Featured Poet: Leanne Hanson

I am honored to present Leanne Hanson, of Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, as our next featured poet. The first time I read one of Leanne's poems on our former poetry site, I recognized her as a brilliant wordsmith, a fine creative wit, and a wonderful poet. I could imagine her as my friend. My first instincts were right, and confirmed on all accounts. Since that day her inspiring incisive commentaries, insights, creativity, and jovial and loyal friendship have become treasures to me and to many who have come to know her as a fellow poet and friend. Distance has been no obstacle, we have come to know one another as if we lived next door. Here are a few gems from Leanne that you would not want to be without! We follow them by an unusual tribute...

The Getting of Wisdom
by Leanne Hanson

Doggerel, Dogma, the Dagda and Dan
All sat around by the burning trash can,
Warming their topics and firing their wits,
Talking of taming the wild hypocrites.

Doggerel in his nonsensical way
Spoke of confusion and shadings of grey;
Dogma spun grey into stark white and black,
Stated his case and then showed them his back.

Dagda the wise spoke of salmon and stars --
Doggerel asked him to hum a few bars,
This was a most unfamiliar tune;
"Faith!" uttered Dogma, "You'll bring us to rune."

Stout Irish Dan, with a Guinness or three,
Called for his comrades to live and let be;
"'Tis too feckin' cold to expect me to think,"
Said Dan, "screw the lot an' I'll drown in me dhrink."

Doggerel, Dogma, the Dagda and Dan
All knew the best for the future of man;
As the stars wheeled, these exponents of right
All bedded down in the park for the night.

copyright, 2006 by Leanne Hanson


Seeds
by Leanne Hanson

Persimmon
Has no reason or rhyme
Well, not at this time
It's just a word
I wanted to use
I've no excuse
What's real has blurred
The word has slurred
To pershmn

Persimmon, puce and poppycock
Sit like shags on a wobbly rock
Each with a pudding in a cotton sock
And a key to the bishop's car

Make sense of this
You worthless piece
Of over-opiated verse
I know the rules
I have the tools
You have your alligator purse
And rhyming dick
Shunary, sick
Ophantic to the dead
And rotting gods
Of odds and sods
Where none have trod
For fear of losing
Half an empty head

You wander through
And wonder who
Gave me the right
To write of right
And rhyme with right
Not twice, but thrice
Then not at all

I have a few
New words for you
Anachronistic
Quite simplistic
Trivial and slightly cystic
Such a sad and sorry state
When torrents of both love and hate
Are trickled into metaphors

Much used by Shakespeare and the Doors
Who burned and raged in equal parts
Though Shakespeare smoked a little less
And had less fun - but I digress

Light up
Lighten up
Sip your sins
From Satan's cup
Seven sins are counted
Seven horses mounted
Minus the three
That wait near the tree
Of knowledge forgotten
The tree that is laden
With persimmon

copyright 2006, by Leanne Hanson


Portrait of Oxygen
by Leanne Hanson

You are the sonnet
I would have written
if I could whisper my need into
five
heart
beats
of
rhyme

You are the ballad
I sing to the plaintive yearnings
of strings drawn tight with desire
tempered with fire and fused
into euphonic dreams

You are the shining pigment
that spreads its elegant
sfumato renderings
across my poor canvas
and teases me
with impressionist love

But were I unlettered
voiceless
and blind
you would still be
every breath I drew

copyright 2006, by Leanne Hanson

Uluru(Rictameter)
by Leanne Hanson

Rainbow
Serpent sleeping,
Dreams the land in golden
Hues, bleeding in fires of scarlet.
Sacred rock, your people call you brother,
Whose ancient heart will slumber on
Into the gentle dawn
Of another
Rainbow

copright 2006, by Leanne Hanson



Pop Pets

I tried to teach my dog the guitar
And send him to work as a film star
But he got drunk at the local bar
And sings duet with a chihuahua

I thought my cat might like the trombone
A brass pussy would be fun to own
But the cat (who weighed about six stone)
Had a heart attack, so I'm alone

My pets are fickle, won't make me rich
And I've learned to scratch my own damn itch
I'd sing myself, but I've got no pitch
It's much easier to whinge and bitch

copyright 2006, by Leanne Hanson

**********On Leanne Hanson by Kath and "Augustus"***********

An Ode to Lament the Invocation Of
by Kath Wilson and Augustus Bailey

Like a rudderless ship
we drift upon oceans chaotic and formless;
like an ant with no queen
for which to present its sacred crumb; like a mixed Aboriginal child
taken from its ancestral lands and thrust into the midst of white oppressors...

we are abandoned...

--ab

abandoned without rhyme or reason,
without feet or form,
we who have lost count
and are without refrain,
lost to our own vilanelless ways,
sestinaed on the shores with our trioletlesness.
oh where is the honeyed voice,
sarcasmost,
that keeps us afloat
in the muddied waters
of formeless oblivion?

-kw

Oblivion! Oh woe!
Oh woe is me!
Land of cutthroats and thieves
those downunders.
They promise wonders.
Clean cuts
to reveal the facets of gems concealed. But instead,
they steal away in marsupial pouches
to the low, morbid rumblings of a didgeridoo
and alone we are left to wander.

What walk-about is this, I say?

As if you could ever convince a Koala
to quit its daily fair
in exchange for porridge.

--ab


Live on! Oh joy!
Oh joy is us!
Wand of flutter tongues,
waves from downunder.
Displayed with wonder.
Fine facets of gems revealed to lure us.

Leaps from the marsupial pouch:
her voice
to sing sweet nothings to her gathered flock
above the low, morbid rumblings
of didgeridoos.
Hark, her voice,
her wonderous musings upon our plight
(though unsympathetic)
still we say

oh hear, oh welcome,
oh walk-about amongst us!

We who are intent on koala studies,
imitating their sleeping, mating ways
we have quit our rampant business
and heaved our porridge to the dust...
see here our proud procrastination,
our long naps...
welcome, yet "tread softly
for you tread on our dreams".

--kw

So glad that you're outback,
what a great barrier relief,
to Foster our forms
and give them crocodile teeth.
But, Mate, should you take off
again like that Kangaroo Jack
by crikey, we'll just make fun
till you bloody well decide to come back.


--ab


What ho-- have we this bit of fun,
while on hiatus thus she goes,
and sees our fun as blooms the rose
and we are tipping on our toes.
So fun again-- and this until
full throated (yelling) yet she will
observe our fun and go away
oh (please) come back some other day.

--kw

09/11/2006
copyright 2006 by Kath Wilson and Augustus Bailey