hard year, for a lot of people…a year of loss and endings and grief, and I marvel at the beautiful words Gina has written, I needed them too. Thank you, kind friend. You are a talented, and lovely, shining presence in the WordPress world. So many hearts are with you! I hope you do find some comfort in the ones sitting with you, when our words can never be enough.

If you have a moment, her moving tribute: come sit with me

December 2, 2017December 13, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: personalTags: death, Grief, mourning 1 Comment

with…

outstretched heart

I catch the evening as it floats in,

on peppered bird song

and the undulating breeze, salted-

these tiny sepulchres

vibrating with lament,

precious, sacrosanct lyrics of being

funeralled forever

in creation’s sighs

October 4, 2017December 13, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: General bewilderment, PoetryTags: empathy, Grief, humans, world events 33 Comments

Sept 2006 053

she nourished that patch

with those flammable tears,

from jagged tears

and all that bares,

streaming arrears

the chanting of years’

mourning.

She returned in the blink of a decade,

no warning,

taken aback

by perpetual dawning

of the quiet hymn

of the rose.

(A lovely musical interlude by a lovely man).

August 24, 2017April 20, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: Fiction, Poetry, UncategorizableTags: creative writing, Grief, healing, heath cullen 19 Comments

My heart is heavy.

I heard tonight from a good friend that one of their other friends (who I haven’t met) took their own life.

I tried to write something for anyone in that heart wrenching situation of debilitating loneliness, but the words didn’t come. Then I remembered this lovely piece of music by Enya’s sister from years ago. It holds no religious significance to me, I just love the beauty of it.

RIP.

August 16, 2017January 1, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: personal, UncategorizableTags: Grief, suicide 16 Comments

when there just aren’t words…

I had lunch recently at the Organic Cafe in Stirling with my dear friend Melissa, for my birthday.

One of the women in critical condition from the London terrorist attack works in this cafe, I found out today (I don’t know her personally). I have been going there for years. It’s an institution now in the Adelaide hills.

Of course, there’s so much we could all say, and debate and whatever. But I just wanted to listen to this. So I thought I would share it.

I love this piece of music. I bought it on cassette years ago, it moved my young heart so deeply. The cries from an anguished heart, that is something we can all relate to.

(I am not Catholic, but if you are interested, here is the context, and these are the words, in Polish of course:

“Movement 2 – Lento e largo – tranquillissimo
The second movement is based on a message found scrawled on a Gestapo prison cell wall in 1944 by an 18 year old girl Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna:
No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Help me always.
Hail Mary.
It is heralded by a radiant set of chords that has made the whole work famous, but then quickly darkens. Again, the theme is motherhood, but this time, the child calls out to the mother, both actual and spiritual.”

And if you would like even more context: Symphony of Sorrowful Songs)

March 23, 2017December 17, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: personal, prose, UncategorizableTags: Grief, Henryk Gorecki, Synphony of Sad Songs, terrorism 8 Comments

“choirs of stars appearing…”

The gifts you leave behind

there are no words for,

this bouquet of memories

leaves a scent of a doorway

to concertina-d time,

where I’d wake in the night

so gently enveloped

by the musical dreams

of a fellow insomniac,

composing your art on piano,

transposing your sight onto canvas,

our hearts

pressed up against the glass in wonder

at our endless sight.

But the only glass that reveals now

is filling

with the ends of sand.

February 21, 2017December 17, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: personal, PoetryTags: dying, friendship, gratefulness, Grief 7 Comments

don’t touch me

This wonderful poem

In Amber – Howl Davies

reminded me of this wonderful song, by one of the most remarkable poets, imho.

Nick Cave lost one of his teenage sons over a year ago. It was tragic, he fell from a cliff. I wondered at the time if something as catastrophically devastating as that would paralyse his art creating. But of course, I was wrong. We are talking about Nick Cave, after all…

IMG_20170628_172616 — *I have been fortunate to have seen Nick Cave a couple of times in concert. This rather blurry photo is of a concert photo given to me by my photographer friend, Ken Binns.*

February 4, 2017December 17, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: personal, prose, UncategorizableTags: Amber, Grief, Music, Nick Cave, Poetry 6 Comments

prayer

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My soul in sympathy

to those expressing grief –

I marvel at the articulation

of WordPress poets

who graciously lavish beauty

beyond horizons.

But all I can do

is exhale

the outline of a sigh,

knowing they will fill it

with words lit by transcendence

and an ancient promise,

because my own soul is heavy,

and this snow falls in

like the sighing watch of the night…

Romans 8:26

photo: Chase Miller

January 26, 2017March 14, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: Christian, personal, PoetryTags: Grief, love, Meditation, Prayer, spirituality, sympathy 11 Comments

2.

so who turned it over

this un snow globe of ours?

is this up?

under the boat

i ponder when the air will run out

i ponder where the air actually is

this friend/foe shield of my likely imagining

protecting me from what?

the water around us

no conductor.

you knew.

you replaced it long ago.

(part one)

December 11, 2016March 14, 2018 by saynotoclowns Categories: PoetryTags: connection, dysfunction, Grief, i have no idea really, noone's to blame everyone's to blame, Relationships 11 Comments

What does this c(h)ord do?

I didn’t even realise until my grandfather’s funeral. The first funeral of someone close to me. That so much of the time we just aren’t paying attention.

So we watched him being lowered into the ground.
It’s overwhelming isn’t it? That kind of grief.
And now you are hearing and seeing things you never heard before.
Right when you think the world should stop.

Now thanks to this artist I love, releasing this album at this time because of the loss of his child, I time travelled right back to that graveside. And all the other gravesides.

I have been to many funerals. My husband is a pastor. I have had the indescribable privilege of being at a few death beds. There is so much that I could write about. But there are already many words. And this trailer expresses some of it just perfectly.

September 10, 2016December 17, 2017 by saynotoclowns Categories: personal, proseTags: Authenticity, Grief, Loss, Music 11 Comments