flash fiction

HANGING OUT WITH THE TASMAN POETS

It was a symposium, a gathering of mind-mixing poets from home and away

Spanning the Tasman, Kiwi and Aussie

Blending their energies by making presentations

Participating in audience, bonding with words

Effective cross-cultivation of accents and ideas

Four poets sat at the ‘bridge’ table, papers ready

Willing faces beamed back at them

Currents flowed with witticism

Mind sketches of vibrating rhythms

Oh, listen to tall Samoan Princess delivering a saga

Long Pele hair, cascading over ruby lace top

Then picture a vision,

A teller of talking stick, exotically carved by renown artist

Imagine it held proudly in the hand of winsome Poet Laureate Michelle

Opened up a vista of legacy passing over

Shifting human endeavour to another level

Oh, memorize the line of another voice

Who likes to go under the bridge?

And talk of pigs and chicken wire

Aeroplanes soar and roar

Whilst peanut butter is given a triple serve

Rippling lyrics hold the air

Only a silver slice is served

So this is a symposium, what a poetic mix!

Glad to be hanging out with these folk

They add abundance to the cultural fix

Following the thread of a yesterday

Catch the ferry to Cockatoo Island

The sign “Have a Ferry Happy Day”

Welcomed one and all

Follow the slim, silken thread

Seamed together, warm sandstones, marbled in rich ochre

Tunneled into cliff, cut out of an olden day prison

Man’s monumental natural art gallery of shipbuilding past, soaring umber rusted cranes

Huge bolt lathe holders, like Easter Island protectors

Preserved on this island for us to gaze at and enjoy

Wander around, hanging out with the Tasman Poets

Ferry home was named “Friendship”, good call.

VIRGINIA JEAN GOW 13/09/10