The Weeping Camel is on all this week at the Somerville Auditorium, University of Western Australia as part of the Perth International Arts Festival. If you can see it, you won't be disappointed! 

The Weeping Camel

I have just returned from seeing a wonderful movie, The Weeping Camel. I have no idea what its route is after it leaves Perth's International Arts Festival, but if you can, see it. There are preview snippets at (deleted to save the shape of this blog).

This is a quote from their official website:

Springtime in the Gobi Desert, South Mongolia. A family of nomadic shepherds assists the births of their camel herd. One of the camels has an excruciatingly difficult delivery but, with help from the family, out comes a rare white colt. Despite the efforts of the shepherds, the mother rejects the newborn, refusing it her milk and her motherly love. When any hope for the little one seems to have vanished, the nomads send their two young boys on a journey through the desert, to a a backwater town in search of a musician who is their only hope for saving the colt's life.

Cast:
Janchiv Ayurzana, Chimed Ohin, Amgaabazar Gonson, Zeveljamz Nyam

This photo is another one by my son Miles. Its title is Blue Door. I am mesmerised by the colour. (See other photo and item for website4 address for these photos.) 

One of the many photos by Miles Burke at http://www.flickr.com/photos/milesb/ ... It reminds of a woman Australian artist whose name escapes me who used packing cases and other scrap, often with words on it/them, to create such images. Any body know her name? 

My son gets in the picture

My son Miles has exposed himself again at 'the world's biggest photo album' - Flicker. I was knocked out by his lyrical use of colour (often in a hard-edged super realist way as is the want with digital cameras) and his socio-satirical eye. The kid's been out of nappies for some decades now, so I suppose I shouldn't be so surprised - but as a daydreaming parent I often don't know or see the artistic and aesthetic qualities active in my children's lives. I am very proud of these pictures, so I hope you go and have a sticky peek yourself at http://www.flickr.com/photos/milesb/

Grand-daughter Leia at daughter Alice's birthday breakfast :-) at Zamia's Cafe, Kings Park 

A long time back I sent a poem about fallen rose petals and a photo of this bush when it was losing its bloom. Today the roses are back in full bloom again, right outside my door. 

WA vs Victoria, one-day match, 14 January 2005 at the WACA ... 

We made a low score - 204 - but Victoria made heavy weather of it and WA won!  

Snap Blues

Here's what happens when you try to write a snapshot with Robert Johnson playing in the background ... Just glad it wasn't Johnnie Winter :-)


Snap Blues


Skin blotches don't sing the whole song,
skin blotches don't sing the whole song -
don't ask me 'bout nothin', I dunno what's wrong.


Anudder one married, anudder one gone;
Anudder one married, 'nudder one gone.
Mixing with bananas, apples don't last long.


I say, what happens in your head ...
Yes, what happens in your fat head
don't mean what happens in the bed.


Like line breaks, it's flow and strife -
where de line breaks is flow and strife,
just like livin' this contrapuntal life.


They say, you gotta hang on to let go,
you know, you gotta hang on to let go -
If you hang on too long, it's a no-show.



Blind Boy Andrew
(Damn, I broke a string ...)

Hallway

then I lay in the hallway
writing my homework or reading a book
I lay where they
had to walk over me or around me
I lay in the middle of the world
a sponge on the reef of Family

now I am moving everyday
a million miles an hour
I am jumping over
me lieing down in the hallway
I am spinning between
the river and the sea

who are you? runs in my head
like a little koan
impossible to ever answer
as I spin more Self
about me lieing down
who who who who who

there's not a snapshot that's true
i'm out of the picture
and in the spin of
my cacoon life
catch me if you can ...
i am i i am i i am i

Triggs Island Cafe & Restaurant. One decaf and one English Breakfast tea, thank you ... 

Triggs Island today (8/1/05) 

Two yellow hibiscus for you ... 

for the New Year

haiku

dove footprints on
lawn’s yellow topdressing
green shoots showing through

Guest - Jill Jones on the Tsunami disaster

I am shocked into silence by the tsunami disaster which has taken so many lives, and wrecked so many others. I've tried to write about it but nothing of any value has come together. Jill Jones, Australian poet and friend who lives in Sydney, posted this compilation poem to a list we are both on. With her permission, I post it here. It is very powerful. (Jill has also posted it to her blog which is called Ruby Street and is on my blogroll.)

