Portrait of Blood - background to the poem and link

Click on "Portrait of blood" (in purple) in the last sentence of this post to hear and see me reading "Portrait of blood" from my poetry collection, "Beneath Our Armour".
The poem is personal in that I was born premature with a hole in the heart and have undergone heart surgery twice, once at the age of six and once at the age of thirty-seven. Consequently, I've seen my own blood in tubes and syringes in doctor's surgeries and hospitals throughout my life.

The poem is universal in that we are all mortal/finite, all have red blood coursing through us no matter what colour our skin.
We are all vulnerable to bullies, conflict, known and new diseases, the fickleness of biology and luck.
"Portrait of blood" is the last poem in my poetry collection, "Beneath Our Armour", because I always like to have a philosophical poem ending a book and a poetry reading.

I prefer

For Wislawa Szymborska

I prefer
chess to boxing,
solitude to gossiping,
the graves of the elderly to those of the young.

I prefer
the bullied to the bullying,
wands to truncheons,
reason to patriotism.

I prefer
strolling to fleeing,
buoyancy to gravity,
misplacing my glasses to misplacing my trust.

I prefer
self-improvement to nostalgia,
galaxies to ruts.

I prefer
the seeker to the know-it-all,
luck to luxuries,
the blushing to the poker-faced.

I prefer
winters that are external,
interruptions to loneliness,
when life
increases in value.

from "Days That We Couldn't Rehearse" (Hale & Iremonger)

Eulogy at sea

Earlier this year, Melbourne organization Lines To Time (www.linestotime.org), affiliated with Melbourne University, invited poets and musicians to compose a poem or song to present at funeral ceremonies for the poor or unknown deceased.
I volunteered. Thus on Tuesday 19 April 2011, I presented the following poem, "Eulogy at sea" as the ashes of ten poor or unknown deceased were cast from the deck of a donated sailing ship into Port Philip Bay.

When a tree

is felled,

there’s one tree less

for shelter, shade and birdsong.

Now that you’re dead

there’s a space

which I cannot fill

with who you were,

because not one of us

can be fully known.

You were born,

you were alive—

let us not forget

our sometimes amazement

at living—

to have lain in summer grass,

alone

or with another,

looking up at the night sky,

trying to understand

galaxy after galaxy,

where each star will die.

Your body,

rendered into ashes,

can be held

in one cupped hand.

Marvel at this too

as the wind and sea

take you

away from

our mortal reach.

Choose your moment

Before you lecture a thirsty person,

give them water.

To progress

Chip away

at a wall

until it becomes

a stepping stone.

The weather inside

Sometimes your thinking can make you cry,

sometimes your crying can make you think.

The next time you've got writer's block

Go back to your childhood and adolescence,

whether meadow or minefield.

Consider

the distance you’ve come,

what you’ve discarded or continue to carry

and why.

Take a running scrawl at

what’s in the room

or cornered in your heart.

Be alert to the world. Note

the veins of a leaf, the bank teller’s fingernails,

what the people seated at the next café table

are saying to each other.

Remember that you’ve got a vocabulary.

So have dictionaries, billboards, headlines and traffic policemen.

Words are everywhere.

Let a few wander onto a black page.

See whether they react to each other.

If not audition some more.

Words are building blocks

which can be toppled, rearranged, reassembled.

Throw some over your shoulder,

see how they land.

Return to the circus arena

of being playful and precise,

balancing words on the tip of your nose

as you jump through flaming hoops

in rehearsal

for opening night in a new town,

far from where you’ve written before.

The word "if" is a seesaw waiting for you to approach it

(for Marty Grothe)

If pigs could fly

there’d be

less bacon.

If you were a bully at school,

don’t be one now.

If you keep having flings,

one day you’ll be flung.

If you’re digging your own grave,

consider what you’re using

as the shovel.

If God exists

we must appal him sometimes.

If time is money

some of us

will end up short-changed.

If you think you know everything,

try writing poems.