*

Water has taken away my family. - Mother, what's happened? I saw you
yesterday and now you're here. You're not dead, you've gone to another
village. Please come back. - We hope the funds allocated for the
people won't be lost to corruption. - It came just like a river.
People were running here and there. They couldn't decide where to go.
- My son is crying for his mother. I think this is her. I recognise
her hand, but I'm not sure. - There just aren't enough body bags.

We thought it was the end of the world. … The water was as high as a
coconut palm. … It was all over in 25 minutes. That's all. How can that
be ... such devastation. - Children in emergency wards were killed.
Soldier patients suffering from malaria helped to evacuate other
patients. - I need baby food as well ... no aid has come to us yet.
- No contact makes us fearful. We're trying to send helicopters there.
- Where is the military? They're just taking care of their families.
There is no war in Aceh now, why don't they help pick up the bodies in
the street?

This was the only thing we could do. It was a desperate solution. The
bodies were rotting. We gave them a decent burial. - Police told us
to come and have a look at this collection of ID cards. - We met in
university. Is this the fate that we hoped for? My darling, you were
the only hope for me.

Dead: they are dead, my cousins, their children, many of my husband's
family. There are too many funerals, he has to stay to help them. -
She went under a car, it just went over the top of her. I just got
picked up and chucked against a wall. I was a lucky one: we cheated
death. - Then all of a sudden we saw what looked like a wave surge
into the garden ... at one point I had to scramble up bamboo trees to
avoid the rising water.

I hope and pray that we can at least find their bodies so that we can
see them one last time and give them a decent burial. - Information
reaching here suggests facilities at Kalpakkam nuclear station may have
been affected by the tidal waves. - We don't have confirmed data … -
The TV, everything gone. - I've got calls from people down south who
need clothes to bury their dead. They have none.

- Wednesday 29 December 2004


Those quoted, in order:
- Anbalakhan, who lost her husband, son and two daughters in the
wrecked village of Karambambari, Tamil Nadu
- a woman at a grave site, Tamil Nadu
- Indonesian House Speaker, Agung Laksono
- Rajith Ekanayake, a security guard at the P&J City shopping centre,
Galle
- Bejkhajorn Saithong, searching for his wife on Khao Lak beach
- Lieutenant-Colonel Budi Santoso, Banda Aceh

- Sofyan Halim, Banda Aceh
- Citra Nurhayat, a nurse in a Banda Aceh hospital
- Nurhayati, who has only had bananas to feed her 3-month-old baby
since Sunday, Banda Aceh
- Djoko Sumaryono, Indonesian government official, says of Simeulue
- Indra Utama, community leader in Banda Aceh

- Venerable Baddegama Samitha, a Buddhist monk and former
parliamentarian, at funeral of Queen of the Sea train wreck victims
near Galle
- Premasiri Jayasinghe, Colombo
- a young man at the site of the Queen of the Sea train wreck near Galle

- Mrs Seeli Packianathan, returning from Sri Lanka, at Sydney Airport
- Les Boardman, returning from Phuket, at Sydney Airport
- Joyce Evans, of Melbourne, in Sri Lanka

- Kolanda Velu, from Cuddalore, Tamil Nadu
- spokesman, Indian Prime Minister's office
- Indonesian Vice-President Yusuf Kalla, in Medan city
- Roshan Perera, at the Catholic church in Mattakkuliya, Colombo
- Kusum Athukorala, local aid worker, Mattakkuliya, Colombo

_______________________________________________________
Jill Jones

THYLAZINE #10/04 ISSN-1444-1594
Australian Arts and Literature on Landscape and Animals
Cover: Earth, Wind & Water by Kerry Reed-Gilbert, 2001.
 

More poems to see at Thylazine!

One of my best Christmas presents was the news that some of my poems are posted at Thylazine, the online magazine edited by Coral Hull ... Go to
http://www.thylazine.org/
http://www.thylazine.org/thyla10/thyla10k.html
http://www.thylazine.org/thyla10/ab.html

Hope you go and check out my poems, and all the mag. It's always a far reaching and spirited read.

A home among the gums ... 

Each morning I walk two dogs on the Toodyay golf course as I housesit until Xmas.